News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • Will prioritise completing unfinished work of Biplab Deb: New Tripura CM

    By PTI

    AGARTALA: New Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha on Sunday said that his government will prioritise completing the unfinished work of his predecessor Biplab Kumar Deb.

    Saha, who assumed charge as the chief minister during the day, said his administration will leave no stone unturned in reaching out to the last person with benefits of the welfare schemes announced both by the Centre and the state.

    Asserting that he has good relations with Deb, Saha claimed that he came to know that he would be the next chief minister at 4 PM on Saturday.

    “I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president J P Nadda and Deb for handing over the baton to me. It is a big responsibility and I will discharge my duties with utmost care,” Saha said in his maiden media interaction after becoming the chief minister.

    Narrating his journey in the saffron party, he said, “I had joined the BJP in 2016 and started work as ‘Prestha Pramukh’ and worked as in-charge of booth management committee and state-level membership drive.

    I was given the target to achieve 3 lakh membership and I inducted double the number of people into the party,” he said.

    Saha said he has completed whatever work was assigned to him and since 2020, when he became the party state president, he has strengthened the organisation in the grassroots level.

    “I guess the party leadership was happy with my performance,” the dentist-turned-politician said.

    Asserting that the law and order in the state is “good enough”, he said it would be maintained strictly.

    Responding to a query about unrest at a BJP legislature party meeting at the chief minister’s official residence on Sunday, Saha said, “BJP is like a family and such things happen in every family. It will be sorted out.”

    On asked about the Left Front boycotting his swearing-in ceremony held earlier during the day, Saha said, “I had personally called up opposition leader Manik Sarkar inviting him to the programme as we share good personal relations. He said the party has decided to boycott it and he couldn’t go against it.”

    Asked about his cabinet, Saha said it will be declared soon, without giving any further details.

  • New Tripura CM’s induction: Another brand renewal exercise by BJP ahead of state polls?

    By PTI

    AGARTALA: The move to bring in an ageing dental surgeon Dr Manik Saha as chief minister, replacing the younger Biplab Kumar Deb, is being seen by many here as a `brand renewal exercise’ in this strategic, gateway state in the North East.

    Saha, a maxillofacial surgeon, who passed out from King George Medical College of Lucknow was a member of the opposition Congress before he joined BJP in 2016 and became the President of BJP’s Tripura unit in 2020 after Deb quit that post.

    A former badminton player of repute in the state, Saha is also the President of Tripura Cricket Association.

    However, his importance to BJP stems from his clean image and his track record which includes crafting BJP’s victory in all thirteen civic bodies in the polls held in November 2021 in Tripura at a time when TMC was engaged in a turf war with the saffron party.

    Sources said the move comes after an analysis sent by the RSS to BJP’s central leadership indicated there was a need for a change of guard in the party and government.

    Highly placed sources in the ruling party said the move was required for “immediate strengthening of the party” when the organization was not in good shape ahead of elections to the state assembly due within the next 8-9 months.

    Party insiders said the situation was unravelling at the ground level workers as a section of young workers, dubbed the ‘bike gang’, were engaged acts of high-handedness, “which was tarnishing the image of the party”.

    Senior leaders were repeatedly dispatching letters to the central leadership on the issue.

    However, what was really was giving a nightmare to the party was the sudden rise of the Tripura Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance or TIPRA Motha, a regional political party led by the royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarma, seeking a separate state for the indigenous people of Tripura.

    The party swept the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections held in April last year, winning 18 of the 28 seats over the ‘Greater Tipraland’ demand in a direct contest with the ruling BJP-IPFT alliance.

    The statehood demand may affect results in many assembly seats, where tribals hold considerable clout electorally.

    The TIPRA Motha had completely polarized the state’s politics by raising the demand for separate tribal state and triggered tensions in some mixed pockets of the state, where the tribals account for a third of the population.

    Party sources said that the BJP is not in a position to counter the rise of TIPRA Motha in tribal dominated areas and the tribal party would sweep in the tribal areas in the next elections.

    Moreover, the tribal party has threatened to field candidates in at least 25 general seats out of the total forty general seats.

    With tribals accounting for a significant section of the votes in these seats, it would mean Debbarma’s support could well hold the key to the next elections.

