News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • Abe killing points to possible pitfalls of Agnipath scheme: TMC 

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress has cautioned the Central government against the Agnipath scheme, pointing to the fact that Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a short-service ex-serviceman.

    The party claimed that the killing underlined the possible pitfalls of the controversial defence recruitment programme. The state BJP, however, rejected the apprehension saying no Indian ex-servicemen had ever been involved in any such incident.

    “The death of Abe at the hands of an ex-serviceman has only validated the fears of the people over the Agnipath scheme,” the TMC’s mouthpiece ‘Jago Bangla’ (Wake up, Bengal) said in an article on Saturday.

    The attacker lost his job in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force after three years of service and he was not getting any pension, it claimed. Agniveers too would not get any pension after their four-year service period is over, the article pointed out.

    “The BJP is playing with fire in the name of the Agnipath scheme. We have seen what has happened in Japan. An ex-serviceman killed the former Prime Minister,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said on Sunday.

    The BJP said that such apprehensions are baseless. “We have never heard of any such incident in which an ex-serviceman of our country is involved. The TMC is just trying to politicise the matter,” state BJP spokesperson Samik Samik Bhattacharya said.

  • BJP minister takes umbrage at transfers cleared by him being overruled by Nitish

    By PTI

    PATNA: A BJP minister in Bihar on Sunday expressed indignation over a bulk of transfers and postings, which he had cleared, being put on hold by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who apparently took note of allegations of irregularities.

    Transfers and postings of several officials of the revenue and land reforms department had been cleared late last month by Ram Surat Rai, the minister concerned, only to be vetoed by the CM’s office a few days later.

    Allegations surfaced in a section of the press that some officials were given plum postings despite taints of corruption and many were transferred despite having served for less than three years at their current places of posting.

    “I had cleared the transfers and postings exercising the powers vested in me as the minister. It is the chief minister’s prerogative to allow or reject these,” Rai told reporters with an air of dejection.

    The minister denied allegations of tainted officials being favoured but admitted that many were granted transfers out of turn following requests they made themselves or through some MLA.

    “We ministers are also public representatives. If some official approach us directly or sends a word through an MLA, requesting that he or she be given a posting in a district close to the place where his or her spouse is working, we have to act on such requests,” said Rai who has earned a reputation for outspokenness in the less than two years he has been a minister.

    He said that he understood the “special privilege” the chief minister enjoys and has exercised but minced no words in describing the “thes” (hurt) he felt over being overruled.

    When some journalists asked him, if, in the light of allegations of irregularities, he feared losing his ministerial post, Rai snapped saying “this chair is not somebody’s ancestral property. If the government thinks I do not deserve to continue, I wish it best of luck to find someone more worthy than I am”.

    To a question whether he thought ministers belonging to the BJP felt “dabaav” (pressure) under the overbearing leadership of the chief minister, who belongs to JD(U), Rai said with a swagger, “People in BJP do not know how to buckle under pressure.”

    However, he hastened to add “nobody in the government functions under any type of pressure. Even JD(U) ministers function freely”.

    Meanwhile, the BJP for which the JD(U)’s adversarial stance over Agnipath has rung alarm bells, sought to distance itself from the matter involving the chief minister and his cabinet colleague.

    “The party believes the issue will be amicably resolved once the chief minister has a word with Ram Surat Rai,” BJP spokesperson Arvind Kumar Singh said in a statement.

    Although a section of BJP leaders in Bihar gloat over the fact that it has more numbers in the assembly than the JD(U), and that it also rules the Centre, many seem averse to annoying Kumar, the de facto leader of the JD(U) which is currently the NDA’s second-largest ally.

    The party has, notably, maintained a telling silence over the JD(U)’s recent belligerence towards “BJP sympathisers” like former spokesman Ajay Alok, who has been expelled, and former national president RCP Singh who lost his berth in Union cabinet upon denial of another term in Rajya Sabha.

  • ‘Restore plaque declaring Sonia laid Atal Tunnel’s foundation stone’: Congress’ ultimatum to Himachal government

    In a press statement issued here Sunday, Himachal Pradesh Congress president Pratibha Singh said Gandhi had laid the foundation stone of the tunnel on June 23, 2010.

  • ‘Need double-engine non-BJP government at the Centre’: KCR hits out at the saffron party

    Rao, popularly known as KCR, said former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was bold enough to declare Emergency in the 1970s, whereas there is an 'undeclared emergency'' in the country under Modi's rule.

