News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • BJP always holds victim responsible for rape, alleges Rahul Gandhi

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Citing a media report on a brutal assault on a woman in Madhya Pradesh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that the BJP always holds the victim responsible for rape and shows laxity in taking action against culprits.

    Gandhi’s attack on the BJP came over a media report in which a 24-year-old woman talks about a brutal assault on her in Bhopal by a man, which has left her grievously injured.

    She also alleged that the police was showing laxity in nabbing the perpetrator of the crime.

    “Bhopal rape victim is miles away from justice even after one month because the BJP always holds the victim responsible for rape and shows laxity in taking action which benefits the culprits,” the former Congress chief alleged in a tweet in Hindi.

    “This is the truth of the government’s ‘Beti Bachao’,” Gandhi said, taking a dig at the Centre’s slogan ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’.

  • BJP, RSS brass meet Tripura CM Biplab Deb over ‘Nepal, Sri Lanka’ party expansion comment

    By PTI
    AGARTALA: BJP and RSS top brass in the region met Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb on Thursday, following the controversy over his comments that the party has plans to expand to Nepal and Sri Lanka.

    BJP’s North-East zonal secretary Ajay Jamwal, and RSS’s regional in-charge Ullas Kulkarni and state in-charge Nikhil Niwaskar met the chief minister.

    The senior leaders discussed the comments that triggered a controversy, inviting severe backlash, a BJP source said.

    Other organisational matters were also discussed in the meeting, the source said.

    ALSO READ | Nepal lodges protest with India over Amit Shah’s purported statement on ‘BJP expansion’

    “Met regional General Secretary of BJP, Ajoy Jamwal ji, Ullas ji of Rastriya swayam Sevak Sangha and Pranta Pracharak Sri Nikhil ji,” Deb tweeted.

    Adding to the controversy, state Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath claimed that BJP is the largest political party in the world and people of many countries, including Sri Lanka and the US, are now willing to accept its ideology.

    “Our chief minister wanted to say that the ideology of BJP would spread in the world and people will be influenced by it. But that does not mean BJP will expand its base there.

    His statement was wrongly interpreted,” Nath said at an event.

    “We feel that the whole world will accept the BJP’s thought. Those who are in Sri Lanka are now thinking to accept thoughts of the BJP. America is also thinking to accept. The entire world is now thinking in this line,” he added.

  • Increase in public grievances from 2 lakh to 21 lakh shows people’s trust in govt: Jitendra Singh

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday said the increase in the number of public grievances from 2 lakh to 21 lakh reflects the people’s trust in the government.

    Addressing a workshop of Deputy Commissioners/District Development Commissioners across the country and nodal public grievance officers of central as well as state/UT governments, he said states were using a multiplicity of technology platforms to redress public grievances and therefore it was important to be familiar with and adopt some of the best practices followed by each other.

    A number of best practices sometimes emerged even at the district level, said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

    It is very encouraging to see that districts apart from the central and state governments have been actively involved in improving the public grievance redressal system, he said.

    Singh said this ‘national workshop on technology platforms in public grievance redressal’ aims at sharing of knowledge on the technology platforms existing at district level as well.

    He said it is heartening to see how the entire government machinery, right from all the districts to the state as well as the central government, are sensitive and have become responsive to redress the grievances of the common man and are participating in this national workshop to take the improvements further.

    A Personnel ministry statement quoting the minister said there had been a 10-fold increase in public grievance cases since this government came to power and it, in fact, reflects the trust citizens have shown in the government.

    The public grievances have increased from 2 lakh in 2014 to more than 21 lakhs at present with more than 95 per cent disposal of cases, it said.

    The main mantra of the Narendra Modi government is to reach out to the last man in the last queue with all the benefits of the welfare schemes, he said.

    Under the leadership of PM Modi, Singh said, every attempt was being made to implement an effective public grievance redressal system and bring about administrative reforms to promote satisfaction amongst the people and the approach has been to create a digital continuum.

    It is further sought to develop and enhance the scale and agility of responsiveness of governance mechanisms by using new and emerging digital technologies, create less paper secretariats and provide a meaningful and transparent government to all people, he said.

    On these lines, the Centralised Public Grievances Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) 7.0 version has been launched and implemented in 9 ministries and departments by mapping the last mile grievance officers, and reduction in time and improving quality of disposal, the statement said.

