by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : A day after the Maharashtra ATS arrested three men affiliated to radical Hindu outfits for plotting terror attacks, senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Saturday asked if the RSS and BJP would condemn those outfits.
“Maharashtra ATS announced the arrest of three men affiliated to radical Hindu outfits. Who rules Maharashtra? The BJP. Hindu, Muslim or any other religion, radicalism is radicalism. Terror is terror. There is no purpose in burying one’s head in the sand,” said Chidambaram on Twitter.
“Will the RSS and BJP condemn those who are plotting and planning terror attacks?” he asked.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Friday claimed to have foiled a terrorist attempt to strike in different parts of the state following the arrest of three persons and seizure of at least 20 crude bombs and expolsives and material used in bomb-making.
Official sources said the first to be arrested early Friday was Hindu Janjagran Samiti (HJS) activist Vaibhav Raut from his home in Nala Sopara, Palghar district.
Later, his accomplice Sharad Kalaskar was arrested from there by the ATS teams, which were accompanied by a dog squad and forensics experts.
A third right-wing activist Sudhnava Gondhalekar — allegedly linked to Shri Shiv Pratisthan — was arrested from Pune.
The sources said that the accused planned to carry out terror hits in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur and Satara districts in the coming few days.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Sanjay Nirupam
By Maeeshat News,
Mumbai: Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam today attacked the Prime Minister as the latter visited the city to address the 56th convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Technology- Bombay (IIT-B) and encourage the students while a 12-year-old girl in the city’s BMC School died of suspected side-effects of a deworming exercise and consumption of iron and folic acid tablets just ahead of the PM’s visit to the city.
Sanjay Nirupam said, “PM Modi and the Govt led by him has always turned a blind eye towards the poor. They are the ‘suit boot ki sarkaar’ and this attitude of theirs has been reflected in every activity they have carried out so far. As stated by the Prime Minister, the nation is proud of the IIT’s. But he has completely forgotten about the downtrodden and those in need. The lives of many young minds are risked everyday due to the negligence and carelessness of the BJP Govt. The Prime Minister said that new ideas come from young minds. But who is taking care of those who are young but unfortunately poor because the Prime Minister is clearly interested in addressing the rich”.
“We expected him to visit the family who has lost their daughter only because of what can only be called a clear case of negligence by the BJP Govt. But he didn’t, thus disappointing them and every common man in the city”, added Mr. Nirupam.
14-year-old Chandni Shaikh studying in Govandi’s Sanjay Nagar Municipal Urdu School fell ill and died on Friday. The deceased, along with hundreds of other students, had been given iron and folic acid tablets as a part of a Union Govt programme on August 6.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Rajasthan BJP chief Madan Lal Saini
By Archana Sharma,
Jaipur : He is a farmer who comes from a very simple background; he loves ploughing his fields and has been travelling by a state roadways bus from Jaipur to Sikar, his hometown. In Sikar, he wakes up at 4 a.m. to finish his household chores, like washing clothes, on his own.
When this humble man was picked as the Rajasthan Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief on June 30, it literally sent shock waves in the state as there were several prominent names in the fray. However, BJP president Amit Shah finally picked Madan Lal Saini.
Soon after his appointment, there were whispers that Saini was being made a fall guy by the BJP sensing defeat in the assembly elections later this year. Even Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot commented that Saini has been made a “sacrificial lamb” and was given a task which no one was willing to take up in the face of what many term as imminent defeat.
However, unaffected by all such claims, Saini, told IANS in an interview: “I am not here to become a sacrificial lamb. I am here to wipe out the opposition. In fact, time shall prove who has become a sacrificial lamb in the coming elections.”
The BJP had appeared more like a headless party for over two months after its president Ashok Parnami resigned on April 16.
Between April 16 and June 30, the names of proposed candidates were being exchanged between leaders in Delhi and Jaipur. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje visited Delhi frequently to select the right candidate for the coveted post.
Meanwhile, with Saini’s appointment, things seem to be stablising as he has swung into action sensing the criticality of his position. He is busy forming his own team, strategising and charting a way forward for the BJP.
Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his recent visit to Jaipur, had words of praise for Saini.
“I have worked with Madan Lal Saini-ji. I have also done many organisational tours with him,” he said, adding that Saini had tremendous knowledge of organisational matters.
On his part, Saini said: “Modiji took me back to the days when I was rendering my services to BJP’s Kisaan Morcha as national general secretary. At that time, Modiji was BJP’s national general secretary. We both shared the same headquarters in the same building; Modiji also shared a Sangh background and so did I. As we had the same association’s backing, ideology and thoughts… we often used to meet during tea time.”
“Thereafter, I became the Rajasthan in-charge for the Sardar Patel Sangrahan Samiti and Modiji was Gujarat Chief Minister in those days. He often used to discuss the progress of pending tasks with me. At that time, neither did I think of him becoming the Prime Minister nor did I dream of becoming the party president of Rajasthan,” Saini said.
