by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Corporate, Corporate finance, Corporate Governance, Economy, Finance, News, Politics
New Delhi : The BJP on Wednesday attacked the Congress-led UPA government for blindly giving loans and weakening the banks due to which their losses increased from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 53,000 crore, and said the NDA government brought transparency and forced people to repay their loans.
“Swachh Bharat Mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not restricted only to the cleanliness of courtyards but is also about the cleanliness in our economic system,” Union Minister Piyush Goyal told a press conference here.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said that after assuming the office in 2014, the Modi government inherited an extremely fragile banking sector.
“But the Prime Minister and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley took a wise decision not to bring any such white paper and they responsibly ran the government and brought sustainable solution to only strengthen the economy,” Goyal said.
Slamming the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for giving loans without doing the fact-check of projects, Goyal said: “The UPA government started distributing loans from 2006 and the procedure went on till 2014. The bank losses increased from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 53,000 crore in those years.”
“Due to blindly giving of loans overcapacity was created,” he said.
Citing example of the Indian Bank, Goyal said: “Same situation of the non-performing assets (NPAs) was prevalent when Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji’s government had come to power. And at that time, he brought the transparency and the Indian Bank is running in profit.”
“And today, we have also brought transparency in the NPA loans and tried to resolve the entire mess that Congress gave us,” he said.
Attacking the Congress-led government, Goyal said: “UPA blindly gave out loans and weakened the banks, but the Modi government ushered in transparency and forced all the responsible individuals to repay the loans.”
“In case they couldn’t repay the loans, we tried to resolve through Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code,” he said.
The Railway and Coal Minister also said that during the UPA government, a lot of big people took loans without taking into account the responsibility that comes along with it.
“But it is Modi government which has acted tough with these people and forced them to pay back,” he said.
Goyal further said that the strictness of the government also led to the implementation of the Fugitive Law, under which the properties of the defaulters are attached.
This is the first government which has taken strict action against the rich people to repay loan, he underlined.
Citing the achievements of his government, Goyal said: “Our government implemented the Benami Act. We brought GST instead of 40 different taxes,” the BJP leader added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Manohar Parrikar
By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar,
Panaji : As colourful clay idols of Lord Ganesh are ushered into Hindu homes in Goa ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi, the symbolic significance of the deity, as a remover of obstacles and a god of new beginnings, may well dwell on the minds of state leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The party’s top-rung leaders are battling a crisis of loyalty between their party and the ailing high priest of the BJP in Goa, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who in the past has cleared innumerable political obstacles and ushered new beginnings for the party and its cadre. The 62-year-old former Defence Minister’s persisting illness is now threatening to weigh heavy on the fortunes of his party as well as the BJP-led coalition government that he heads.
Parrikar returned from the US — for the third time in six months — after yet another round of treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer last week, but has failed to attend office.
The question of whether and who will replace Parrikar is still not a subject for on-record conversations for BJP leaders like state party General Secretary Sadanand Shet Tanavde and South Goa MP Narendra Savoikar, who insist that “there is no question of a change in leadership”. But in the sanctuary of an off-record conversation, there is anxiety, anguish and worry — both for Parrikar’s failing health as well as the gaining perception that the Goa BJP and the government are virtually leaderless entities.
There appears to be neither hope, nor a consensus, among the party’s senior leadership about who could potentially replace Parrikar for now, especially since his health is worsening, although the Chief Minister’s Office as well as BJP spokespersons insist that the ailing leader is recovering just fine.
Last month, perhaps Parrikar’s only peer in the Goa BJP in terms of longevity and acceptability among cadre, Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Naik, made the first attempt to spark a conversation about “alternative leadership” in Goa, while conceding to a crisis. But within a matter of hours of his presser, a planned trip to Delhi to meet the party High Command by Naik himself and other top party functionaries was called off, after some leaders met Parrikar, who was admitted to a Mumbai hospital.
Since then, Naik too toes the line of “no question of leadership change”. Now that the cry for leadership change has been swiftly squelched, the question is now limited to sincere, but muffled murmurs among BJP leaders, who feel that political ground beneath them is slipping, in the face of a series of scandals — the inaction against those exposed for using carcinogenic agent formalin to preserve fish in a seafood-loving state and the never-ending mining ban and the seeming lack of effort by the state government to overcome it, being the two most significant.
