Tag: BJP

  • Just like USA, politics of lies should also be discarded in India: Akhilesh

    Yadav alleged that the BJP had gained power through the quot;politics quot; of lies and hate.

  • Those excluded from NRC can vote in Assam; Congress, AIUDF welcome EC decision

    By PTI
    GUWAHATI: A day after the Election Commission announced that those excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be eligible to vote in the upcoming assembly poll if their names are there on the voter list, the ruling BJP on Thursday said status quo about their voting rights has to be maintained while the Congress and the AIUDF welcomed the decision.

    The final NRC, a database of Indian citizens living in Assam which was updated under the supervision of the Supreme Court and published on August 31, 2019, excluded names of over 19 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants.

    However, it has not been notified by the Registrar General of India yet.

    This leaves the document without any official validity.

    “Lakhs of Indian citizens were excluded in the NRC but names of many illegal immigrants are there in it. The NRC document in its present form has not been accepted by the party and we have asked for a re-verification. Till it is done, status quo has to be maintained as the notification is yet to be issued,” BJP Assam unit president Ranjeet Dass told PTI.

    State Congress Spokesperson Bobbeeta Sharma said that Names of many genuine Indian citizens were left out of the final NRC.

    “The EC has taken the right step in allowing them to vote. Otherwise, their democratic rights would have been infringed upon,” she said.

    The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), an alliance partner of the Congress for the assembly polls due in March-April, also welcomed the EC’s decision describing it as “a positive move”.

    AIUDF General Secretary Aminul Islam said, “We also want a permanent solution to the problems of Doubtful or D- voters which exists only in Assam. We requested the Election Commission that doubtful voters should be allowed to vote unless they have been declared as foreigners,” he said.

    D-voters are those who could not provide evidence in favour of their Indian nationality.

    Altogether 83,008 cases of doubtful voters are pending in Foreigners Tribunals in Assam while 86,756 others were declared as foreigners in the last five years, the government informed the Lok Sabha in September last year.

    Lurinjyoti Gogoi, president of the newly formed Assam Jatiya Parishad, however, said that those excluded from the NRC should not be allowed to vote as it will only lead to the advantage of some political parties.

    Gogoi, as general secretary of All Assam Students Union (AASU), was a petitioner in the Supreme Court seeking to remove discrepancies in the NRC.

    Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, citing a Union Home Ministry order, said here on Wednesday that those excluded from the final NRC can vote in the assembly polls if their names are there in the published electoral rolls.

    After the publication of the final NRC, almost all stakeholders and political parties criticised it as a faulty document, alleging exclusion of indigenous people and inclusion of illegal migrants.

  • BJP will demolish 3,500 mosques if it forms next govt in Delhi, claims Assam MP Badruddin Ajmal

    By Express News Service
    GUWAHATI: Assam MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal claimed the BJP would demolish 3,500 mosques in the country if it forms the next government in Delhi.

    “Various mosques in your area are on their (BJP’s) radar. Altogether 3,500 mosques in India are on their list. They will demolish these if they form the next government in Delhi,” Ajmal said at an election rally at Gauripur in his Dhubri constituency on Wednesday.

    He said the Quran sanctions triple talaq and it is the word of Allah but the Narendra Modi government destroyed it. He accused the BJP of demolishing the Babri Masjid as well.

    “If the BJP retains power (in Assam), things that I said will be implemented. Women won’t be able to venture out wearing burqa, those who sport a beard and wear (skull) cap won’t be able to go out of their homes and you all won’t be able to offer azan in the mosques,” Ajmal, who is the chief of the minority-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), claimed.

    He claimed the BJP is the enemy of the country, women, mosques, bearded people and triple talaq.

    “Will we still support the BJP that cannot tolerate us, (our) religion, Muslims, beard, (skull) cap? Will you vote for this party? They are distributing money but don’t take it. It is ‘haram’ (forbidden) money,” the MP said.

    He slammed the BJP on the issue of food habits too. “Will the BJP decide what meat you will eat at your house? Will you accept it? Are we the servants of the BJP? Whether one likes it or not, we will definitely eat the meat of those animals approved by our religion,” Ajmal said.

    He said as part of a conspiracy, Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had set his sights on all the constituencies held by the AIUDF.

    “They will field Muslim candidates in these seats. Be wary of the BJP. Himanta has already thrown a gauntlet by stating the BJP will win 26 seats from Muslim areas,” Ajmal added.

    The BJP condemned his statement and said the MP cannot be the guardian of Assam’s Muslim society.

    “The country has been under the Modi government since 2014. I want to ask him (Ajmal) how many mosques were demolished. He is nervous and through such a provocative statement, he is trying to polarise Muslim votes,” BJP MLA Prasanta Phukan said.