“But then, this is how our party works; we promote our grassroots leaders to reach the top if they work with sincerity, honesty and dedication,” he added.
Interestingly, during Modi’s visit in Jaipur on July 7, Saini was standing a little behind the other leaders. Observing this, Modi indicated to him to take step forward and shook hands with him.
Saini said he was confident of attaining the 180-plus target set by the BJP in the coming elections to the 200-member house, in which it currently has 160 seats. Reminded of the recent losses during bypolls in Alwar, Ajmer and Mandalgarh, he retorted: “Have you seen a tiger? Before attacking his prey, he takes two steps back and then takes a leap forward. So is the case with the BJP. We went two steps back only to invigorate ourselves to take a big leap and wipe out the opposition.”
Speaking about the infighting in the BJP cadre on caste lines, he said this was also true of the opposition Congress, with three chief ministerial candidates — Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and C.P. Joshi — in the fray.
“They are busy portraying themselves as CM candidates. We have resolved all our crises,” Saini added.
Asked about party workers’ claims that Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje still had an attitude and portrays herself as a queen, Saini countered: “I have seen Vasundhara-ji visiting rural areas to redress the grievances of people. Had she been a queen, she could have assigned the task to any of her party members. But she herself is taking the lead, which is the task of the leader.”
On the lynching cases in Alwar and Bharatpur, he said people should learn to respect the religious sentiments of different communities. “This is the only way we can retain communal harmony in the nation.”
“In fact, we should work to ensure our country has a strong presence on the global map. As we discuss America’s viewpoint on significant developments of the world, we want the world to discuss India’s viewpoint on crucial subjects in the coming days and the party is working to accomplish this aim,” Saini said.
(Archana Sharma can be contacted at archana.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amulya Ganguli,
Ever since the former saffron stalwart, Arun Shourie, created a stir in the 1980s with his articles on illegal immigrants in Assam comprising Bangladeshi Muslims, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has seen the issue as an excellent one to furbish its nationalist credentials by portraying the “aliens” as a security threat. The depiction also fitted in with the party’s anti-Muslim worldview.
The latest row over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state can be regarded, therefore, as a continuation of the anti-foreigner agitation conducted by the All Assam Student Union (AASU) the 1980s although the lead has been taken this time by the BJP while its ally in the state government, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which is the AASU’s successor, is maintaining a low profile.
However, a solution to the problem of “foreigners” is not simple. Since Assam has long been a province of immigrants with the tea plantation labourers having been brought in from the tribal areas in Bihar by the colonial rulers and the “hardy” peasants of East Bengal being encouraged to settle down in the state in the pre-partition period to cultivate land, Assam has become a mosaic of various communities, including its own tribals.
Untangling the medley of the diverse ethnic groups is fraught, therefore, with the likelihood of creating tension leading to violence although Mamata Banerjee’s outbursts about a “civil war” and a “bloodbath” are an overstatement. Her objective is obviously to consolidate her own pro-Muslim and “liberal” supporters in West Bengal and elsewhere in the context of her prime ministerial ambitions.
However, it is the near-certainty of a volatile outcome of the detection and deportation of the “foreigners” mandated by the Assam accord of 1985 which has come in the way of implementing the central point of the agreement. This “failure” was not so much the result of the Congress’s “appeasement” of Muslims, as the BJP alleges, as the need to proceed with caution.
The same advice is now being given by the Supreme Court, under whose aegis the enumeration of the citizens is being conducted. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, too, has been favouring circumspection with the assurance that all opportunities will be given to the four million people excluded from the NRC to prove their bona fides.
In contrast, BJP president Amit Shah has virtually disenfranchised the four million by dubbing them “ghuspetias” (infiltrators) while the Advocate General has told the Supreme Court that their biometric details will be collected so that they may not settle down in other states. What is more, the BJP leaders are talking in terms of similar headcounts in other states, especially West Bengal, which is believed to harbour a substantial number of Bangladeshi infiltrators.
It appears, therefore, that even before the NRC’s final report has been prepared, the BJP is seeing the exercise as a means of raising the fear of the nation being overrun by aliens. The party evidently believes that such charges will help it in the forthcoming elections while its opponents seem to believe that the fear will make the minorities support the “secular” parties. To both the groups, the hapless individuals are nothing but electoral fodder.
On the other hand, there is no sign that the BJP is willing to recognise the difficulty of weeding out the illegals from the other citizens without creating a social upheaval. The task is made all the more difficult by the problem of distinguishing the Muslims of Bangladesh from the Muslims of Assam since there is little difference between them about their dialect and lifestyle, especially when the paper documents are not always reliable even where they are available.
To make matters worse, the focus of the authorities on those who speak Bengali tends to frighten even the Bengali Hindus in view of the fact that there had been a series of anti-Bengali riots in Assam in the 1960s. Not surprisingly, a section of the Bengali Hindus fled to West Bengal in search of safety during the anti-foreigner agitation of 1979-85.