It is not that there aren’t options.
One of the few propped up include Speaker Pramod Sawant, who Parrikar, ignoring protocol, had handpicked to lead the government during the state Independence Day parade.
Alliance partners Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and the Goa Forward Party have also been sounded out or have pushed for merging their legislative units into the BJP as a pre-condition for the top chair, according to sources.
Last week, Goa’s political circles were in a tizzy about former Chief Minister and Congress MLA Digambar Kamat — a favourite of the influential mining lobby — along with other Congress MLAs joining the BJP with the Chief Ministerial berth as a prize for the coup. But Kamat, who on a clear winter day in February 2005 quit the BJP to join the Congress complaining of “suffocation” within the saffron party, has now formally said that no such move was on the cards.
Former Goa Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Subhash Velingkar, who has groomed the top rung of BJP leadership, including Parrikar, Naik and state BJP president Vinay Tendulkar, blames Parrikar for the lack of credible second-rung leaders.
“He (Parrikar) has ensured that there are no second-rung leaders. Laxmikant Parsenkar (former CM), Rajendr Arlekar (Speaker) and Naik have been systematically sidelined, which is the cause of this crisis. Leadership change right now is imperative,” Velingkar told IANS.
One would wonder if Ganesh Chaturthi, with all its inherent symbolism, would usher in a new beginning for the BJP in Goa or, at least for now, clear up the obstacles.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, News, Politics
Ramachandra Guha
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : Historian Ramachandra Guha, who has penned a monumental 1,100-page biography of Mahatma Gandhi, says that he finds double standards in the respect that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), accord to the Father of the Nation nowadays.
“The RSS particularly is very ambivalent about Gandhi. When Gandhi was alive, the RSS actively disliked him. They were absolutely opposed to equal rights for Muslims. In their list of heroes, Gandhi ranks very low… Through the 50s and 60s, they paid very less attention to him and his teachings. From the late 60s onwards, his name started appearing in their programmes,” Guha told IANS in an interview here.
His book, “Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World” (Penguin/Rs 999/ 1,129 pages), charts Gandhi’s story from the time he left South Africa to his dramatic assassination in 1948. While the vast majority of the book is dedicated to chronicling Gandhi’s life, times and controversies, Guha spends 30-odd pages in tracing the presence of “Gandhi in Our Time”, the book’s epilogue.
“There are clearly some aspects of Gandhi’s philosophies that are unacceptable to the RSS. And Mr (Narendra) Modi may have picked them up as an RSS worker. Today, he invokes Gandhi from time to time but it is not clear whether it is instrumental, tactical, or a clear departure from how the Sangh Parivar views Gandhi. At best, I would say that the Sangh Parivar views Gandhi with ambivalence, and when he was alive they did just the same,” said the 60-year-old historian, known for highly acclaimed books such as “India after Gandhi” and “Gandhi Before India”.
In the last section of his book, Guha notes that the RSS and the BJP profess respect for Gandhi in public in the context of his formal standing as the Father of the Nation. “At the same time, they seek to diminish his stature by elevating their own heroes,” he points out, before sharing examples such as the installation of V.D Savarkar’s portrait in the Central Hall of Parliament in 2003 during the BJP’s first spell in power at the Centre.
He noted that most of the attacks on Gandhi on social media today come from the Hindu-right. Guha said that Gandhi would particularly be “disappointed by polarisation of religious sentiments” and “the victimisation of minorities”.
“I think Gandhi would disown even the Congress party of today because he clearly did not believe in dynastic politics,” Guha quipped.
The St. Stephens graduate, however, noted that Gandhi’s philosophies and values are alive in many social, environmental and feminist movements.
“His philosophies are alive in many citizen-action programmes but certainly not in politics,” he maintained.
Guha said that there was no particular pull for the historian in chronicling Gandhi’s life in such detail, and with extensive research that demanded sourcing archival materials from museums and libraries in several countries, apart from the fact that “for any historian of modern India, Gandhi is certainly the most influential and most controversial figure”.