    BJP’s tribal ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), could not secure a single seat in the last tribal council elections and moreover it recently suffered a vertical split and was divided under the leadership of two incumbent ministers.

    Under the circumstances, the saffron party decided to strengthen its party organizationally and go in for a rejig of leadership in its tribal wing, Janajati Morcha.

    Whether the amiable Saha will be able to tackle the diverse issues left behind by his predecessor and steer BJP to a clear victory or whether the rejuvenated Left or the incoming TMC in collaboration with the young royal’s party will be able to snatch a win is of course something which only time will tell.

  • Fadnavis likens Uddhav government with Babri; says he won’t rest till it is brought down

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Hitting out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday sought to liken the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state with the Babri mosque structure and said he would not rest till the Shiv Sena-led dispensation was brought down from power.

    He also said that the Shiv Sena does not mean Mumbai, Maharashtra or Hindutva, and added that nobody can separate Mumbai from the state, but he wants to free the city from “corruption and misdeeds”.

    Fadnavis was addressing ‘Hindi Bhashi Mahasankalp Sabha’ organised by the BJP’s North Indian cell in suburban Goregaon, a day after Uddhav Thackeray’s rally in the city, where he had slammed Fadnavis and the BJP.

    Fadnavis’s rally began with the chanting of Hanuman Chalisa.

    Elections to several other civic bodies in the state, including Mumbai, which was ruled by the Shiv Sena for more than 25 years, are due this year.

    Describing Thackeray’s rally as a “laughter show”, Fadnavis said, “This man had never spoken about the state’s development, progress and welfare of people in the two-and-a-half years (of his rule).”

    “One doesn’t become a tiger just by clicking photographs of tigers. There is only one tiger now – Narendra Modi,” he said.

    During his rally, Thackeray had targeted Fadnavis for saying that he was in Ayodhya during the demolition of the Babri mosque.

    “If you had tried to climb the Babri mosque, it would have collapsed under your weight,” he had said.

    Referring to it, the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly said he weighs 102 kilos now, while back in 1992 his weight was 128 kilos.

    “I will not rest till I bring down the Babri structure of your power,” Fadnavis said.

  • History forced upon us is Western propaganda, says Goa CM at Savarkar book event

    By PTI

    PANAJI: Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Sunday said the history that has been forced upon us was actually propaganda of the West and added that such recording of events must be based on “facts” and not “opinion driven”.

    He was speaking at the launch of a book on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar by Vikram Sampath on the second day of the Kumaon Literary Festival here.

    “In my opinion, history should be independent representation of the things that have happened in the past. One can have his own interpretation based on experience and intellect. But (recording of ) history has to be fact driven and not opinion driven,”the CM said.

    “Unfortunately, in our country, the history that has been forced upon us, has been propaganda of the West and what they thought about us. They thought we are a land of snake charmers, they thought we are an impoverished country. My question is did they invade us as we were poor? The answer is definitely no,” he asserted, The first person to challenge this vicious propaganda was Savarkar, who through his book ‘1857 ka Swatantraya Samar’ (The Indian War of Independence), ignited the flame of patriotism among people, which led to the British banning this book, Sawant said.

    Savarkar faced brutal punishment at the hands of the British but, post Independence, a section of people have spread absolute falsehoods about him.

    “We as Indians have failed to applaud the life and work of this glorious patriot. I am happy Vikram Sampat has brought to light some well researched content on Veer Savarkar in the form of this book, which will become a document to inspire the future generations of our country,” he said.

    The CM also said Savarkar had written a book on Goa, which stressed the need for its liberation (from Portuguese rule).

    Goa was always an integral part of India despite being under Portuguese rule, and Savarkar’s book will be reprinted immediately and circulated all over, Sawant said.

  • BJP using diversionary tactics as it failed to provide justice to people in Jammu and Kashmir: Omar Abdullah

    Omar Abdullah said his party will scuttle every attempt of the BJP and will safeguard the rights of the people to start a new phase of development, once it returns to power.