  • Three BJP workers arrested for ‘Goli maro’ slogan in West Bengal, party alleges bias

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA: Three BJP activists, including the party’s youth wing chief, were arrested in the wee hours of Thursday for allegedly raising the ‘Goli maro sa** ko’ (shoot the traitors) slogan during a roadshow of party leader Suvendu Adhikari in Hooghly district.

    The three, including youth wing chief Suresh Shaw, will be produced in a district court.

    BJP leaders alleged that police were showing favouritism as a similar slogan was raised in a rally led by Arup Roy on Tuesday.

    Suresh and other BJP workers were seen trailing a vehicle on which Suvendu and BJP MP from Hooghly Locket Chatterjee were seen greeting the crowd during the roadshow. Suresh was shouting the slogan and others joined him.

    “This is a clear example of bias shown by the police. People are seeing all this and they will give a befitting reply in the upcoming Assembly elections,” said BJP’s state president Dilip Ghosh.

  • Three BJP activists arrested for raising ‘goli maro….’ slogan in Bengal

    By PTI
    CHANDANNAGAR: Three BJP activists including its Hooghly district youth wing chief Suresh Sahu have been arrested for allegedly raising ‘goli maro…’ (shoot the traitors) slogan at a roadshow of party leader Suvendu Adhikari here, police said on Thursday.

    Some BJP activists had allegedly raised the slogan at a party programme in West Bengal’s Hooghly district on Wednesday, following which district police registered a suo motu case and arrested them late at night, an officer said.

    The three arrested persons will be produced at a court during the day, he said.

    The activists, who were trailing the truck carrying Adhikari along with Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta, had allegedly raised the slogan holding BJP flags and the Tricolour in Rathtala area here.

    BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said that the party does not endorse the slogan raised by the participants holding the BJP flag.

  • NCP to form front with like-minded parties for Goa polls: Sharad Pawar

    By PTI
    PANAJI: NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said his party intends to fight the 2022 Goa Legislative Assembly elections in alliance with the Congress and other like-minded parties.

    Speaking to reporters in Panaji, Pawar said the NCP wants to fight the Goa Legislative Assembly elections “as a front” along with other parties to provide an alternative to the BJP.

    “In Goa, we want to contest the election in alliance with the Congress and other like-minded parties, but we are yet to start dialogues with other political outfits,” the NCP chief said.

    Pawar met the local NCP leadership including the party’s state unit president Jose Philip D’Souza and Churchill Alemao, the party’s lone MLA in the Assembly.

    Senior party leader Prafulla Patel has been authorized to hold dialogues with other parties to form a front for the state Assembly elections, the NCP chief said.

    “The discussion about the alliance and seat-sharing amongst partners will happen at the national level,” he said, adding that discussions will begin six months before the election date.

  • Trinamool MLA Arindam Bhattacharya joins BJP, alleges Mamata’s party ‘lacks vision for Bengal’

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Desertions and dissidence continued to afflict the ruling Trinamool Congress, with another MLA joining the BJP on Wednesday while another elected representative publicly aired his grievances.

    Arindam Bhattacharya, the MLA of Santipur in Nadia district, met the BJP’s national general secretary and Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya in New Delhi and joined the saffron camp at the party’s national headquarters.

    Bhattacharya had won the assembly election on a Congress ticket in 2016 and switched over to the TMC the next year.

    After joining the BJP, he claimed that the state’s youth are not happy with the Mamata Banerjee government due to a lack of jobs and industrialization.

    “West Bengal now wants to get identified with Modiji’s Mantra of Atmanirbhar Bharat. We want an Atmanirbhar West Bengal,” he said and alleged that he was not allowed to work in his area.

    Bhattacharya joins the growing list of the TMC leaders and elected representatives who changed sides ahead of the assembly election due in April-May this year.

    Reacting to the development, senior TMC MP Sougata Ray said that Bhattachraya’s desertion is good riddance.

    “More the people like him leave the party, the better it would be for us. He had come to the TMC from the Congress, and now he joined the BJP. It only shows his true colours,” Ray said.

    The TMC received a major jolt last month during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s rally at Midnapore, when in the biggest desertion from the TMC on a single day, party heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari and 34 other leaders, including five MLAs and an MP, switched over to the saffron camp.

    Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in which the BJP bagged 18 seats in West Bengal, just four less than the TMC, and emerged as its challenger in the state, 15 MLAs and an MP of the TMC, three Left MLAs and and an equal number of Congress legislators have joined the BJP.

    However, none of them, except Suvendu Adhikari, resigned as a member of the assembly.

