News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • Shows your party is losing in Uttarakhand: Sibal slams Dhami over Uniform Civil Code promise

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Saturday attacked Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami over his remarks that the BJP will constitute a committee to prepare a draft Uniform Civil Code if re-elected, saying this shows the BJP is losing the polls in the hill state and he needs some legal advice.

    Sibal asked Dhami not to “embarrass” his party and himself by making such announcements.

    In a video statement, Dhami said the BJP, if re-elected to power in Uttarakhand, will constitute a committee to prepare a draft Uniform Civil Code soon after its new government is sworn in.

    The panel will comprise legal experts, retired people, intellectuals and other stakeholders, the chief minister announced on the last day of campaigning for the 70 assembly seats in the state going to polls on February 14.

    Reacting to the remarks, Sibal tweeted, “Pushkar S Dhami, Please don’t embarrass your party and yourself when you make announcements about implementing the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand if BJP comes to power.”

    “This shows your party is losing in Uttarakhand and that You need some legal advice,” the former Union minister said.

  • BJP MP Sanghmitra Maurya seeks action against BHU professor who taught students how to make cow dung cakes

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: A BJP MP on Friday demanded in Lok Sabha that strict action be taken against a political science professor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for teaching students the technique of making cow dung cakes on the campus.

    Raising the issue during Zero Hour, BJP MP Sanghmitra Maurya said these types of activities by a professor of a prestigious institute is regrettable and needs to be condemned.

    She demanded strict action against the professor for promoting “such activities in the temples of learning”.

    Speaking in Lok Sabha, Rahul Kaswan of the BJP said the government and the Reserve Bank should take strict action against app-based loan providers which are exploiting customers by charging exorbitant rates of interest and penalty.

    He said that there are about 1,100 such companies operating in India and many of them are acting like “digital mafia” and blackmailing customers to recover loans.

    The app-based companies which are operating illegally in the country should be banned by the Reserve Bank, he said.

    Syed Imtiaz Jaleel of the AIMIM demanded that District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committees (DISHAs) meet regularly.

    DISHAs were set by the government to ensure better coordination among all the elected representatives in Parliament, State Legislatures and Local Governments (Panchayati Raj Institutions/Municipal Bodies) for development activities.

    Taking note of Jaleel’s concern, Speaker Om Birla asked Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh to issue appropriate directions for holding regular meetings of DISHAs.

    Singh said the issue has been raised by several members and it is regrettable that DISHA meetings were not being held regularly.

    “We will try to find out a way to ensure that DISHA meetings are held regularly,” the Minister assured the House.

  • EC warns Uttarakhand BJP to be more careful over morphed photo of Congress leader Harish Rawat

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) has warned the Uttarakhand BJP to be more careful in the future and advised it to follow all provisions of the poll code, days after it tweeted a morphed picture of Congress leader Harish Rawat.

    Last week, the poll panel had issued a notice to the Uttarakhand unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for tweeting a morphed image of former chief minister Rawat, in which he was shown as a Muslim cleric.

    An EC order issued on Wednesday said the Uttarakhand BJP has submitted that the purpose of the tweet was neither to violate any provisions of the Model Code of Conduct nor to create any differences between groups on the basis of religion, race, caste and language.

    CLICK HERE FOR COVERAGE ON UTTARAKHAND ELECTIONS

    It has also told the poll panel that the tweet has since been deleted from its official Twitter handle. The EC said it has not found the reply of the Uttarakhand BJP satisfactory.

    The order noted that an FIR has been lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Representation of the People Act in connection with a Facebook post, which “will follow its logical conclusion”.

    “Now, therefore, the Commission warns the Bharatiya Janata Party, Uttarakhand to be more careful in future and advises to follow all the provisions of Model Code of Conduct and other guidelines of the Commission in letter and spirit,” the order read.

    The 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly is scheduled to go to polls on February 14 and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.

  • BJP demands countermanding of polls in 3 Bengal civic bodies which TMC won sans contest

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: The BJP on Thursday urged the State Election Commission to countermand elections to three municipalities in West Bengal which the ruling Trinamool Congress won without any contest.

