News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • Bengal assembly elections 2021: Amit Shah, JP Nadda to lead BJP’s campaign in state

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda will carry out a joint campaign of the saffron outfit in West Bengal before the Assembly elections. The two will lead five ‘rath yatras’ across the state to boost the party’s chances in a desperate battle against Mamata Banerjee’s TMC.Still to project a face for the chief minister’s position, the two heavyweights will also welcome those jumping ship from TMC. 

    Since the BJP has not said yet who would be the party’s choice for the top spot in the state cabinet if they form the government, observers feel they will build the campaign in such a way that the focus stays on the star campaigners for the moment.

    ALSO READ | Let’s have a duel: Amit Shah slams COVID-19 vaccine critics in Assam event

    While Shah is likely to lead three rath yatras, Nadda will head two, sources said. They added that route details are being chalked out and the first of the yatras will be flagged off in a few days. 

    Like in the Bihar assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to join the campaigning in the last leg in the role of a finisher to help the party consolidate its support base and woo the fence-sitters.Shah, a former BJP chief himself, had missed much of the campaigning in Bihar. But he will be fully in action in West Bengal, with party leaders stressing that the political turf over there suits him better, like in Uttar Pradesh. 

    While the West Bengal unit of the BJP is led by Dilip Ghosh, the party appears not too keen on having him as a leading campaigner due to his limited mass appeal. The BJP will be banking on sub-regional satraps such as Suvendhu Adhikari to help Shah-Nadda attract crowds and send out a message to the voters that the saffron outfit can dislodge Mamata’s government.

    Ruled by the Left for over 30 years and for a decade by TMC, West Bengal is headed for a battle between BJP and TMC this time. The last few weeks have seen important members of the TMC switching over to BJP and party leaders are confident that this number will increase in the coming days.

  • Why reluctant to allow Opposition leaders to visit government hospitals if Yogi developed UP, asks AAP

    By PTI
    BALLIA: An Aam Aadmi Party MLA on Saturday said if the Yogi Adityanath government had done development works, it would not had to stop leaders of opposition parties from visiting state-run hospitals.

    Vinay Mishra, the AAP MLA from Dwarka in Delhi, also accused the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh of running the state like a monarch does.

    “Atrocities are being unleashed using democratic means on the people who are protesting and they are sent to jail. The condition of government hospitals, education and roads (in UP) is extremely bad,” Mishra alleged.

    He also said if the Yogi Adityanath government had done development, it need not stop leaders of opposition parties from visiting the government hospitals.

    Mishra said the AAP will field candidates for zila panchayat members in UP, and claimed his party will form a government in the 2022 Assembly elections in the state.

  • Gujarat: AIMIM to contest Ahmedabad civic polls, ties up with BTP

    By PTI
    AHMEDABAD: With elections to local bodies in Gujarat just a month away, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM on Saturday announced its foray into the state politics with an aim to provide an “effective alternative” to the ruling BJP and opposition Congress.

    The All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen’s (AIMIM) will contest the upcoming Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation elections in at least 15 wards, and in alliance with the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) in Bharuch on a seat-sharing basis, the party leaders said.

    Asaduddin Owaisi is likely to address rallies in Ahmedabad and Bharuch ahead of polling, they said.

    On Saturday, Gujarat unit president Sabir Kabuliwala and state general secretary Hamid Bhatti launched the party’s membership drive in the presence of a group of supporters.

    They said the AIMIM will prove to be an “effective alternative to the ruling BJP and opposition Congress in Gujarat”.

    The Owaisi-led party recently announced to contest the local body polls in alliance with the BTP, which had snapped its ties with the Congress over differences in Rajasthan district panchayat polls.

    “The incumbent BJP government has seriously neglected the development of Muslims, Dalits, tribals, poor and backward areas, due to which a large number of people still remains deprived of basic amenities,” said Kabuliwala, a former MLA of Congress.

    He alleged that Congress had failed to uplift the weaker sections of the society when it was in power in power.

    “The Congress has also failed to raise issues of the common people despite being in opposition,” Kabuliwala alleged.

