News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • Bengal polls: BJP names candidates for four seats for third phase

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The BJP on Wednesday released the names of four candidates for the third phase of West Bengal assembly elections, with actor Paapia Adhikari finding a place in the list.

    The central election committee of the BJP named former Congress leader Anupam Ghosh, who joined the saffron party a couple of years ago, as its candidate for the Jagatballavpur constituency in Howrah.

    While Adhikari will contest from the Uluberia Dakshin seat in Howrah district, Chandan Mandal and Bidhan Parui are the saffron party’s choice for Baruipur Purba and Falta respectively in South 24 Parganas district, the BJP said.

    Barring these four seats, the party has declared candidates in other constituencies going to polls in the third phase.

  • Agri laws: NDA ally extends support to farmers; Tikait attacks Modi government again

    By PTI
    SIDDARTH NAGAR: An MLA of the Apna Dal (S), an ally of the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh, came out in support of the farmers agitating against three new agriculture laws of the Centre on Wednesday and questioned why the government was adamant on implementing the legislations.

    “It seems that the government has no problem with people and farmers getting angry. It looks like the aim is not to make a handful of industrialists unhappy,” Apna Dal (S) MLA Amar Singh Chaudhary told reporters here.

    Asking why industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani got big godowns constructed in different states about a year ago, he said the people who voted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and again in the 2019 general election, with the farmers also extending support to the saffron party on the promise that their income will be doubled, are unhappy over the contentious farm laws.

    Stressing that farmers have doubts because big industrial houses have constructed godowns from Panipat in Haryana to Gujarat and they fear that their land would be taken and they will be reduced to bonded labourers, Chaudhary said the government is not doing anything to clear these doubts.

    The government and the BJP are not trustworthy, BKU president Naresh Tikait alleged on Wednesday, as he hit out at the Centre over the contentious agriculture laws.

    Tikait made the remark as he participated in a monthly meeting of his farmers’ union at Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.

    Addressing Bharatiya Kisan Union supporters, who have been camping at Ghazipur for nearly four months now, Tikait said: “This movement will continue for long, make it a part of your routine.”

    “The government and the BJP are not trustworthy,” the farmer leader said, according to a statement issued by BKU’s national media incharge Dharmendra Malik.

    “More people like (Meghalaya Governor) Satyapal Malik will come forward. The farmers respect their truth. BJP MPs are now feeling suffocated,” Tikait said.

    ALSO READ | Republic Day violence: Court asks Delhi health secretary to constitute panel to examine X-ray report of dead farmer

    Malik had on Sunday sided with farmers protesting the Centre’s new agriculture laws and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah not to offend the community.

    Speaking at an event in his home district of Baghpat in western Uttar Pradesh, Malik had said if the Centre gave legal guarantee of the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, farmers would relent.

    “None of the laws are in favour of farmers. The country in which farmers and soldiers are not satisfied, that country cannot move ahead. That country cannot be saved. Hence, the Army and farmers should be kept satisfied,” Malik had said.

    Hundreds of farmers are camping at Delh’s borders at Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri since November with a demand that the Centre repeal the three contentious farm laws and make a new one that would ensure legal guarantee on the MSP.

    The government, however, has held that the laws were pro-farmer.

    RLD vice president Jayant Chaudhary on Wednesday said the government has continued with its “adamant” attitude despite agitation against the three farm laws.

    ALSO READ | Farmers to intensify agitation with Bharat bandh, burning three farm laws on Holi

    Addressing a Kisan Mahapanchayat at the Kisan Bhawan at Bahedi, 50 km from Bareilly district headquarters, Chaudhary said, “The governments in the state and at the Centre have merely become a puppet in the hands of capitalists”.

    “Farmers have been agitating for a long time for withdrawal of the three agricultural bills, but the central government is adamant. The central government is working only to benefit industrialists. They want to enslave the farmers by giving their land to industrialists,” the RLD leader said.

    On the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chaudhary said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has “single-handedly shaken the entire BJP”.

    “She has also suffered injuries in her legs and has become an injured lioness who will become the chief minister again after the Assembly elections in Bengal.”

  • BJP’s Chief Election Committee meets to short-list candidates for upcoming Assembly polls

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI:The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the BJP met here on Wednesday to finalise the party candidates for the seats for which it has so far not named its nominees for the upcoming state Assembly elections.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders met at the party headquarters to deliberate on the probable names and short-list the candidates.

    The CEC has so far announced the names of candidates for the Assam polls and the first few phases of the election in West Bengal.

    It has also named its nominees for a number of seats in Kerala and all the nine constituencies in Puducherry the party will contest.

    The polls in the four states of Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry will be held between March 27 and April 29.

