by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Amid high political drama, the Supreme Court early on Thursday didn’t stop B.S. Yeddyurappa from taking oath as Karnataka’s new Chief Minister but the legal battle for the BJP leader and his party is far from over.
After a rare midnight hearing that ran for hours, the court refused to stay the oath taking ceremony as was sought in a joint petition by the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).
“In case he is given oath in the meantime, that shall be subject to further orders of this Court and final outcome of the writ petition (by the Congress and JD-S),” said the three-judge bench, recording the proceedings of the night in the packed Room No.6.
Presiding the proceedings were Justices A.K. Sikri, S.A. Bobde and Ashok Bhushan.
Yeddyruppa took oath as planned but on Friday at 10.30 a.m. when the apex court hears the matter again, he will have to produce the two letters dated May 15 and 16 he has written to Governor Vajubhai Vala to stake his claim for government formation.
The BJP leader is said to have claimed a majority support in the letters.
But the question is how?
The Congress and JD-S had challenged Karnataka Governor Vala’s invitation to Yeddyurappa to form the government despite the BJP falling short of legislative numbers to claim majority in the 222-member Assembly. Voting was not held in two of the 224 constituencies on May 12.
The BJP won 104, the Congress 78 and the JD-S 37. Any party or grouping needs 112 members to claim majority as per the present strength of the House. The Congress and JD-S didn’t have a pre-poll alliance but cobbled together a grouping after the results threw a hung Assembly.
Together, and with a support of one BSP member and an independent, the Congress and JD-S make 117.
The Governor still invited Yeddyurappa and gave him 15 days of time to prove majority.
The Congress lashed out at the Governor’s move calling it “partisan and biased” and rushed to the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing that commenced at 2.20 a.m. and concluded at 5.30 in the morning.
During the hearing, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Congress, argued that the Governor must have invited the post-poll coalition to form government as no single party secured majority.
He questioned the 15-day time given to Yeddyurappa for proving majority, saying the Supreme Court had earlier said that “to give such time is to encourage the constitutional sin of poaching”.
In his argument that ran for more than an hour, Singhvi also cited instances of Meghalaya, Manipur, Goa, Delhi, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir as precedents of post-poll alliances being invited to form governments.
“There is only one way a party which got 104 will get 113… I heard he asked for seven days (time to prove majority) but the Governor gave 15. Elementary common sense and arithmetic go against this kind of giving of time,” Singhvi said. “Question is whether it is valid, fair or capricious.”
Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, said everything was in the realm of “speculation” as the entire matter was still “a grey area”.
Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for the BJP, questioned the urgency of the matter to hear it at midnight as if “heavens will fall if a person is sworn in the morning”.
Justice Sikri asked him on what basis was his side claiming majority in the House. “It is not a fluid situation. In view of this arithmetic, on what basis you claim majority.”
Venugopal intervened: “Everything is reversible. What is the great loss by waiting for 15 days?”
Justice Bobde countered: “That is the other point. Why wait for 15 days?”
Venugopal said it was the Governor’s decision.
The court observed that it was “preposterous” to argue that before MLAs take oath they were not amenable to anti-defection law.
“It means open invitation to horse-trading. It is preposterous (to argue) that before he (an elected MLA) takes oath as member all this (floor crossing) is allowed,” Justice Sikri told the Attorney General.
“In a case like this where the opposite side is showing 117 MLAs support, how you will have 112,” Justice Sikri asked, adjourning the hearing till Friday morning.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Shashi Tharoor
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has suffered an “irreparable and irreversible reputational damage” in the last four years, says Congress leader and former foreign diplomat Shashi Tharoor.
In the state capital to attend an event of the Indian Professional Congress — an outfit of the grand old party aimed at reaching out to professionals, the two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram said a momentum was building against the Narendra Modi government and in 2019, the general elections results were sure to go against it.
On a warm Sunday afternoon, as Tharoor spoke to IANS — before the chargesheet in Sunanda Pushkar death case was filed on Monday, he claimed the Karnataka Assembly polls were going the Congress way.
But not attaching much importance to Karnataka, which he said was just a “way station”, the 62-year-old Congress leader said that elections in Gujarat, where Congress inched “astonishingly close” to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in many constituencies, showed that the tide was now turning against the saffron camp.