    The TMC was declared winner in Sainthia and Budge Budge municipalities on Wednesday, and in Dinhata on Thursday.

    Elections to 108 municipalities in the state are scheduled to be held on February 27.

    Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari told reporters after meeting senior SEC officials that the BJP wants the polls to the three civic bodies be countermanded due to “intimidation and threat to BJP candidates, and acts of physically preventing them from filing nomination papers”.

    “We have told SEC Sourav Das and commission secretary N Shandilya that what happened in the three civic bodies was nothing short of mockery of democracy. If the ruling party can hold up the municipal elections for about two years, why can’t elections be deferred in these three civic bodies by another six months?” he said.

    Adhikari said the BJP will launch an agitation if the demand was not met.

    The BJP leader also demanded the deployment of central armed paramilitary forces in elections to four municipal corporations of Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Chandernagore and Asansol on February 12.

    “The MHA will despatch consignments of central forces in a 24-hour notice. Let the SEC being an autonomous body take a decision to ensure free and fair polls. Let the central forces be also deployed in the February 27 polls in 108 municipalities,” he said.

    The TMC won 13 of the 16 wards of Sainthia municipality, 12 of the 20 wards in Budge Budge, and 13 of the 16 wards in Sainthia uncontested.

    Reacting to Adhikari’s demand, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, “Who is Suvendu Adhikari to ask for countermanding the municipal polls? Does he expect the SEC to dance to his tunes?” Dinhata’s TMC MLA Udayan Guha denied the BJP allegations.

    “It is the BJP which had unleashed a reign of terror in Coochbehar during the last assembly and Lok Sabha elections. But now people are turning against them. The BJP is not finding people to contest in Dinhata, and the Congress and CPI(M) have long been decimated,” he said.

  • BJP government trying to snatch away rights of common people: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday took a dig at the BJP-led government at the Centre for its attempt to introduce the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) in the country and said it was an attempt to “snatch away” the rights of the common man.

    She said the Centre is selling off the country by disinvesting governmental concerns and expressed concern over a lot of the people in the situation.

    “Farmers are not getting the minimum support price and they (the Centre) are selling Railways, SAIL, Air India, Coal India and everything. If the country itself is sold, then how will its people survive?,” Banerjee said at a state government programme where freehold title deeds were handed over to eligible refugee families.

    Keeping up her condemnation of the BJP, the TMC supremo, who is one of its strident critics, said “They (the BJP) do not give people their rights, on the contrary take them away in the name of NRC and NPR. We (TMC) do not snatch away the rights of the people because we believe that it is the Constitution which has given it,” she added.

    Banerjee said that people in the country were not getting justice and attempts were being carried out to “alter” the country’s history and demolish its heritage.

    “People do not get justice…They are being told lies. The history of the country is being altered suddenly, heritage is being demolished. Women, minorities, SCs, STs and OBCs are being tortured. There are attempts to make people forget the original root of the Hindu religion,” she said.

    The chief minister was also critical about the Centre’s role in combating Covid-19 and alleged that the countrywide vaccination drive was delayed by it.

    “You (Centre) are not ashamed that so many lives were lost in the pandemic. You delayed providing vaccines to the people. On the certificates for Covid vaccinations you are printing (PM) Modiji’s photographs. And then you are taking credit for vaccinating the people!” she said.

    Questioning the spending of the PM Care Fund has been spent, Banerjee said that the Centre was not paying the states their dues.

    “You (the Centre) give funds to the state from the taxpayers’ money and that also not on time. We (Bengal) are yet to receive Rs 80,000-90,000 crore,” she said.

    The feisty leader also fired a fresh salvo at the Centre’s central vista project and the hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the India Gate in New Delhi, which she said, has gone “missing”.

    “In Delhi the BJP is destroying everything. They had recently put up a hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose but now even that is not there,” she mocked.

  • Congress will ‘expose’ BJP-JJP government in upcoming budget session: Ex-Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda

    By PTI

    CHANDIGARH: Former Haryana chief minister and leader of opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday said the Congress will “expose” the BJP-JJP government by raising several issues like unemployment, farmers’ plight and rising debt in the upcoming budget session of the state assembly.