    Given the current situation, the people of Gujarat need strong leadership and an alternative to ensure the welfare of all classes without any discrimination, he said.

    “I am confident that under Asaduddin Owaisi’s leadership, we will perform well in Gujarat,” Kabuliwala added.

    AIMIM secretary-general Hamidbhai Bhatti said the party has launched a membership drive and will announce the party structure in the state after the local elections.

    “At present, our focus is on the upcoming elections in Ahmedabad and Bharuch. Personal interviews have been arranged with aspirants who want to contest on behalf of our party after seeing their biodata. We will go to the people with a commitment to resolving local issues,” he said.

    The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had also said that it will contest on all the seats in the elections to local bodies in Gujarat, “to provide an alternative to both the BJP and Congress”.

    Elections to six municipal corporations in Gujarat will take place on February 21 and to 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats on February 28, the state election commission announced earlier in the day.

    Counting of votes for the six municipal corporations will take place on February 23, and for the 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats on March 2.

    The six municipal corporations to go to polls are Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar.

  • Six Gujarat local bodies to go to polls in February

    By PTI
    AHMEDABAD: Elections to six municipal corporations in Gujarat will take place on February 21 and to 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats, and 231 taluka panchayats on February 28, the state election commission said on Saturday.

    Counting of votes for the six municipal corporations will take place on February 23, and for the 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats, and 231 taluka panchayats on March 2.

    The ruling BJP expressed confidence about winning these polls, while the opposition Congress said it would mount a legal challenge on poll authorities announcing two separate days for counting of votes.

    The six municipal corporations to go to polls are Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar, and Bhavnagar.

    “Polls in six municipal corporations will be held on February 21 and counting of votes will take place on February 23.

    Polls will take place in the 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats on February 28 and results will be declared on March 2,” Gujarat Election Commissioner Sanjay Prasad said.

    The last date to file nominations for the municipal corporation elections will be February 6, while it will be February 13 for the other set of polls, he said at a press conference here, adding that the model code of conduct had come into force immediately.

    These polls were to be held in October-November last year but were pushed back due to the coronavirus outbreak, and Prasad reiterated it would be conducted with strict adherence to all health protocols in place.

    He said standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the polls will be declared soon, and five meetings on this issue had been held so far with the state health department.

    EVMs will be used for the polls, of which the SEC has adequate numbers, but the VVPAT mechanism will not be deployed, Prasad informed.

    A total of 47,695 booths will be set up for the polls, of which over 6,000 have been marked sensitive, and 4.2 crore voters are eligible to vote for 574 corporators in six corporations, 2,720 representatives in 81 municipalities, and 9,049 representatives in district and taluka panchayats, he said.

    In reply to a query on the counting of votes of the municipal corporations and other local bodies being kept on two separate days, Prasad said the SEC had followed the tradition laid down earlier, and added that the coronavirus outbreak and resultant protocols had made it difficult to hold counting of votes for different polls at the same time.

    Meanwhile, state Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi expressed his party’s displeasure at the counting of votes of the six municipal corporations being held earlier.

    “We will legally challenge the early declaration of results of six municipal corporations as they will influence later elections,” Doshi said.

    On the other hand, BJP Municipal Board chairperson Dhansukh Bhanderi said his party was confident of a win in these polls due to public support.

    Apart from the BJP and Congress, mainstays of the state’s political theatre for several decades now, parties like the AIMIM and AAP have also said they would fight local bodies’ polls this time.

  • ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chants to her is like red rag to a bull: Anil Vij takes potshot at Mamata

    By PTI
    CHANDIGARH: Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij on Saturday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan to her is like “red rag to a bull” that is why she stopped her speech at an event in Kolkata.

    Banerjee had declined to speak at the event to celebrate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary where “Jai Shri Ram” slogans were raised in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    “Jai Shri Ram” to #MamtaBanerjee is like a red rag to a bull that is why she stopped her speech at Victoria Memorial today,” the firebrand Haryana BJP leader said in a tweet.