  • Ropeway gets stuck midway; BJP MLA, devotees stranded mid-air for an hour

    By PTI

    DEHRADUN: Over 40 devotees including BJP MLA Kishore Upadhayay remained suspended in the air for nearly an hour on Sunday when a ropeway connecting Surkanda Devi temple near Mussoorie got stuck midway due to a technical snag.

    Upadhayay said the incident occurred when they were returning from the temple by the ropeway.

    The devotees had a sigh of relief as they got down from the ropeway trolley after nearly an hour of being suspended in the air, he said.

    Ropeway operation to the famous temple has been resumed, Upadhyay said but suggested that it should be properly examined so that the lives of devotees are not risked.

    Ropeway’s service to the temple situated in Tehri district began in May this year.

    It is the first important ropeway project started by the state tourism department after the creation of Uttarakhand.

    The 502-metre long ropeway was built at a cost of Rs 5 crore and operates between Kaddukhal and Sukanda Devi temple.

    Notably, in a more serious incident last month in Himachal Pradesh, 11 people, including five women, were stranded for hours after a cable car was stuck mid-air at Parwanoo Timber Trail in Solan district.

    All of them were rescued after a six-hour-long operation.

    Nearly two months ago, 15 tourists have also trapped mid-air on a ropeway at Trikut hills in Jharkhand’s Deoghar district for around 40 hours.

    Twelve of them were rescued by Indian Air Force helicopters, while three people had died in the incident that took place on April 11.

    The NDRF has begun a nationwide survey of passenger cable cars and ropeway systems to find out possible security flaws in them and to prepare a structural blueprint that will help it launch effective rescue operations in case of an emergency or accident.

    The federal contingency force has also decided to train its rescuers in specific ropeway rescue skills apart from purchasing an assortment of tools like pulleys and carabiners to be used for transporting the salvager and evacuating stranded people from the car hanging in the air.

    The move comes as at least four ropeway-related incidents, including one in Uttarakhand on Sunday, have been reported in the country so far this year.

    Three people were killed while 12 were rescued after a 40-hour-long operation conducted by the Indian Air Force, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and local administration after cable cars got trapped mid-air on a ropeway at Trikut hills in Jharkhand’s Deoghar district in April.

    Eleven people were stranded for hours after a cable car was stuck mid-air at Parwanoo Timber Trail in Himachal Pradesh’s Solan district and they were rescued after a six-hour-long operation undertaken by the NDRF and other agencies in June.

    In a similar incident that took place in May, pilgrims visiting the hilltop goddess ‘Sharda’ shrine in Maihar town of Satna district in Madhya Pradesh were rescued about an hour after they got stuck in the cable cars.

    In the latest such incident, over 40 devotees including BJP MLA Kishore Upadhayay remained suspended in the air for nearly an hour on Sunday when a ropeway connecting the famous Surkanda Devi temple near Mussoorie got stuck midway due to a technical snag.

    Ropeway operation to the temple has been resumed, Upadhyay said but suggested that it should be properly examined so that the lives of devotees are not risked.

    “We have begun a survey of all the passenger ropeway and cable car systems in the country to understand their operations and suggest remedial action. There are more than 50 such systems in India which are used for the transport of pilgrims, tourists and passengers.”

    “The aim of the exercise is to not only sensitise the operators of this mode of transport about the precautions they should practise and preparations they should have, it will also give us an action plan which can be used during emergencies and disasters that hit the ropeway system,” NDRF Director General (DG) Atul Karwal told PTI.

    He said a special team of officers culled out from all the 16 NDRF battalions, based across the country with a jurisdiction of operation in various states, have been asked to visit these ropeway systems, carry out a security and operations analysis and submit a report.

    “The final report will be submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and we would recommend remedial measures to the operators. We will have learnings, as per our mandate, post this survey,” Karwal said.

    The DG said they have also begun a training module capsule to teach the rescuers in gaining and honing ropeway rescue skills.

    “I spoke to my field commanders and we are in the process of purchasing an assortment of pulleys, carabiners, ropes and harness among other tools so that we are adequately equipped to tackle such emergencies,” he said.

    A senior officer said the NDRF may also undertake mock drills at these systems to prepare its rescuers for the actual job.

    Soon after the Deoghar ropeway accident, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla had written to all states asking them to carry out a safety audit of each passenger ropeway project and put in place standard operating procedures (SOPs) to deal with accidents and emergencies.

    Bhalla also had stated in his April letter that for each ropeway project, a maintenance manual and programme must be in place so that the safety standards conform to good industry practices and such incidents do not recur.

    The entity operating the ropeways must maintain a record of all the activities undertaken as part of the maintenance programme, he said in the communication.