    The budget session will begin on March 2.

    Hooda alleged that the burden of debt and corruption on people is increasing continuously due to the policies of the coalition government.

    “Haryana is facing the highest rate of unemployment, rising poverty, inequality, backbreaking inflation, deteriorating law and order, huge debt, economic slowdown, poor health facilities, falling education level, widespread corruption and also challenges like pollution,” he alleged in a statement here.

    “This government has buried the state under a debt of Rs 2.5 lakh crore,” he said as he targeted the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government over several other issues.

    “Every section of the state is feeling cheated,” he said.

    Hooda said farmers of the state are facing the brunt of bad weather as well as government policies.

    “Farmers are facing water logging and crops are getting damaged due to continuous unseasonal rains, but the government has neither compensated the farmers for the loss caused in the Kharif season nor got the full ‘girdawari’ done for the damage caused in the Rabi season,” he said.

    “Farmers faced ruin for two consecutive seasons due to water logging in large areas, but the government did not take any cognisance of the problems of the farmers,” he stated.

    The former chief minister said 46,500 posts in the education department and about 10,000 jobs in the health department are vacant which reflect the condition of the government departments.

    “Haryana is now lagging behind neighbouring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh in terms of health services. A total of 52,000 Anganwadi workers have been on strike since the last two months, but the government is not ready to give them the benefits of the announcements made by the chief minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.

    Hooda also expressed concern over the dilapidated condition of roads across the state.

  • My name is Jyotiraditya Scindia: Minister on Adhir’s ‘maharaj’ dig

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday took exception to being referred to as ‘maharaj’ by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and said “my name is Jyotiraditya Scindia”.

    This came after Chowdhury addressed the Civil Aviation Minister as ‘maharaj’ twice in the Lok Sabha while asking a question pertaining to some airport projects in West Bengal during the Question Hour.

    “The matter is that one ‘maharaj’ is a minister, another ‘maharaj’ Air India, now privatisation is happening,” the Congress leader, subsequently, said taking a dig at Scindia, who joined BJP quitting Congress in 2020.

    In his reply, Scindia first thanked the Congress leader for asking the question.

    “And, I want to inform him that my name is Jyotiraditya Scindia. Perhaps, he has some misunderstanding, and keep talking about my past again and again. But I want to inform him,” the minister said.

  • Another Khali bomb? Former WWE wrestler Dalip Singh Rana joins the BJP

    By IANS

    NEW DELHI: Wrestler Dalip Singh Rana, ‘The Great Khali’, on Thursday joined BJP. Khali has joined the BJP in presence of Union Minister Jitendra Singh and party national general secretary Arun Singh and Member of Parliament Sunita Duggal at party national headquarters.

    Welcoming the WWE wrestler, Jitendra Singh said that like his strong physique and thoughts, Khali will work towards strengthening the party. “The Great Khali will remain a source of inspiration for the youth in the country. I am thankful to him for joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s journey to take the country forward. People from all sections of the society are joining the BJP,” the Union Minister said.

    BJP national general secretary Arun Singh said, “BJP is the world’s largest party and the great Khali, who defeated many famous wrestlers of the world, is joining the party. Son of a farmer, who also served as an officer in Punjab Police, Khali has made the country proud and I am happy that he is joining the BJP.”

    “I have joined the BJP as I am inspired and influenced by the BJP’s policy for the nation. The BJP’s policy is aimed at the country’s progress. I admire the work being done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the country. So, I thought why not be a part of his journey for the nation’s development. I will do whatever responsibility is given to me,” Khali said after joining the BJP.

    Professional WWE wrestler Khali also acted in some movies and participated in reality show Big Boss. Born in Himachal Pradesh, Khali served in Punjab Police in the 1990s before becoming a professional wrestler.

  • Amid JDU vs BJP standoff, Bihar MP demands special category status for state

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: JD(U) MP Chandeshwar Prasad demanded the status of special category state (SCS) for Bihar while lauding the government for the Union Budget, even as Congress MP Mohammad Jawed hit out at the Centre over the reduced allocations in education and farming sectors.