He shared that even in his earlier works on the environmental movement and India’s democracy, Gandhi’s influence was visible.
“I thought I must settle my account and write a full-fledged biography of him. It is about Gandhi’s life, times and controversies and I think may be after a few years I may write a book on what Gandhi means today to different kinds of people and why does he still evoke so much opposition, not only from the Right but also from the Left.
“Essentially, it is a detailed account of Gandhi’s life, based on some rare archival records. I learnt a lot myself about Gandhi, his times and our country during the course of researching and writing this book and I hope younger readers will also learn something from it,” Guha said.
The book is due to be released on September 11 in the Capital.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Archana Sharma,
Jaipur : A 25-page chargesheet filed by the police on Friday in the Rakbar lynching case has created a fresh controversy with Ramgarh BJP MLA Gyandev Ahuja saying that ‘gaurakshaks’ will challenge it in the court as “it does not say a word” about “cow smugglers” and the policemen charged with dereliction of duty.
Rakbar Khan was killed on the intervening night of July 20-21 in Lalawandi village of Ramgarh after being beaten up by a mob on suspicion of cow smuggling. Later Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria had said that the victim seemed to have died in police custody.
A badly injured Rakbar was taken to a police station from where he was shifted to a hospital after over three hours of the incident. He was later declared brought dead.
The Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court of Alwar on July 24 had ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident and referred the case to Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM), Rajgarh, for investigation.
Ahuja on Saturday termed the chargesheet as one-sided as it “fails” to mention about the suspended cops and the cow smugglers.
“This fraud chargesheet shall be taken to court by local gaurakshaks,” he said. “Some people from Ramgarh have called me to discuss legal matter, but as I am out of town, they will take the case to the court,” he said.
“The chargesheet is injustice to those innocents who have been held accused for their only mistake that they alerted the police and got the cow smugglers arrested,” said Ahuja.
The chargesheet says three persons — Paramjeet Singh, Dharmednra Yadav and Naresh — have been booked under Section 302 for murder, Section 323 (causing hurt) and 341 (wrongful restraint).
On Saturday Ashok Chouhan, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Alwar, said that as the police is under investigation, their role is not mentioned in the chargesheet.
(Archana Sharma can be contacted at arachana.g@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday decided to defer its organisational elections to pave the way for Amit Shah to continue as President until the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
“Organisational elections are a vast exercise and it takes time too. All the workers get involved in it. So, a discussion is going on to defer the organisational polls until the 2019 Lok Sabha polls are completed,” West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh told reporters here at the sidelines of two-day National Executive meet.
Sources said that the issue was discussed at the office bearers, state BJP chiefs and General Secretary (Organisation) of the states meeting held under the chairmanship of Shah and a resolution, in this regard, will be passed by the National Executive.
The office bearers meeting takes place before inauguration of the National Executive to set its agenda.
According to the party constitution, any eligible member can hold the post of President for two-consecutive terms of three-years each.
Shah was elected unopposed as the party president on January 24, 2016, for a second term, this time for a full tenure of three years. He had earlier completed Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s interrupted tenure as President from July 2014. His second term will end on January 26, 2019.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Shah was incharge of Uttar Pradesh where the BJP won 73 out of total 80 seats. After Rajnath Singh became Home Minister in the Narendra Modi government, Shah was apoointed BJP President in July 2014.
Briefing reporters about the office bearers meeting, BJP Secretary Rahul Sinha quoted Shah as saying that the party will contest the 2019 polls on the performance of the Modi government and strength of organisation.
“The opposition parties are trying to spread confusion among the people but they will not succeed. We will win 2019 Lok Sabha polls with a bigger margin,” Sinha said.
He said there are 22 crore beneficiaries of the central government’s schemes and it has been decided that 9 crore party workers will reach out to them.
“Their (workers) responsibility would be to take these beneficiaries to the polling centres,” Sinha said, adding that party’s booth level workers has been given responsibility to take voters out from their houses to polling centres.
Prime Minister Modi will address the National Executive on Sunday afternoon.
—IANS