  • West Bengal’s ‘politics over bodies’ turns counter-productive for BJP

    By IANS

    KOLKATA: It was sometime in the middle of 2007 that the movement against land acquisition for industry started gaining momentum. Since that time the culture of “politics over dead bodies” became a part of the political landscape of West Bengal.

    At that time, the current ruling party in the state, the Trinamool Congress, as the then principal opposition party in West Bengal, nurtured the strategy against the then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led Left Front government. In the initial years as the principal opposition party in West Bengal after 2011, the CPI(M) too made some attempts to nurture this same practice. And now the BJP as the principal opposition party in the state is depending on the same old practice as seen in the case of the mysterious death of BJP youth leader, Arjun Chaurasia.

    However, in this case the “politics over bodies” has backfired. The BJP tried hard to establish the death as murder and even Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on April 6, 2022 made a public statement declaring the death as a murder and demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe in the matter. However, the BJP had gone slightly on the backfoot on the issue after the report of the post-mortem conducted by defence doctors at the Kolkata Command Hospital declared the reason of death as ante-mortem in nature which strengthened the Trinamool Congress’s suicide theory.

    IANS talked to a section of legal brains, retired police officers, psychologists and political observers on the pros and cons of “politics over bodies”. All of them had only the negative points to highlight in this long-nurtured political strategy in West Bengal.

    According to retired Indian Police Service officer and former additional director general of the West Bengal police, Nazrul Islam, how fruitful will be the “politics over bodies,” for a particular party depends on the existing mass base of the party.

    “From 2007 till 2011 the politics over bodies helped the Trinamool Congress gain political mileage because at that point of time there was a pro-Trinamool sympathy wave and a parallel anti-Left anger wave in the state. But look at the current situation in West Bengal. Parallel court cases are going on in two incidents of mysterious death in West Bengal. The first is that of Anis Khan and the second is that of Arjun Chaurasia. But Anis was first with the CPI(M) and then with the Indian Secular Front, both lacking enough ground-level mass base in the state. So, politics over his death has not gained that momentum which the death of Arjun Chaurasia has, even though in the case of Khan’s death the murder charge allegations are directly against police personnel,” Islam said.

    Calcutta High Court criminal lawyer Kaushik Gupta told IANS that just as the political parties should behave responsibly in avoiding politics over bodies as far as possible, similarly the state administration or rather the police administration should also work within the legal periphery to foil any attempt on these lines.

    “What have we seen on May 6, 2022. The police personnel had a tough time in recovering Arjun Chaurasia’s body as the BJP supporters constantly created obstacles. The police were successful in the third attempt to recover the body but after facing a lot of obstructions and even scuffles with the agitators. The Indian Penal Code prescribes severe penalties for those obstructing a government servant in performing his or her duty. I am sure that the police on that day were aware of that. But they did not apply that,” Gupta said.

    Psychologists feel that this politics over bodies is an expression of the ideological bankruptcy and mediocrity in the political leadership. Speaking to IANS, Tirthankar Guha Thakurata, a faculty in Kolkata-based KPC Medical College & Hospital and a visiting faculty with Calcutta University’s Department of Psychology, said that politics over bodies is an extremely easy path to get media coverage and instant popularity. “This happens when the political leadership suffers from mediocrity and lacks constructive and innovative ways of registering protest. It is not that the political leaders are not aware of the risks of this politics becoming counter-productive. Still, they resort to the same cliched strategy out of greed for quick media footage,” Guha Thakurata said.

    Political observer Dr Rajagopal Dhar Chakraborty said that in a state like West Bengal, which is known for political violence, it is normal for ‘politics over bodies’. “Incidents of caste violence or religious violence in West Bengal had been traditionally much lower compared to the cow-belt states. But the incidents of political violence compensate for that. So, the root of politics over bodies is in the long tradition of political violence. Until there is a marked improvement in the political atmosphere in the state, there will be no respite from this politics over bodies,” he said.

  • Fadnavis terms CM Thackeray’s speech as ‘another taunt bomb’

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday poohpoohed Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s speech at a rally here as yet another “taunt bomb”, and said a befitting reply will be given.

    Earlier in the evening, Thackeray, who heads the Shiv Sena, launched a scathing attack on the BJP, a former ally, accusing it of peddling “fake Hindutva” and diverting people’s attention from real issues.