    Participating in the debate on the budget in the Lok Sabha, Prasad said the budget paved the way for India to emerge as a leader in the global market.

    YSRCP MP Kuruva Gorantla Madhav accused the government of turning a “blind eye” towards the needs of Andhra Pradesh and said after the state’s bifurcation, it expected more allocations.

    “We are stuck at this point where we cannot decide wether to support the budget or not,” he said.

    Prasad also demanded that his constituency Jahanabad be included in the list of aspirational districts and the rivers there be brought under the Namami Gange scheme.

    “There has been a historic increase in infrastructure allocations and this will ensure India emerges as a leader in the global market,” he said.

    Congress’ Jawed alleged that during the tenure of this government while 70 lakh MSMEs had closed down, nine lakh skilled Indians renounced their citizenships.

    “The three backbones of a country, education, farming and employment, have been ignored. The focus of this government is to win elections through whatever means. A lie does not become the truth, wrong doesn’t become right and evil does not become good because it is supported by the majority,” he said.

    He demanded that the Centre release the funds allocated for the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), a central university in Kishanganj (Bihar) which has been pending for some time.

    Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale alleged that the budget has been unfair to Mumbai while benefitting Ahmedabad.

    He urged the railway minister to withdraw the notices sent to slum dwellers living on railway land and provide them housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awaz Yojana.

    He also demanded that the government expand the Atal Pension Scheme to include more senior citizens as it is estimated that by 2026 India will have 17.3 crore people above the age of 60 years.

    TMC MP Pratima Mandal said the budget did not have any direct benefit for the common people and also demanded that the MPLAD funds be hiked.

  • Samajwadi Party vows to make UP farmers debt-free by 2025, BJP promises 3 crore jobs

    Express News Service

    LUCKNOW:  Two days before the first vote is cast in the Uttar Pradesh elections, the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party, the biggest players in the ring, promised loads of freebies primarily targeted at farmers, women and the marginalised sections. The BJP, of course, garnished its offering with Hindutva.

    In all, the BJP’s manifesto had 130 promises as against 200 in 2017, 92% of which it claimed it had fulfilled. Both parties courted farmers in a big way, the BJP to tamp down their anger and the SP to maximise its agrarian vote potential. Both offered free power for cultivation, the minimum support price regime and payment to cane farmers within a fortnight. The SP went many paces ahead to promise making farmers debt-free by 2025.

    Similarly, both parties offered two LPG cylinders free for each connection every year, with the BJP specifying when they will be provided — on Holi and Diwali, injecting a subtle Hindutva element. To counter the narrative of soaring unemployment, the BJP promised three crore jobs, including a job to a member of each family, in the next five years.

    To draw young voters, the BJP promised free Scooty to college going meritorious girls. It also promised two crore tablets and smart phones to graduate and Class 12 students and free coaching to those preparing for competitive exams. Besides, free travel in all government buses to women above 60 years of age was promised.

    As for the SP, it assured 33% reservation to women in government jobs, including in the police department. The party’s manifesto also promised free education for girls from primary classes till post-graduation. Laptops to all clearing their Class 12 Boards with additional cash doles to girls who do so were part of the wishlist.

    The BJP’s hard Hindutva was reflected in the promise to jail violators of the state’s ‘love jihad’ law for 10 years. It also promised to set up a Ramayan University for research on culture, shastras and Lord Ram in Ayodhya. A board for welfare schemes for saints, priests and purohits was also promised.

    Who is offering what

    Bharatiya Janata PartyFree travel to women over 60 years of ageTo double the number of women workforce in UPPSC and other govt jobsModernisation of 30,000 secondary schools and collegesAt least one job/job opportunity to each familyFilling of all vacancies in govt sectorHiring 6,000 doctors, 10,000 para medsMedical college in each district

    Samajwadi PartyFarmers to be made debt-free by 2025Families of farmers killed during farm agitation will get Rs 25 lakh eachUrban employment guarantee Act to be brought in on the lines of the MGNREGSRs 36,000 one-time dole to girls clearing Class 12 BoardsSamajwadi Pension Yojana of Rs 18,000 per annum for 1 crore familiesSamajwadi Canteen to offer Rs 10 thali