    Assam will have three-phase polls, Bengal will have eight-phase polls while Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will have single-phase elections on April 6.

    The counting of votes will be taken up on May 2.

  • Uddhav had asked me to reinstate Waze when I was CM, says BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday claimed that when he was Maharashtra chief minister, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had called him in 2018 to seek reinstatement of the then suspended police officer Sachin Waze into the state police force.

    He also accused the Shiv Sena of pressuring him over this demand at that time.

    Mumbai police officer Waze is at the focus of a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the case related to the recovery of an SUV with explosives near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s house in south Mumbai on February 25.

    Waze, arrested in the case on March 13 for his alleged role in the crime, was attached to the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) of city police’s crime branch till recently.

    ALSO READ | Ambani bomb scare row: Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh shifted to Home Guard

    Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Fadnavis said, “I was Maharashtra chief minister in 2018 and also helmed the home department. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had called me to reinstate the then suspended police officer Sachin Waze back into the police force. Some Shiv Sena ministers later met me with the same request.”

    “When I received the proposal to reinstate Waze back into police force, I verbally sought advocate general’s opinion about it. I was told that Waze was suspended after the Bombay High Court’s order. Therefore, I decided not to reinstate him,” Fadnavis said.

    The Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Assembly also alleged that the Shiv Sena even tried to pressurise him over it.

    The BJP and the Shiv Sena shared power between 2014 and 2019.

    However, after the 2019 Assembly polls, the Sena parted ways with the BJP over sharing the chief minister’s post and joined hands with the NCP and the Congress.

    Uddhav Thackeray heads the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.

    Credited with eliminating 63 alleged criminals in ‘encounters’, Waze, a 1990-batch officer of the state cadre, was suspended in 2004 over his role in the custodial death of a 2002 Ghatkopar blast suspect Khwaja Yunus and was reinstated last year.

  • Former Union minister Dilip Gandhi, who contracted COVID-19, dies

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: BJP leader and former Union minister Dilip Gandhi died at a hospital in New Delhi on Wednesday, family sources said.

    He was 69.

    Gandhi had served as the Minister of State for Shipping in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led central government.

    He recently tested positive for coronavirus and was undergoing treatment for multiple ailments, the sources said.

    The BJP leader, who started his career as a corporator in late 80s, had won the Lok Sabha elections three times since 1999 from Ahmednagar in Maharashtra.

    He was denied ticket in the 2019 general polls.

  • Assam polls: Congress-AIUDF alliance a ‘Mahakhot’, says Fadnavis

    By PTI
    GUWHATI/NALBARI: BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday slammed the alliance of Congress and Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF in Assam calling it “Mahakhot” (great flaw), which he claimed will destroy the social and cultural fabric of the state.

    The alliance between the two parties was created to fulfill political ambitions, he said at an election rally at Nalbari.

    BJP and its allies are committed to ensuring security and prosperity to the people of the north eastern state and protect their culture, he said.

    “The Congress-AIDUF alliance is is not a ‘Mahajoth’ (grand alliance) but a ‘Mahakhot’ (great flaw) who have aligned to fulfill their political ambitions with the sole purpose to defeat BJP. But the people of Assam will reject them,” the former Maharashtra chief minister said.

    BJP has repeatedly denounced the alliance in Assam and union minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said it was forged to grab power in Assam and divide people along religious lines.

    Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan had said on Monday that instead of following Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress was following in “Jinnah’s footsteps” and asserted that it will “destroy” the country while referring to the opposition party’s alliance with ISF in West Bengal and IUML in Kerala, besides AIUDF in Assam.

    Fadnavis disagreed with NCP president Sharad Pawar’s view that BJP will win in Assam but lose in the other states going to the polls, which begin later this month.

    “I do not agree with Pawarji. BJP will definitely win in Assam and in the other states too”, he added.

    Assembly polls are slated to be held in West Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, besides Assam.

    Later to questions about BJP’s promise made before the last state poll to send back all infiltrators from the state, Fadnavis told reporters “First we have to stop them from entering and then we can think of taking any other action”.

    The BJP-led government at the Centre has taken up the sealing of the border with Bangladesh in “a big way” and though some work is still left, it will be completed soon, he said.

    He asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has secured and strengthened the international borders with all the neighbouring countries.

    “Be it Bangladesh, Pakistan or China border, Modiji has ensured that it has been strengthened effectively so that infiltrators are not likely to easily attempt entering our country”, Fadnavis said.

    About China he said, “Every time they had made incursions, they occupied some area.

    But the last time they tried to enter, they were forced to go back and we did not lose any land”, he said.

    The BJP government in Assam under Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, he said, was able to bring about “good parivartan” and the transformation is socio-economic and not just political.

    During the last five years the BJP has shown the “politics of performance ” in Assam.