    The goal of this national workshop was knowledge dissemination on the diverse technology platforms in redressal of public grievances, it said.

    The goal has been achieved as the best technology practices in this regard have been shared through this platform, the statement said.

    Singh also released the special edition of Minimum Government, Maximum Governance – ‘Success Stories in Disposal of COVID – 19 Public Grievances and Best Practices in Handling of COVID – 19 Pandemic by Districts’.

    The District Collectors and all the central and state nodal public grievance officers were complimented for their tireless efforts and sensitivity to reach out to citizens through the public grievance redressal mechanism, the statement said.

    More than 700 districts, 33 states and Union Territories and around 75 central ministries/departments participated in the national workshop, it said.

    The national workshop brought together stakeholders from central and state governments, as well as all the districts and provided an excellent platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, lessons, latest technology developments and best practices in designing and addressing public grievance redressal, the statement said.

    For the first time, the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) has organised a national workshop involving district level participation for seeking innovative solutions in redressal of citizen’s grievances.

    Secretary, DARPG, Kshatrapati Shivaji, in his address during the valedictory session, said the national workshop has provided all participating central, state and UT governments as well as all districts important takeaways that may be now taken forward for due implementation.

  • Punjab civic polls: Opposition BJP, SAD allege Congress misused official machinery

    By PTI
    CHANDIGARH: The opposition BJP and SAD accused the Congress of misusing official machinery after it swept the civic body elections in Punjab on Wednesday.

    The ruling Congress won six municipal corporations and emerged as the largest party in the seventh.

    It also won a majority of the 109 municipal councils and nagar panchayats, officials said.

    The polling was held on February 7, against the backdrop of the farmers’ agitation over the new agri-marketing laws.

    Reacting to the poll outcome, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit chief Ashwani Sharma said, “It was the worst day in Punjab’s democracy today as the bullish power of the Congress seemed to be in full display.”

    “The election results reflect the complete moral defeat of the Congress in the face of blatant misuse of official machinery. At more than two dozen places, Congress workers indulged in reckless violence against BJP workers while police took no action.

    “At numerous places, BJP candidates were denied a fair play even as we brought this to the notice of the State Election Commission time and again,” he said in a statement.

    ALSO READ | Punjab civic body poll: Congress wins six municipal corporations; big boost for CM Amarinder

    Sharma said the BJP would continue working for the people “undeterred by the outcome of the election”.

    He also said the BJP would continue to uphold and popularise the development and progressive policies of the Narendra Modi government and would continue “highlighting the mafia raj of the Amarinder Singh government”.

    The BJP’s erstwhile ally SAD said the Congress party had secured a win in the municipal elections “by resorting to state-sponsored repression”.

    “Our workers battled unprecedented repression, money bags & govt machinery & yet emerged as a force to reckon with. Writing on the wall: 2022 elections on – Congress gone,” SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal said in a tweet, referring to the assembly polls due in 2022.

    In a tweet, SAD MP from Bathinda and former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said, “Hearty congratulations to all@Akali Dal candidates, irrespective of votes, you are all winners! The results show that despite harassment, violence & booth capturing, SAD will form the govt in 2022 & those officials who indulged in malpractices should start counting their days.”

    SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said, “The SAD has emerged as the principal opposition party in Punjab post municipal elections despite going alone for the first time, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had been completely eradicated in the state.”

    The AAP is the main opposition party in the assembly.

    He said almost all seats witnessing a direct contest between the Congress and the SAD.

    “The vote share of the SAD has also increased in urban areas,” Cheema said in a statement.

    AAP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Harpal Singh Cheema, however, said the civic poll results “were a good sign for the party”.

    He said that the party’s base in urban areas has increased and the party’s vote share has increased significantly.

    “This is a good sign for the party that the Aam Aadmi Party will be even stronger in the urban areas by 2022,” he added.

    He, however, said that the “party must have had some shortcomings in contesting the local body elections for the first time.

    “These shortcomings will be rectified after self-assessment and work would be done to strengthen the party before the forthcoming assembly elections.”

    The AAP leader said the farmers of Punjab “were being persecuted due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dictatorial attitude” and added the Centre was not listening to the demands of peasants protesting against the new farm laws.

