News Analysis India

Tag: Legislative Council

  • Karnataka’s temple tax bill falls through in state assembly amid BJP uproar

    Two days after the Karnataka assembly passed the Hindu Religious Institutions & Charitable Endowment (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which rejigged existing matrix to collect more taxes from earnings of state-owned temples, the contentious bill fell through in legislative council Friday, with BJP and JD(S) joining forces to defeat it in a potential display of solidarity ahead of Lok Sabha elections.

    Political Maneuvering in Karnataka Legislative Council

    The Congress had ensured the smooth passage of the bill in the assembly as it has a majority in the Lower House. However, the BJP-JD(S) combine, taking advantage of their majority in the Upper House, threw a spanner in the works of the government and thwarted the proposal. The bill was rejected by a voice vote conducted by deputy chairperson M K Parnesh.In the 75-member legislative council, BJP has 35 members, including the chairperson, while JD(S) has eight. Congress has 29 members, besides an independent. Two seats are currently vacant.

    Though existing rules allow the government to reintroduce a bill in the assembly, Congress sources suggested the legislation could be pushed to the backburner until after LS polls and taken up again during the monsoon session in June.

    Contentious Provisions of the BillWhile the government reasoned that the bill, once enacted into law, would enable it to take a portion of revenues from temples with higher earnings and reallocate the funds to those with lower earnings, the BJP-JD(S) combine termed the move “anti-Hindu” and a ploy to seize a significant portion of temple revenues.Under the existing law, temples are divided into three categories based on revenues they generate. Temples earning more than Rs 25 lakh are classified as Grade A, those earning between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25 lakh fall in Grade B while the ones with earnings below Rs 5 lakh are designated as Grade C. The state has approximately 34,000 Grade C temples, besides 250 Grade B, and 67 Grade A temples.

    Currently, the government is allowed to allocate 5% of Grade B revenues and 10% of Grade A revenues to Grade C temples for their upkeep. The new legislation mandates muzrai temples with annual revenues of over Rs 1 crore to contribute 10% of their income to the common pool (Dharmik Parishad) and 5% to be paid by shrines with revenues of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore, & redistribute it among Grade C temples.

    Political Reactions

    Minister for Transport, Ramalinga Reddy, alleged that BJP is ‘anti-Hindu’ adding that the party which was in power in 2011 had made the amendments to the Bill.

    Minister for Health, Dinesh Gundu Rao, said that the BJP should realize the Bill is for the benefit of the temples.

    Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that the allegations regarding the amendments to the Bill “appear to be misrepresented”, “aiming only at misleading the public” and “polarizing people along communal lines for political leverage.”

    Karnataka government passed ‘Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Bill 2024’ that mandates the state to collect 10 per cent tax from temples that have revenues exceeding Rs 1 crore and 5 per cent from those with revenues ranging between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore.

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  • Newly elected members of UP Legislative Council take oath

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: The 36 new members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, who were recently elected from local authority constituencies, took oath here on Tuesday.

    UP Legislative Council chairman Kunwar Manvendra Singh administered the oath of office to the newly elected members. All the members took oath in Hindi, while some of them raised the slogan of “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai” after the oath-taking ceremony.

    Prominent among those who took the oath are Minister of State (independent charge) Dinesh Pratap Singh, who was elected from Rae Bareli constituency. Two independent MLCs and MLC of Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) from Pratapgarh, Akshay Pratap Singh also took oath on the day.

    Rest of the winning legislators are from the BJP.

    A court in Pratapgarh had recently cancelled the bail of Akshay Pratap Singh and ordered his arrest in a case of getting arms licence on a fake address, a government counsel said on Saturday.

    Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, UP BJP chief and cabinet minister Swatantra Dev Singh were also present on the occasion.

    A month after its resounding victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP swept the biennial polls to the state’s legislative council by winning 33 out of 36 constituencies. One of the three local authority seats it failed to bag was in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency, where it stood a distant third.

    According to the results declared on April 12, the BJP won 24 of the 27 seats, where polling was held last week.

    In addition, the BJP had won nine of the 36 seats unopposed. Two independents and a candidate from the Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) emerged victorious in the elections. The results take the BJP past the halfway-mark in the 100-member House.