    “Our dream for Assam is to realise its potential, develop its resources and change the lives of the ordinary citizens,” the BJP leader said.

    “After BJP formed the government in Assam, the doors of North East opened for the NDA and BJP emergED as the most desired in the region”, he said.

    BJP has always believed in changing the society for better and to empower the weakest to ensure that democratic values percolate to the last person, he added.

  • Uttarakhand CM Tirath Rawat distributes portfolios among his ministers

    By PTI
    DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat on Tuesday distributed portfolios among his cabinet colleagues while keeping 14 departments, including Finance and Home, with himself.

    Satpal Maharaj, Harak Singh Rawat, Yashpal Arya, Arvind Pandey and Subodh Uniyal have retained their departments.

    The chief minister has kept 14 departments, including Finance, Home, Revenue, Excise, Health, Civil Aviation and Public Works, with himself.

    Banshidhar Bhagat has been given important portfolios like Parliamentary Affairs, Urban Development and Information and Technology.

    Ganesh Joshi has been given the responsibility of Sainik Welfare, Industrial Development, Small and Medium Industries Departments.

    Dr Dhan Singh Rawat has been given the responsibility of the Disaster Management and Rehabilitation along with Cooperation and Higher Education.

    Swami Yatishwaranand will look after the sugarcane and sugar industry.

  • Sharjeel Usmani getting soft treatment from Uddhav government, says Fadnavis

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Senior Maharashtra BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said activist Sharjeel Usmani, accused of delivering a hate speech at a conclave in Pune in January, was charged with minor sections of the law so that he could easily get bail and return to his home in Uttar Pradesh.

    In a tweet, the former Maharashtra chief minister said, “Usmani had hurt sentiments of Hindus but he was charged with section 153 A (for promoting enmity between different groups). The section of IPC 295A (used for outraging religious sentiments) was systematically removed while filing an FIR against him in Pune. The state helped Sharjeel to get bail.”

    Hitting out at Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s “hypocrisy”, the leader of opposition in the Assembly said “the CM had said his government will find Sharjeel Usmani from any corner of the world, but in reality, MVA’s (government) actions are opposite to their words”.

    The alleged hate speech was made at a gathering held on January 30, 2021 in Pune to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Koregaon Bhima.

  • Phone tapping row: Rajasthan House deadlocked as BJP MLAs create ruckus

    Express News Service
    JAIPUR:  The phone tapping row led to a huge storm in the Rajasthan Assembly on Tuesday.

    The opposition BJP disrupted the proceedings, causing repeated adjournments and a deadlock in the session.

    The party has demanded a special discussion in the Assembly and wants a list of those whose phones were tapped last year. The Congress is in no mood to oblige.

    The row erupted after the Ashok Gehlot government a few days ago accepted that phone tapping “happens in normal procedure in the interest of public safety and security”.

    But the government had not given any details about it, though it clarified that phones of ministers and MLAs were not tapped last year.

    The government’s reaction came on a query by BJP MLA Kalicharan Saraf who asked if it was true that phone tapping cases came up in the last few days.

    He wanted to know under which law and on whose orders such tapping took place.

    In its response, the government admitted to phone-tapping and stated, “In the interest of public safety or public order, and to prevent occurrence of a crime which might risk public safety or public order, telephones are intercepted after approval by a competent officer under various sections of law.”

    This confirmation on Saraf’s question asked during the House session of August 2020 was posted on the Assembly website.

    During the question hour, leader of the Opposition Gulabchand Kataria accused the Congress of misusing government machinery to contain a rebellion inside the party by tapping phones of some leaders.

    When the BJP’s adjournment motion was turned down by Speaker CP Joshi, BJP MLAs gathered near the Speakers’ podium and shouted slogans. In the commotion that followed, BJP MLA Madan Dilawar was singled out for his poor behaviour and was suspended for seven days from the Assembly.

    The BJP MLAs held a dharna in the well of the House after Speaker C P Joshi rejected the adjournment motions.

    Dilawar was suspended from the House for seven days for unruly behaviour after he interrupted an Independent legislator and had an argument with him.

    In New Delhi, the BJP demanded a high level probe into the incidents.

    “The Congress government is resorting to all means to stay in power. To save government, CM Gehlot is taking recourse to even tapping phones,” BJP spokesperson Rajyavardhan Rathore said while addressing the media. 

    Reacting to the ruckus, Gehlot in the evening accused the Opposition party of creating “unnecessary disturbance” and said he had already made a statement over the issue in the Assembly last year.

    The BJP had on Monday demanded the resignation of Gehlot on moral grounds after his government said in a reply to a question in the state Assembly that it taps phones in the interest of public safety and order.