    Banerjee had not started her speech when the slogan was raised by a section of the crowd at the Victoria Memorial event to celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of the legendary freedom fighter.

    She said such an “insult” was unacceptable.

    “This is a government programme and not a political programme. There has to be dignity. It doesn’t behove anybody to invite people and insult. I won’t speak. Jai Bangla, Jai Hind,” she said, wrapping up.

  • Parakram Diwas: Trinamool, BJP lock horns over legacy of Netaji ahead of assembly polls

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress and the BJP on Saturday were engaged in a verbal duel seeking to appropriate the legacy of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his 125th birth anniversary ahead of the assembly elections in West Bengal.

    While TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee kicked off the celebrations with a grand procession in Kolkata, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the city to participate in “Parakram Diwas” programmes to commemorate the legendary freedom fighter’s birth anniversary.

    As the BJP celebrated the day as “Parakram Diwas”, the TMC observed it as “Desh Nayak Diwas”.

    Netaji’s birth anniversary was celebrated on Saturday across West Bengal with several programmes held by the BJP-led central government and the TMC administration in the state.

    Paying her homage to Bose at his ancestral home, Banerjee criticised the Centre for abolishing the Planning Commission, which, according to her, was conceptualised by Netaji.

    “Why the national Planning Commission, which was conceptualised by Netaji in independent India, was dissolved? Why the demand for a national holiday on Netaji’s birthday by our government was not yet met?” she said in her brief speech at Netaji Bhawan.

    The Planning Commission, a government institution which formulated India’s Five-Year Plans besides performing other functions, was set up in March 1950.

    The Narendra Modi government disbanded it in 2014 and formed Niti Aayog.

    Banerjee said that she would ask the prime minister why the plan panel was replaced with NITI Aayog.

    She had said earlier this year that her government would come up with a Planning Commission-like body to take ahead the national hero’s ideas and vision.

    On Saturday, Banerjee also participated in a grand procession from Shyambazar in north Kolkata to Esplanade in the heart of the city.

    “A monument, named after Azad Hind Fauj, will be erected at Rajarhat. A university named after Netaji is also being set up which shall be funded entirely by the state, and will have tie-ups with foreign universities,” she tweeted.

    PM Modi paid homage to Bose on his birth anniversary and said a grateful nation will always remember his sacrifice and dedication for its independence.

    “Tributes to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a great freedom fighter and a true son of Mother India, on his birth anniversary,” the prime minister said in a tweet.

    Celebration of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary as ‘Parakram Diwas’ will inspire hope and national pride, Modi said at a programme in Assam.

    Arriving in Kolkata from the Northeastern state to take part in the “Parakram Diwas” celebrations, the PM visited the ancestral house of Bose to pay his homage.

    “I sometimes wonder how Netaji would have felt if he had seen how a new and strong India is taking shape,” he said at a programme in the Victoria Memorial Hall.

    Meanwhile, the BJP, which is being tagged by West Bengals ruling TMC as a party of “outsiders”, left no stone unturned to mark the birth anniversary of Bose with pomp and grandeur.

    Apart from taking out rallies in various parts of the state, the saffron party held multiple programmes to observe the Parakram Diwas.

    On TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee’s accusation that the Centre is not observing the birth anniversary of Netaji as ‘Desh Nayak Diwas’ as demanded by her government, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said, “We don’t need lessons from her on how to commemorate the day.” 

    The election for the 294-member West Bengal assembly is scheduled to be held in April-May.

  • Shun your ego and accept farmers’ demands: Sukhbir Badal to Modi government

    By PTI
    FEROZEPUR: SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday asked the BJP-led Centre to shun the “ego” and accept the demand of farmers of repealing the three farm laws.

    “It is shameful to see that the central government is adamant on its stand and not ready to repeal farm laws as per the demand of farmers,” he said.

    Badal said farmers of the country are united in their demand to repeal these laws which will completely “destroy” future generations of the farmers.

    Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several border points of Delhi for the past several weeks, demanding a repeal of the three farm laws and a legal guarantee to the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

    In a statement, Badal strongly condemned the registration of a case against Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

    He alleged that the Centre was pursuing “vendetta” politics against those who were supporting farmers in their cause.

    Sirsa is serving ‘langar’ to farmers and standing by them in this hour of crisis and that is the sole reason he is being dragged into “false” cases, Badal alleged.

    The Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing registered a cheating case against Sirsa, officials had said.

    Badal also slammed Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, accusing him of having “failed” to fulfil even one promise made to the people of the state.

    He said making announcements is a different thing and implementing them is different.

  • Modi government has hurt dignity and democratic system of India: Pilot targets Centre over farm laws

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot on Saturday alleged that the continuous failure of negotiations between the Centre and the farmers has revealed the BJP’s lack of understanding towards the rights of tillers.

    “By rejecting the demands of farmers and suppressing the call of justice, the central government has hurt the dignity and democratic system of the country,” the Congress leader said in a tweet.

    “The continuous failure of negotiations between the central government and the farmers has revealed BJP’s lack of understanding towards farming and the rights of tillers,” Pilot tweeted.

    Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several Delhi border points since November 28, demanding a repeal of three farm laws and a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

    Enacted in September last year, the three laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell their products anywhere in the country.

    However, the protesting farmers have expressed their apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of MSP and do away with the “mandi” (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

  • Congress wants Haryana government dismissed as cops quiz man over ‘conspiracy’ to disrupt farmers’ protest

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Congress Saturday demanded the dismissal of the Haryana government and sought a probe into alleged attempts to disrupt the farmers’ agitation after a man was nabbed for “conspiring” to instigate violence during the protesters proposed tractor parade on January 26.

    Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said the BJP government in Haryana, led by Manohar Lal Khattar, has “lost the moral right and trust of people to govern”.

    The man was being questioned by the Haryana police Saturday after agitating farmer leaders alleged he was involved in a conspiracy to kill four of them and create disturbance during their proposed tractor parade in Delhi on Republic Day.

    “Based on how apathetic and vicious the approach of the Haryana government has been towards the farmers and their protests, we demand that the Haryana government led by M L Khattar be dismissed immediately as they have lost all moral right and trust of the people to serve the state,” Vallabh told a press conference here.

    “Immediate investigation be initiated and the real perpetrators behind the sinister conspiracy to destroy peaceful farmer protests be brought to justice,” he said.

    Vallabh claimed the “sinister plot” of causing disruption has come to light with the arrest of a man who claimed there was a plan to “stage a violent action” by the farmers and provide a free hand to the police to launch an onslaught against them.

    “Who is behind this sinister conspiracy of disrupting the peaceful farmer protests and attacking them?” he asked.

    “What the Haryana government and its police are trying to cover up,” the Congress leader asked, after a video of the man was issued in public in which he claimed that he was forced to speak about the conspiracy by the farmers.

    “Who wants to convert this peaceful protest into a violent one?” Vallabh asked.

    The Congress leader said the “autocratic nature” of the government has again come to the fore as it is resorting to “dirty tricks” to ensure the farmers don’t get their due.

    The government has been trying to break the farmers’ protest right from the beginning, ridiculing them and suppressing their voice, he alleged.

    Vallabh alleged the government has been trying to defame the farmers by labelling them as Khalistanis, Pakistanis, Chinese agents, and making comments about their attire and food, as well as also trying to divide and rule.

    The Congress leader also claimed that one cannot expect a fair investigation from the Haryana government, where “the Chief Minister is saying something and the viral video is something else”.

    The man was allegedly nabbed at the Singhu border by the protesting farmer leaders who paraded him before reporters on Friday night and later handed him over to the police.

    His face covered with a scarf, the man claimed that a plan was hatched to shoot four farmer leaders, who are known faces in the media, on the stage on Saturday.

    “On January 26, there was a plan to create disturbance during the tractor parade by opening fire on Delhi Police personnel, which would prompt them to retaliate against the protesting farmers in a strong manner,” he claimed.