    Now, it will have 67 members in the Upper House of the state legislature. Before the polls, the BJP had 34 members in the House.

    In the 100-member Legislative Council, the BJP will now have 67 MLCs, Samajwadi Party (SP) 17 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) four. The Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the NISHAD party have one member each in the House.

    The teachers’ group has two MLCs, while the independent group (Nirdal Samooh) and Independents have one MLC each.

    Meanwhile, Adityanath had vacated his council seat recently, while former leader of opposition Ahmad Hassan of the SP died in February this year.

    The voters in this biennial election are village pradhans, members and chairmen of block development councils and zila panchayats, and corporators in urban areas.

    Members of legislative assembly (MLAs) and members of parliament (MPs) also vote.

    The Congress and the BSP did not field any candidate in the legislative council elections, making it a direct fight between the BJP and the SP.

  • BJP announces four candidates for UP Legislative Council polls

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced the names of four of its candidates for the upcoming biennial polls for the 12 seats of state Legislative Council falling vacant on January 30.

    “The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party has approved the names of Swatantra Dev Singh, Dr Dinesh Sharma, Laxman Prasad Acharya and Arvind Kumar Sharma, as candidates for the upcoming biennial election for Legislative Council in UP,” read a release issued by the BJP here on Friday.

    Swatantra Dev Singh is party’s UP chief and Dr Dinesh Sharma is one of the two Deputy Chief Ministers of the state.

    The other one is Keshav Prasad Maurya.

    While the process of filing nomination papers for council polls is under way till January 18, the voting for the dozen seats will take place on January 28. Counting of votes will be done one hour after the completion of polls.

    The total strength of UP State Council is 100. Of the 100 members, 38 are elected by the MLAs, 36 by the representatives of local bodies, 8 candidates are elected from teachers’ constituency and 8 from graduate constituency. Remaining 10 members are nominated to the upper house. The tenure of each member is that of 6 years.

    Currently, the BJP has 32 members in UP state council. On the basis of its strength in the state assembly, the party is set to win at least 10 seats in the upcoming polls on the basis of its strength in Assembly.

    The other parties including Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress have 55, 8 and 2 members respectively in the upper house.

    While Samajwadi Party can win one seat, BSP and Congress are not in a position to get their candidates through as BPS has just 18 members in the Assembly of which six had rebelled during last Rajya Sabha elections.

    Congress has 7 of which two – Aditi Singh and Rakesh Pratap Singh—both of Rae Bareli have already rebelled and sided with the BJP.

    Meanwhile, with Samajwadi Party (SP) having fielded two veteran leaders – Ahmad Hassan and Rajendra Chaudhary– as its candidates, the council elections have turned into a hot contest for the 12th seat.

    Twelve seats need to be filled in the Council, but the SP on its own strength — it has 48 MLAs, including Shivpal Yadav, the estranged uncle of party chief Akhilesh Yadav — can secure only one.

    By nominating a second candidate, it has made it an open game and would need the support of MLAs from other parties and even its rival BSP.

    The 12th seat would be hotly contested, setting the stage for rebellions and changing configurations and alliances as the State heads toward polls in 2022. The BSP has 18 MLAs on paper but at least half-a-dozen of them had rebelled against it in favour of the SP, bringing down its operative strength to 12.

    However, all eyes would be on which way the BSP MLAs would swing, as the party on its own cannot win any MLC seat, or if the party would field a candidate and expect support from the BJP, which would have several legislators to spare for the extra seat in case it fields only 10.

    After the rebellion by her MLAs, BSP chief Mayawati had taken the vow in November that she would ensure the defeat of the SP candidate in council polls even if she had to vote for the BJP. The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party of Om Prakash Rajbhar, which was an ally of the BJP till 2019 but now a staunch opponent, has four MLAs, including Rajbhar himslef.

    MLA Vijay Mishra, who had contested from Bhadohi on a ticket of the Nishad Party, a BJP ally, is in jail after he was booked under several charges by the government.

    Three Independents, including Kunda MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, Aman Mani Tripathi from Maharajganj and Vinod Saroj from Pratapgarh may extend support to the BJP.