    Meanwhile, Uttarpara MLA Prabir Ghosal alleged that repair work of a key road in his constituency was not being allowed by a section of party leaders to harm his poll prospects.

    “I am not allowed to work properly in my area. My sources told me that they are creating hurdles in developmental work in my area as they want me defeated in the next election. A section of the (Hooghly) district unit is conspiring against me,” he said.

    The Kanaipur-Nabagram Road has been in a very bad shape but his initiative to repair it is being foiled by a group led by Kanaipur gram panchayat pradhan and local TMC leader Achhe Lal Yadav, the journalist turned politician claimed.

    Terming Ghosal’s allegations as baseless, Yadav said, “He is an ornamental MLA. He is issuing such statements only to show me in poor light.”

    Party sources said Ghosal and TMC Hooghly district president Dilip Yadav have been at loggerheads over organisational matters.

    Ghosal joins MLA Baishali Dalmiya, ministers Rajib Banerjee and Sadhan Pande, and several other TMC to voice grievances about the way of functioning of party leaders.

  • Whoever fights as BJP candidate from Nandigram, Mamata will be defeated: Suvendu

    Adhikari apologized to the people of the district for the movement against farmland acquisition in Singur, which forced Tata Motors to scrap the plan of an automobile hub.

  • What should I say about a mad person? Sakshi Maharaj hits out at Rahul over farm laws

    By PTI
    KAANUAJ: In a provocative remark, BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj on Wednesday called Congress leader Rahul Gandhi a “mad person”.

    “What should I say about a mad person who does not know the ABCD of politics,” he said when reporters in Vishnugarh asked him about Gandhi’s stand on the new farm laws.

    The Unnao MP claimed that those taking part in the protests at Delhi’s border are not farmers opposing the new agri-marketing laws brought by the Narendra Modi government.

    “Those agitating are not farmers. Farmers cannot be anti-Modi. Under the guise of the farmers’ agitation, this is protest against the triple talaq law, the abolition of article 370 and the decision to construct the Ram temple,” he claimed.

    He accused the opposition Congress of doing politics of “appeasement”.

  • Nadda writes to BJP workers on completion of his first year in office, slams Mamata

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: BJP president J P Nadda on Wednesday lauded the party’s recent victory in a number of state and local body polls and set the target of “historic” wins in the next round of assembly elections, in an open letter to party workers to mark the completion of his first year in office.

    Nadda, who had taken over from Home Minister Amit Shah on January 20 last year, also praised the party’s welfare work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In the letter, the BJP chief slammed the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal as “dictatorial” and alleged that over 300 saffron party workers have been killed in the poll-bound state in the last few years.

    He expressed confidence that ‘lotus’, the BJP’s poll symbol, will bloom there during the assembly elections, expected to be held in April-May.

    He exhorted the party workers to ensure a historic win for the BJP in the next round of assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and West Bengal and play an important role in continuing the nation’s “vikas yatra” (development journey) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    Under Modi’s leadership, the BJP has achieved victory in every election, he said, noting its impressive show in the Bihar assembly election and state bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Karnataka and Telangana.

    He also cited local body polls in Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Ladakh and Hyderabad among others.

    The BJP also “exposed the disinformation campaign of the Congress and its allies” on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, farm reform laws and the border row with China, he said.

    Nadda said the BJP has set an unparalleled example with its welfare work for people during the pandemic while noting that the year was unprecedented in many ways.

    The time was full of pain and hardships for humankind, but BJP workers followed Modi’s call of “seva hi sangathan” (organisation is for service) and served people across the country.

    BJP workers provided food and ration to over 30 crore needy people, Nadda claimed, adding that India under Prime Minister Modi showed the way to the world in combating the pandemic.

    “As a leading political party our goal is to win elections and work tirelessly for the goodwill and betterment of common people; but how a political party can effectively work as a potent tool of social service and help people in times of need, the world has witnessed an unmatched example of this through your service and hard work during the Corona pandemic,” he wrote.

    The BJP had lost badly to the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi assembly polls last year, the first under Nadda, but has since then done well and continued with its expansion in regions where it had been traditionally weak.

    Referring to Bengal, he said, “When a person like me, who is the National President of India’s largest political party and who is always covered with security personnel, had to face a murderous assault during daylight while on a visit to West Bengal, it can be well imagined how difficult it would be for a common BJP worker to work under such tough and demanding circumstances.”

    His cavalcade was recently pelted with stones in the state, and the BJP had alleged complicity of the ruling party, a charge denied by the TMC.

    Nadda said the kind of success the BJP got in the District Development Council (DDC) elections in Jammu and Kashmir, emerging as the single largest party, was possible “only due to the supreme sacrifices of our party workers and also their hard work and perseverance”.