    Though the reply of the government did not specify whose phones were tapped, the BJP linked it to the phone tapping controversy that erupted during the political crisis created by the rebellion of former deputy CM Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs against the leadership of Gehlot last year.

    The Speaker rejected the motions on the ground that there was no mention whose privacy was breached.

    Joshi said in the adjournment motions, there was no name and specific details.

    “There is no clarity about whose privacy has been breached. I have rejected the motions and there cannot be a debate on the ruling of the speaker,” he said.

    The Speaker asked the BJP MLAs to give facts in support of their claim and said he will forward the facts to the government, who will give a reply today itself.

    When the Speaker did not allow the BJP MLAs to speak, they created an uproar and stormed to the well of the House.

    The House was adjourned four times today due to the uproar.

    Meanwhile, BJP MLA Madan Dilawar was suspended from the Assembly after he approached and interrupted Independent MLA Sanyam Lodha, who was speaking on demands for grants for education, art and culture.

    Lodha objected to Dilawar’s behaviour, following which Speaker C P Joshi warned the BJP MLA.

    As Dilawar did not pay any heed to him, Joshi asked Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal to bring a proposal to suspend the legislator.

    Dhariwal moved a proposal to suspend Dilawar from the proceedings of the House for seven days which was passed by voice vote.

    BJP MLAs protesting in the Well of the House formed a human chain around Dilawar to stop him from being escorted out by marshals.

    The Speaker then adjourned the House for 30 minutes.

    It was the fourth adjournment of the day.

    Reacting to the ruckus in the House, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot in a Facebook post said he had already made a statement over the issue in the Assembly on August 14 last year.

    He posted the transcript of his statement and his talks with the media on July 17 and 20.

    He accused the BJP of creating “unnecessary” issues due to an “internal fighting” in the party.

    It is an attempt to disturb the House unnecessarily, he commented.

    In his address to the Assembly on August 14, Gehlot had denied the charge and had said there has never been a tradition of illegal phone tapping of MLAs or MPs in Rajasthan.

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • Bengal polls: Trinamool, BJP opt for star appeal in youth connect, Left welcomes activists

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: Bengal’s two main political forces, Trinamool Congress and BJP, are banking on the star appeal of young Bengali actors to win a few constituencies.

    Most of their young candidates are from the world of films and TV serials.

    The Left in contrast has chosen a different path.

    After being criticised for years for being unable to unearth new faces, CPI(M) has fielded a number of youngsters, mostly present or former leaders of the party’s student wing.

    Among the seven young faces of CPI(M), Aishe Ghosh and Dipsita Dhar are research scholars of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and known as firebrand student leaders.

    The rest are prominent faces visible in recent movements against the Centre and state government.

    Continuing the trend in Bengal politics introduced by TMC in 2011, the ruling party has fielded eight actors. Following in its footsteps, BJP have pitted five from the Bengali movie and TV serial circuit.

    For the Nandigram seat, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is taking on BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, CPI(M) has fielded the 36-year-old Minakshi Mukherjee, state president of Democratic Youth Federation of India.

    ALSO READ | From JNU to Jamuria: Aishe Ghosh to test her brand of politics in Bengal polls

    “The youth, working class and women are hitting the streets against state-sponsored corruption,” said Minakshi.

    President of the JNU students’ union, who was injured in an attack on the campus, Aishe is contesting from Jamuria in West Burdwan.

    Dishita, a PhD scholar at JNU, is a candidate from Bally in Howrah. Pritha Tah, 28-year-old daughter of CPI(M) leader Pradip Tah who was murdered in 2012, is contesting from Bardhaman South.

    “It’s not about personal grief or hatred against the killers of my father. In communism, one doesn’t inherit any personal agenda. One inherits the will to fight against class oppression,’’ said Pritha.

    The CPI(M) has also fielded youth wing leaders Sayandeep Mitra and Monalisa Sinha in the Kamarhati and Sonarpur North constituencies, respectively.

    In contrast, TMC candidates chosen for their glamour quotient like Sayantika Banerjee, Sayani Ghosh, Kaushani Mukherjee and Soham Chakrabarty are rank newcomers in politics.

    In the elections held in Bengal from 2011, TMC often opted for actors. 

    Taking a leaf out of Mamata’s book, BJP too has given tickets to actors Anjana Basu, Payel Chakrabarty, Yash Dasgupta, Hiranmoy Chakrabarty and Anjana Basu.

    Taking on Basu in Sonarpur Dakshin is TMC’s Lovely Maitra, a face from TV serials. Political observers find inclusion of youngsters in CPI(M)’s list to be a new trend.

    “Young candidates have broader perspective. This may not secure satisfactory electoral dividend immediately, but in future it will deliver a message to the youth,’’ said Bishnupriya Dutta Gupta, a professor of political science.