    The home secretary had recommended that BIS standards prescribed for the operation and maintenance of ropeway projects need to be scrupulously adhered to.

    He said the necessary guidance in this regard may be taken from the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), which is the nodal organisation for these systems and it functions under the Ministry of Road, Transport, and Highways.

    Asking the states and Union Territories to review the condition of all the ropeway projects in their respective state, Bhalla said SOPs and contingency plans for operation and maintenance of ropeways, and system of safety audits must be put in place.

  • Instead of taking on BJP, Congress hurting BSP in Rajasthan by indulging in horse-trading: Mayawati

    Under the scheme, those aged between 17-and-a-half and 21 years will be inducted into the armed forces for a four-year tenure and 25 per cent of them will be inducted for regular service subsequently.

  • Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan accuses BJP of ‘close links’ with people caught in terror activities

    By PTI

    GUWAHATI: Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan on Saturday accused the ruling BJP of maintaining ‘close links’ with individuals caught in terror activities, including in Assam.

    She maintained that while the BJP loses no opportunity to preach nationalism to Indians, the association with such individuals has led Congress to question the saffron party.

    “The Congress does not believe in playing politics over serious national issues like terrorism,” Ranjan said, addressing a press conference here.

    “However multiple revelations of close links between the BJP and individuals caught in terror activities force us to ask some straight questions of a ruling party that loses no opportunity to preach to Indians about nationalism,” the Rajya Sabha member added.

    She pointed that militant-turned-politician Niranjan Hojai is currently a BJP leader in the state, even though he was convicted by an NIA court in 2017 in a case relating to diverting government money to fund terror activities.

    Ranjan said there were numerous such individuals linked with the saffron party, including the most-recent instance of a BJP worker Mohammad Riyaz Attari turning out to be one of the accused in the Kanhaiya Lal murder in Udaipur.

    “He had joined the BJP in the presence of a senior local leader. Media reports state that Attari was employed by the son-in-law of the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha, Gulab Chand Kataria,” she claimed.

    A Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Talib Hussain Shah, who had been captured by locals, was revealed to be a BJP office-bearer in Jammu and Kashmir, she pointed out.

    When arrested, he had been planning attacks on the Amarnath Yatra, the Congress leader claimed.

    “In 2017, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested the BJP IT Cell member Dhruv Saxena along with 10 accomplices for spying for the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. The spy ring had set up an illegal telephone exchange to facilitate espionage,” Ranjan said.

    Two years later Balram Singh, a Bajrang Dal leader from Madhya Pradesh, was arrested in a terror funding case, she added.

    The Congress leader also accused the BJP of knowingly giving a ticket to Masood Azhar’s acolyte Mohammad Farooq Khan to contest the Srinagar municipal election.

    She also pointed out that dreaded terrorist Masood Azhar who was released by the BJP-led government in 1999 during the Kandahar hijacking.

    Azhar went on to find the Jaish-e-Muhammad terror group that was responsible for the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

    “The Jaish also masterminded for the 2019 Pulwama attack in which 44 CRPF personnel died after 200 kg of high explosive including RDX somehow made its way past multiple security checkpoints. Why an inquiry into Pulwama has not been held remains a mystery,” the Congress leader querried.

  • Congress keen on ‘exposing’ BJP, to hold press conferences across 22 cities in India

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Seeking to corner the ruling BJP over the issue of terror and its alleged links with terrorists, the Congress will on Saturday hold a series of press conferences in 22 cities across the country.

    Congress leaders said the aim is to counter the BJP’s “fake nationalism claims” and to take the message to the grassroots level that the ruling party has “connections” with individuals who have indulged in heinous crimes and terror acts.

    “Today, 22 of our senior leaders and spokespersons will hold press conferences in 22 cities to expose the “links of terrorists with BJP”,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet in Hindi, alleging that “evidence of terrorists having links with the BJP has come out”.

    “The BJP has links with terrorists, what is this relationship called?” he posed in the tweet.

    भाजपा के साथ आतंकवादियों के रिश्तों का पर्दाफाश करने के लिए आज हमारे 22 वरिष्ठ नेता और प्रवक्ता 22 शहरों में प्रेस कांफ्रेंस करेंगे।एक के बाद एक कई आतंकवादियों के तार भाजपा से जुड़ने के सबूत मिले हैं।भाजपा का आतंकवादियों से नाता है, यह रिश्ता क्या कहलाता है? pic.twitter.com/NEBD5UVv5R
    — Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 9, 2022
    The Congress has alleged that Riyaz Attari, one of the prime accused in the killing of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Rajasthan’s Udaipur was a BJP member. It has also released his photographs purportedly with BJP leaders in Rajasthan.