  • Bengal polls: Actor Yash Dasgupta, six others from Tollywood join BJP

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA: The BJP’s Bengal’s chapter has inducted seven popular Bengali film and serial actors on Wednesday saying that the party made inroads into the culture and entertainment circle of the state.

    The BJP inducted Yash Dasgupta, the actor who is also known as TMC MP Nusrat Jahan’s close friend, along with six others. Earlier, the party had welcomed five other actors from Bengal’s film industry, popularly known as Tollywood.

    Sources in the BJP said the move to bring actors to the party fold was initiated to counter TMC’s strategy which proved successful in previous elections.

    In the 2011 Assembly elections, the TMC made the first move by fielding actress Debasree Roy who defeated veteran CPI(M) contender Kanti Ganguly in South 24-Parganas’ Raidighi constituency. In the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, the party fielded five actors — Moon Moon Sen, Dipak Adhikari, Sandhya Roy, Shatabdi Roy, and Tapas Pal — who all won from their constituencies. Even in the 2019 general elections, the TMC sent its two elected actors — Mimi Chakrabarty and Nusrat Jahan — to the Lower House of Parliament.

    Bengali actor Yash Dasgupta joins Bharatiya Janata Party, in Kolkata pic.twitter.com/GUyC6j9rmy
    — ANI (@ANI) February 17, 2021

    “We will pay the TMC back in their own coin in the upcoming election. In some of the seats, the TMC was also surprised after the actors defeated their heavyweight contestants. We are also going to field the actors in the upcoming elections against TMC’s candidates,” said a BJP leader.

    In 2014, Moon Moon Sen had defeated nine-time CPI(MP) Basudeb Acharia in Bankura Constituency. The CPI’s heavyweight candidate Prabodh Panda failed to retain his Midnapore seat in the same year as TMC’s strategy of fielding actress Sandhya proved successful.

    Asked whether the newly-inducted actors will contest in the Assembly elections, BJP’s national general secretary and West Bengal observer Kailash Vijayvargiya said it would depend on them. “The BJP is aimed at a change in Bengal and the bunch of actors joined the party to be part of the initiative,” said Vijayvargiya.   

    The saffron camp has been trying to make inroads in Bengal’s culture clan, where the ruling party has already made deep penetration. Union Home minister Amit Shah had visited vocalist Ajay Chakrabarty’s residence last year and Vijayvargiya Ustad Rashid Khan to woo the support of the particular sets of electorates.

  • BJP leaders take aim at Rahul Gandhi for claiming ‘no separate ministry for fisheries exist like agriculture’

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: BJP leaders, including Union ministers, took a swipe at Rahul Gandhi after he claimed there was no separate ministry for fisheries like agriculture as they said such a ministry already exists and accused him of practising politics of “lies”.

    During an interaction with fishermen in Puducherry, Congress leader Gandhi described them as the farmers of the sea and asked if the farmers of the land can have a ministry, why can’t they? Addressing the Congress leader in his tweets, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Minister Giriraj Singh said he should know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had created the new ministry on May 31, 2019.

    ALSO READ | I forgive, says Rahul on his father Rajiv Gandhi’s killers

    Singh added that he was willing to inform Gandhi of the fisheries ministry’s work across the country, including in Puducherry.

    The BJP leader also posted a tweet in Italian that said there is no separate ministry of fisheries in Italy and that it comes under agriculture and forestry ministry.

    Mocking Gandhi, Union minister Anurag Thakur said the Congress is again left red-faced due to its “politics of lies”.

    Union minister Smriti Irani also joined her colleagues in targeting the Congress leader and posted a tweet in Italian.

  • BJP announces agitation to seek relief for electricity consumers in Maharashtra

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bavankule on Wednesday announced a ‘jail bharo’ (courting arrest) agitation on February 24 across Maharashtra to protest against the state government’s “refusal” to offer relief to electricity consumers.

    Speaking to reporters, the former energy minister alleged that instead of giving any relief through bill waiver or concession to consumers, who are already hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shiv Sena-led government is disconnecting power supply if bills are not paid.

    “The state government has not even helped farmers who lost their crop due to hailstorms and unseasonal showers,” he said.

    “The state government earns around Rs 9,500 crore from power supply to industries. The government should utilise this revenue to offer some relaxation to consumers who are already hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

    BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have given relief to power consumers, he claimed.