    A police official said the man, stated to be around 21 years of age, was being quizzed in Sonipat by the Crime Branch of the Haryana Police.

    The man has been residing in Sonipat and has no previous criminal record.

  • ‘JP to BJP’: A book that speaks about Bihar’s changing politics

    Express News Service
    PATNA: The recent Bihar assembly elections were more meaningful than ever for the all parties in the state, including the NDA and the opposition.  

    A book titled JP to BJP- Bihar after Lalu and Nitish by Patna based senior journalist Santosh Singh has brought in a bunch of ‘less known’ political facts to the readers.

    Singh, based in Patna, in a chapter of the book ‘The Churn-Bihar after Lalu and Nitish’ states that “The NDA had to also face the migration blues, and a not-so-great development index, beyond the basic ‘bijali, sadak and paani in the last three terms of Nitish Kumar as the Bihar CM”.

    The book, written with lucid facts, has proved to be an instant hit in the political as well as academic circles of the state. But what lures the readers to buy this book is its objective narration depicting political profiles and personalities of Bihar. The book also talks about the young political figures, namely Chirag Paswan, Kanhaiya Kumar and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.

    Singh has stated that BJP has a compulsion to remain in political alliance with the JD-U but in the near future, BJP may dare to go alone with determination to have full political independence in Bihar.

    As mentioned in the book, “For the BJP, alliance with Nitish may well be political compulsion. Bihar BJP is not daring enough. But it (BJP) wants to dare and has been waiting just for the right time”.

    That means, BJP will never give second thought to take jump in the state independently.

    The book elucidates well that Bihar politics is at the far end of the era of Jayaprakash Narayan’s scions, with Nitish Kumar as the last holding the stand of politics from the socialist camp.

    “He (Nitish Kumar) looks good for a few more years, but the politics in the state in another ten years may have an altogether different templates and political proper nouns. Politics in Bihar is now entering an era that will make it bipolar. It is Saffron versus Socialists”, the book predicts.

    The book broadly claims “Bihar has crossed over the Nitish Kumar phase. Nitish might decorate the chair but he may not hold on to it for a long time”.

    It is a fact that no body honestly can deny that BJP has no leader parallel to Nitish Kumar to project as face to Chief Minister of the party in case it disassociates from the alliance. The BJP has majority of its leaders as well ministers, who feel privileged remaining ‘inaccessible’ to the both media and the common people.

    The same situation, directly or indirectly, goes with JD-U with a majority of its ministers including national president RCP Singh and CM Nitish Kumar, who remain ‘inaccessible’ to the media and the people in general with a few exceptions.

    But what JDU has an edge over the BJP is Nitish Kumar’s face-which carries a credit of ,indeed, transferring the Bihar from ‘backward’ to now somewhat ‘cleaned’ and ‘moving’ in development as a state  as the leader heading the state since 2005 with the political alliance wit BJP.

    Singh’s book reads “There can be three possibilities, BJP taking the centre–state with its aggressive brand of politics, Tejashwi cobbling a strong anti-BJP alliance, with the Congress and the left. Someone like Kanhaiya Kumar can become the fulcrum of a non-RJD and non-BJP alliance with the support of the Congress”.

    The book also says that caste politics has slowly started losing importance in Bihar. But it can not be easily agreed upon as having seen the recent caste equations mainlined by all parties in ticket distributions to ministerial formations by NDA.

    But, it has rightly been stated that, “Bihar is fast heading towards a BJP versus the rest of the political dispensation contest’. The book also says that Tejashwi, with his reserve of 20-22 per cent base, alone has a chance to give some resistance to the BJP, after Nitish Kumar is out of the race”.

    By going through the books, it goes without saying that the book by a journalist on Bihar politics will certainly prove handy in giving ‘intelligent insight’ on the state politics.

    Another senior journalist, Raj Kamal Jha, has said “To understand the India story today, any journey to and through Bihar is vital-it is both a pilgrimage and a reality check. This book is an invaluable compass for that journey”.

    Indeed, this is the book that speaks about ‘Bihar’s politics’ from past to future as an unputable down one.