    The BJP, however, has denied any link with such elements and claimed that some of them had clicked pictures with its leaders after infiltrating the party ranks.

    The Congress also claimed that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Talib Hussain Shah who was nabbed by people in Reasi town in Srinagar recently was an office-bearer of the BJP’s minority cell in Jammu and Kashmir, a charge denied by the BJP leadership in the Union Territory.

    Congress leader Pawan Khera has asked how Talib Hussain Shah, who was allegedly planning to attack the Amarnath Yatra in Kashmir, was seen in a photograph with Amit Shah. He wondered whether it was not a security breach.

    This is the second series of press conferences being organised by Congress after the first such effort was made against the new Agnipath military recruitment scheme.

    The Congress has decided to take the BJP head-on over issues of national importance, and the party will continue to hold countrywide pressers to take its message to the people and to “expose” the claims of the BJP.

    Top Congress leaders who are going to address the press conferences include Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda in Ahmedabad, Shaktisinh Gohil in Jaipur, Ajoy Kumar in Mumbai, Uttar Kumar Reddy in Bangalore, former Union minister M M Pallam Raju in Chennai, media and publicity head Pawan Khera in Raipur, Rajeev Gowda in Kolkata, Ranjeet Ranjan in Guwahati and Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka in Visakhapatnam.

  • ‘Why should we back Murmu in presidential poll?’ Trinamool MP on BJP letter seeking support

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Veteran TMC MP Saugata Roy on Friday said that he and other parliamentarians of his party have received a letter from the Bengal BJP leadership, seeking their support for NDA presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu.

    Roy, in the same breath, also said that lawmakers of his party would vote for joint non-BJP candidate Yashwant Sinha.

    Murmu, who had been touring states for electioneering, is scheduled to visit Kolkata to meet BJP MPs and MLAs from West Bengal.

    “We have received a letter signed by BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar and Leader of the opposition in West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari, urging us (TMC MPs) to support NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu for presidential polls. They have claimed that Murmu’s victory is certain, and we all should vote for her to strengthen democratic and constitutional norms,” Roy said.

    The veteran TMC MP, however, ruled out any possibility of backing Murmu.

    “Why should we support the NDA candidate when the opposition parties together have fielded Yashwant Sinha? We will vote for Sinha,” he said.

    Last month, Majumdar and Adhikari had written to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, urging her to support Murmu in the July 18 presidential poll.

    The Bengal BJP had in June announced that it would write to all the TMC MPs and MLAs, seeking their support for the NDA nominee.

    Last week, Banerjee had said that Murmu, a tribal BJP leader from Odisha, could have been a consensus candidate had the saffron party discussed with the opposition parties before fielding her.

  • Opposition unity shatters in Uttar Pradesh ahead of presidential polls

    Express News Service

    LUCKNOW: The opposition unity received a big jolt on Friday when Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Yadav and SP ally OP Rajbhar, chief of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), arrived at UP CM Yogi Aditynath’s official residence to attend the dinner hosted by him in honour of NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu on Friday night.

    Murmu had arrived in Lucknow on Friday afternoon to meet the MLAs and muster support for her.

    Moreover, besides the BJP and its allies including Apna Dal (S) and NISHAD party, Jansatta Dal chief Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya and BSP’s lone MLA Umashankar Singh were also present in the dinner committing support to Murmu.

    While Jansatta Dal has two MLAs, BSP chief Mayawati had already committed support of her lone MLA to Murmu a day after the announcement of her candidature by the NDA.

    However, the presence of Shivpal Yadav and OP Rajbhar is being witnessed as a big jolt to opposition unity in the state ahead of the presidential elections due on July 18.

    While Shivpal had won the Jaswantnagar Assembly seat on the SP ticket, Rajbhar’s SBSP had contested the Assembly elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party, winning six seats. Significantly, both Shivpal and OP Rajbhar had been sulking for quite some time and going public with their views against the SP leadership.

    The immediate flashpoint in SP-SBSP ties reached after Rajbhar was not invited to the meeting called by Akhilesh Yadav to drum up support for the opposition’s presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha who was in Lucknow on Thursday.

    As per the highly placed sources, SP kept the SBSP chief waiting while inviting Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhury to the meeting.

    Meanwhile, a senior SP leader downplayed Rajbhar’s presence in the NDA camp saying that it was much expected as the SBSP chief had met the BJP leaders four days back and that was the reason he was not invited to the meeting convened by the SP chief on Thursday.

    However, the Friday development may go a long way in changing the flavour of UP politics ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as the SP-led alliance seems to be on the rocks.