    “During our regime, we never disconnected the power supply of farmers,” Bavankule said.

  • Woman’s death: BJP accuses Maharashtra government of suppressing the case

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Amid allegations that a Maharashtra minister was connected to the death of a woman from Pune, the opposition BJP on Wednesday sharpened its attack on the Shiv Sena-led government, saying it was trying to suppress the case.

    Some social media posts and the BJP have claimed that the 23-year-old woman, who died after falling from a building in the Hadapsar area on February 8, was in a relationship with a cabinet minister in the state.

    “The state government is suppressing the death of the woman whose death evoked suspicions. The person under the scanner is state forest minister Sanjay Rathod who is still missing. Nobody in the state government knows about his whereabouts,” former state Power minister and BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bavankule told reporters.

    According to Wanwadi police in Pune who have registered a case of accidental death, there was no suicide note.

    Maharashtra BJP vice president Madhav Bhandari said the state government was supposed to carry out an investigation in this case but it intends to either suppress or to slow down the investigation.

    Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress, had already promised a detailed probe and action against the guilty.

  • BJP deputes 22 leaders with organisational skills for 109 key assembly seats in West Bengal

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: In a well-calibrated move to strengthen its position on seats that are critical and tough, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to depute leaders known for their organisational skills ahead of polls in West Bengal.

    Around 109 assembly constituencies have been marked as critical for the party’s dream to form government in the poll-bound state. The majority of these constituencies are in erstwhile Bengal Presidency region. The reach of BJP to voters in these constituencies will be supervised and manned by around 22 BJP leaders.

    The decision has been communicated to these leaders in a virtual meeting presided over by national joint general secretary Shiv Prakash.

    According to sources, BJP national president JP Nadda is likely to meet these leaders in Kolkata on February 25 or February 26.

    “Meeting with party president is a tentative plan and is likely to take place by the end of February. All of the leaders will be given 3 to 6 constituencies depending on workload and additional charge,” stated the source.

    The BJP leaders who will be given charge of assembly constituencies include Nishikant Dubey, Vinod Sonkar, Vinod Tawde, Dharmendra Pradhan, Pradipsinh Vaghela, Basant Pandya, RK Singh, Mangal Pandey, Ramesh Bidhuri, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Nitin Nabin, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Ashish Shelar, Radha Mohan Singh, Madan Lal Sharma, Satish Upadhyay.

    Both BJP and TMC have locked horns over issues of corruption and appeasement along with governance and law and order in the poll-bound state. The state with its 294 assembly constituencies is likely to go to polls in April/May. 

  • In damage control mode, BJP brass goes into huddle with MPs, MLAs over stir 

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  With the farmers’ unions shunning all overtures of the government to resume talks and the Opposition throwing weight behind agitation against the contentious farm laws, the top leadership of the BJP on Tuesday went into a huddle with party leaders from western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana Punjab and Rajasthan to brainstorm over ways for the political damage control.   

    Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, BJP chief JP Nadda held a meeting with several BJP MPs and MLAs from the four states where the saffron outfit is sensing imminent political damage on the account of the unabated farm protest.  

    While the government and the BJP hadn’t yet banked on party’s influential leaders from the nerve centres of the farm agitation, the saffron outfit called party’s key Jat leaders from western UP and Haryana, besides others from Punjab and Rajasthan for strategising over the next course of actions

    BJP MPs Sanjeev Balyan and Satyapal Singh, who had defeated the RLD, also attended the meeting on Tuesday with the top leadership of the party. 

    The government had held multiple rounds of talks with the farm union leaders until the breakdown of the negotiations ahead of the January 26 tractor rally. Simultaneously, the Haryana and UP units of the party had also mobilised a few farmers’ representations in support of the laws. 

    However, the groundswell of the support for the agitating farmers in western UP, which the BJP had swept in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, threatens to change the political equations ahead of the next year’s state Assembly elections.

    High commission writes open letter after UK MP tweet 

    The Indian High Commission in London has written an open letter to UK MP Claudia Webbe over her support for the farmers’ protest, saying she was welcome to convey apprehensions of her community to the High Commission. “We would have been able to comprehensively and in detail provide clarifications to assuage the concerns of your constituents with regard to the recent path-breaking Indian Farm Laws against which a small section of India’s farming community has been protesting,” the High Commission wrote.