    “This turned out to be yet another taunt bomb, it will get reply and a befitting one,” Fadnavis tweeted in Marathi after the rally.

    The BJP leader had in the past accused Thackeray of taunting opposition leaders instead of speaking about the issues that concern people.

    Meanwhile, Avinash Abhyankar, a leader of the Raj Thackeray-led MNS, also took a jibe at the chief minister over Twitter.

    The character of ‘Lucky Singh’ in the film “Lage Raho Munnabhai” gets the message ‘get well soon’ from everybody, and his party too will send the same message (to Uddhav Thackeray), he said.

    CM Thackeray, in his speech, had taken potshots at Raj Thackeray, his estranged cousin, saying that like Sanjay Dutt’s character `Munnabhai’ in the film thinks that he is conversing with Mahatma Gandhi, some people think they have become (Shiv Sena founder) Bal Thackeray.

  • Uddhav slams BJP over ‘fake Hindutva’, says Mumbai will never be separated from Maharashtra

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Sounding the bugle for elections to the Mumbai municipal corporation and several other civic bodies in the state which are due this year, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday slammed the BJP and said the attempts to “separate Mumbai” from the state will never succeed.

    The BJP was peddling “fake Hindutva and diverting attention from real issues,” he said.

    Thackeray, who heads the Shiv Sena, also accused the former ally of doing dirty politics, and wondered if it was the same BJP which the Sena considered to be its friend for 25 years.

    Notably, the chief minister addressed his first open air public meeting in two years. Thackeray had undergone a spine surgery in November 2021 and was confined to home for several weeks.

    The BJP has “A ,B ,C teams” and “gives them loudspeakers and asks them to visit Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s tomb or recite the Hanuman Chalisa,” an aggressive Thackeray said, making reference to recent political controversies in the state. “The BJP will only watch the tamasha (drama) and address press conferences,” he added.

    Without naming his estranged cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, the chief minister said like Sanjay Dutt’s character in the film “Lage Raho Munnabhai” thinks he is conversing with Mahatma Gandhi, some people think they are Sena founder Bal Thackeray.

    He also hit out at BJP leader and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis over the latter’s alleged remark that “Mumbai will be freed.” “This was not a slip of tongue, it was what was in his mind,” Thackeray said.

    “Such attempts (to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra) will never be allowed to succeed. Maharashtra has got Mumbai after a lot of struggle and shedding blood,” the chief minister said. “If Dawood Ibrahim decides to join the BJP, he may even be made a minister. That is why, perhaps, central agencies are after him,” he quipped.

    In an apparent reference to the Enforcement Directorate’s raids on the properties of his brother-in-law, Thackeray said he was exercising restraint. “I have never targeted the family members of political opponents,” he added.

    The BJP was acting like a ”jilted lover” and “throwing acid” on Maharashtra by maligning it, said Thackeray, whose party broke off its alliance with the BJP after the 2019 Assembly elections over the chief minister’s post. He also condemned Marathi actor Ketaki Chitale’s alleged derogatory post about NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

    Targeting Fadnavis for saying that he was in Ayodhya during the demolition of the Babri mosque, Thackeray said, “If you had tried to climb the Babri mosque, it would have collapsed under your weight.” He then cited BJP veteran L K Advani’s comment that those who climbed on the Babri structure were Marathi-speakers.

    The Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana has always highlighted the issues of national and state importance but never insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Thackeray said.

    He also alleged that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is under the Union government, “takes care of Aurangzeb’s tomb” but comes in the way of his government’s initiative to preserve and develop ancient temples in the state.

  • Amit Shah sounds poll bugle in T’gana, expresses confidence of party storming to power in 2023

    By PTI

    HYDERABAD: Sounding the poll bugle in Telangana, Union Home Minister and BJP veteran Amit Shah on Saturday hit out at the TRS government in the state for alleged corruption and unkept promises and said his party is ready to face the polls, due in the state next year.

    Addressing a public meeting here which marked the culmination of state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar’s second phase of ‘padayatra’ (foot march), Shah appealed to the electorate to defeat the ruling TRS and make the saffron party successful in the 2023 elections.