The BJP also pays no heed to Bangladesh’s summary rejection of the possibility of accepting those whom India will like to evict since such an admission will detract from its political propaganda.
Yet, since the presence of the “aliens” cannot be wished away, a group of ministers (GoM) under the chairmanship of then Home Minister L.K. Advani had proposed in 2001 that they be given work permits, which will be their only valid document. As such, they will not be able to vote and cannot constitute the “vote bank” of any party.
Since illegal immigrants stoke the xenophobia of “nationalist” parties, it is a card which they are reluctant to forsake. It is not in India alone that the card is played. The compulsions are the same in Donald Trump’s America and among pro-Brexit Britons, not to mention the far right parties in Europe. The NRC controversy is likely to persist, therefore, at least till the 2019 general election.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Shreehari Paliath,
Mumbai : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or a political alliance it is a part of, governs 18 of 29 states in India, home to nearly 63% of the countrys population. But only one BJP-ruled state, Himachal Pradesh, made it to the list of five best-governed states in India, according to a new study.
The public affairs index (PAI) 2018, developed by Public Affairs Centre (PAC), a Bengaluru-based think tank, evaluated state governance using 10 broad themes, 30 focus subjects, and 100 indicators, according to its website. These include law and order, economic freedom, environment, transparency and so on. This is the third edition of the index.
The top five states in the order of their ranking are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. Of these, Kerala is governed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front, Tamil Nadu by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Telangana by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and Karnataka by a Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress combine.
The top 10 list includes all the southern states — none of which are governed by the BJP. Four states in this list are governed by the BJP and two by its chief opponent, the Congress (singly or in a coalition). Andhra Pradesh, ruled by the Telugu Desam Party, was placed ninth.
These ranks are significant because BJP came to power on the promise of delivering development through its sabka saath, sabka vikas (development for all) campaign.
“The election manifesto, which revolves around the core issues of good governance and development, discusses in detail the party’s focus at tackling the concerns of price rise, corruption, black money and policy paralysis,” noted the prime minister’s website, narendramodi.in, the day his party’s election manifesto was released on April 7, 2014.
The PAI index has ranked 30 states, including Delhi. The aggregated rankings of the the top two states — Kerala and Tamil Nadu — have remained the same over three years.
“These [southern] states have been doing well historically,” Narayana A, faculty on governance at Azim Premji University, told IndiaSpend. “It may not be the presence or absence of the BJP that matters so much. The nature of politics may be a factor like the mobilisation of other backward classes and scheduled castes states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu.”
Himachal Pradesh topped the list of small states with population less than 20 million. Of the 12 small states that made it to the list, BJP heads, or is a part of, the government in eight. Goa and Tripura made it to the top five. The non-BJP exception is the Congress-led government in Mizoram, placed third after Goa and Sikkim.
Among the 18 large states (with population over 20 million), the top four were south Indian states, followed by BJP-governed Gujarat and Maharashtra. Bihar languished at the bottom in the list of large states and the overall aggregated ranking.
Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh were the other states at the bottom of the PAI index for large states. All the bottom four large states are BJP-governed.
BJP-governed states, led by Gujarat, have most economic freedom. “The theme of economic freedom explores the effort undertaken by the state governments to improve business environment in the state,” the report said.
Maharashtra was ranked second in economic freedom. Telangana, placed third before Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, was the only state without a BJP government in this category. Bihar was ranked last among the large states on this aspect.
“BJP has come to symbolise the economic and political right. They want to present the party as one which promotes business which makes it easy for investments to come in,” said Narayana.
The southern states may not do as well as Gujarat in ease of doing or promoting business but Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have done well in attracting foreign direct investment, Narayana pointed out. States like Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh just provide land or speedy clearances but that makes for only “selective good governance”, he said.
Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra (in that order) have the best record in managing crime and maintaining law and order among the large states. Haryana and Jharkhand rank the last in this list. The top five safest states feature two BJP-ruled states, including Gujarat, and three governed by others including West Bengal.
This theme explored violence, atrocities, and policing including indicators such as rapes, murder, dowry deaths per 100,000 population among other factors.
“It is interesting to point out that despite Kerala having a very high number of FIRs, in the matter of their disposal and conviction rate have performed well,” the report noted.
Nagaland and Goa were the best amongst small states while Delhi and Tripura were at the bottom in this list, for the last three years. Nagaland was the best performing as per the aggregated ranking of 30 states.
Delhi, governed by the Aam Aadmi Party, is placed last in the list on two counts — environment, and transparency and accountability.
Karnataka emerged as the best in the category among large states while Arunachal Pradesh was placed on top amongst small states. Gujarat fell seven notches from last three years to 10 and Telangana which has improved its position from 17 last year to 7 this year,” the report noted.
Karnataka and Haryana were the top two states on the transparency scale. Kerala fell eight places to 11th among the large states in this respect between 2017 and 2018. But Telangana’s ranking improved seven spots to 4th during the same period.
(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Shreehari Paliath is an analyst. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
—IndiaSpend/IANS