    The BJP is ready to face elections even if they are held “tomorrow” and he can see the writing on the wall about the defeat of TRS in the polls, Shah claimed. “Do we need to change the Nizam of Telangana or not,” he asked the gathering, in an obvious reference to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

    Accusing the TRS government of failing to fulfil the major planks of separate Telangana agitation of “water, funds and jobs”, Shah said BJP, if elected to power, would implement them. He also said his party would end minority reservations in the state and provide the benefit to STs, SCs and backward classes.

    The senior BJP leader, whose party won two Assembly by-polls and made significant gains in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election in the last two years, expressed confidence of BJP coming to power in the state in the hustings next year and urged the voters to elect the saffron party to usher in a secure and prosperous Telangana.

    Referring to TRS poll symbol of car, Shah charged that its steering is in the hands of AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi.

    On the alleged high-handedness against BJP activists, he claimed attempts were on to make Telangana like West Bengal, an apparent reference to the deaths of party workers in the eastern state, for which the BJP blames the ruling TMC there.

    Referring to the alleged suicide of a BJP activist Sai Ganesh at Khammam due to “police harassment”, Shah said the BJP would ensure that those responsible for the party worker’s death would be put behind bars. Coming down heavily on the TRS government, Shah slammed the ruling party over alleged corruption.

    The “Praja Sangrama Yatra” held by the state BJP president was not for BJP to form the government but to herald the welfare of Dalits, Adivasis, backward classes, farmers, women and youth and to end the family rule, he said, adding it was to uproot the corrupt TRS from power.

    He alleged the TRS government failed to implement its promises like double bedroom houses for poor, distribution of three acres of land to SCs and to provide Rs 1,000 crore annually for the welfare of backward classes.

    Without properly procuring paddy from farmers, the TRS tried to put the blame on the Modi government, he said. It was the responsibility of the state governments to procure crops like jowar, bajra, he said, adding the TRS should step down if it cannot purchase parboiled rice.

    The TRS government led by KCR is changing the names of Central schemes and funds and claiming them to be its own, he charged. He also talked about the free COVID-19 vaccination drive and other welfare measures of the Modi government.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave over Rs 2.52 lakh crores for Telangana’s development, Shah said, referring to Central assistance to the state. He also hit out at KCR for not celebrating the ‘Telangana liberation Day’ (the day the erstwhile Nizam government merged with Indian Union in 1948) and promised to celebrate it when BJP comes to power.

    The day is not officially celebrated by the TRS regime due to “fear” of AIMIM, he alleged. Saying that a “double decker government” is needed in Telangana, he urged the voters to elect the BJP to power to realise a prosperous state.

    Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, BJP MLA Raja Singh and others were present. Raja Singh slammed the AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi for visiting the tomb of Aurangazeb in Maharashtra.

  • ‘Not being allowed to visit Udaipur’: BJP MP Kirodi Meena hits out at Gehlot

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Kirodi Meena on Friday said the Rajasthan Police is not allowing him to visit Udaipur, the city he was asked to leave ahead of the Congress brainstorming session there.

    He also alleged that the Congress Chintan Shivir is being held at a hotel constructed in violation of the rules.

    The Udaipur police had said on Thursday that they sent Meena to Jaipur as there was a “possibility of disturbance to law and order” due to his presence there.

    On Friday, Meena told reporters that he was planning to go again to Udaipur.

    But after his interaction with the media, he was summoned to the Jaipur police commissioner’s office, the BJP leader said.

    “Police officers told me that they face pressure and will not allow me to go out of Jaipur. They also said that they will not give any written orders for this,” Meena told reporters later.

    “I have not seen a government like this. I want to go to a tribal conclave in Udaipur division but the government is stopping me from meeting my tribal brothers and sisters,” he said.

    He alleged that the Udaipur hotel where the Congress is holding its Chintan Shivir has been constructed in violation of rules.

    He, however, didn’t substantiate his claim.

    He said the state’s Ashok Gehlot government gave permission to construct Hotel Taj Aravali by violating norms.

    Meena said the hotel is located on a river bed.

    “The hotel was illegally constructed and I would like to tell Sonia Gandhi that she should not stay and hold the Chintan Shivir there,” he told reporters.