The former Union Minister, who currently is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, also pointed out how defeats of the BJP in party strongholds like Gorakhpur and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh recently had rendered a body blow to the party’s dream to return to power in 2019.
“What the BJP government and Prime Minister Modi has done in the past four years in power?” he asked, slamming them on the twin issues of Goods and Service Tax (GST) and demonetisation.
“GST was a good idea, which implemented in haste and in bad taste, has affected the whole tax system,” he said while pointing out how even the best global economists had come down heavily on the GST, even calling it the most complex tax system.
“Only the ones eating out of their hands think otherwise,” said the erudite Congress Lok Sabha member, who is knowing for his quaint words and subtle expressions.
Sweating profusely due to the sweltering heat and humidity, when the diplomat-turned-politician was asked if this sweat was symbolic of the challenging task the Congress was facing to make a comeback in the state, Tharoor gave a big smile and ducked the question.
“Well there are ifs and buts here and there, but with growing resentment against the BJP-led government at the Centre and the Congress being the biggest opposition party, we are set to be the natural beneficiaries,” he said confidently.
On Monday, the Delhi Police filed charges against Tharoor in the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar, naming him as one of the accused. The charges were filed in the court of metropolitan magistrate under Indian Penal Code sections related to cruelty against a woman and abetment to suicide. Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel room in New Delhi on January 17, 2014.
In his interview he charged the Modi dispensation of rechristening the names of many schemes and welfare programmes of the Congress-led UPA governments and rolling them out as their own.
Asked to comment on whether Congress President Rahul Gandhi when pitted against Prime Minister Modi had a certain disadvantage, Tharoor was quick in his defense of the Gandhi scion, saying: “India has a parliamentary system and not a presidential one, which though has its own merits, does not fit in the Indian context.”
The Congress had its own brand of politics, while the BJP pursued the politics of one man, he said.
Asked whether it was not the “one family” brand of politics that prevailed in the Congress, he rebutted, saying that Rahul Gandhi, soon after his ascendancy. had made it clear that in Congress, every worker and leader mattered.
Coming to his favorite topic of international relations and foreign policy, the dapper Congress leader surprisingly had a back-handed pat for Modi.
“I must compliment the Prime Minister for his tireless efforts, boundless energy and personal time that he has put in the foreign policy and traveling, but sadly things have not moved beyond this.”
Sadly, he said, the foreign policy was being treated in an “episodical manner” by the NDA government, something which had given mistrust and a sense of insecurity in and around the immediate neighbourhood.
Asked how the transition from the United Nations to the hurly burly of politics in India had been when he was fielded as a Congress candidate in Kerala in 2009 and his face lighted up with a smile: “Initially it was pretty tough and I had very many stab wounds in the back and front… But that kind of has stabilized now,” he said.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, News, Online Marketing, Politics, Social Media
New Delhi : The micro-blogging platform registered over 30 lakh tweets related to Karnataka assembly polls in the past three weeks, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) garnering 51 per cent of the share of voice, Twitter announced on Wednesday.
Congress registered 42 per cent and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) seven per cent of mentions on Twitter in the April 25-May 15 period.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerged as the most mentioned personality on Twitter, while former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was the most mentioned candidate on Twitter, the company said in a statement.
“Over the past few weeks, our data shows more than three million Tweets related to the Karnataka elections, making it one of the most talked-about state elections on Twitter,” said Mahima Kaul, Head of Public Policy and Government, Twitter India.
#KarnatakaVerdict emerged as the most talked about election-related topic in the past 24 hours since Tuesday.
The most used hashtag across the election was #KarnatakaElections2018.
“Twitter is where political conversations happen and where you can see all sides of a conversation when it comes to elections,” Kaul added.
To make people aware about the importance of elections prior to Karnataka polls, Twitter had released an elections voting emoji and organised a special event called #ElectionsOnTwitter in partnership with civil society organisations and media partners.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Sachin Pilot
By Prashant Sood and Sidhartha Dutta,
New Delhi : From a historical low in 2013, the Congress has bounced back in Rajasthan with support from all communities and will oust the BJP in the assembly polls later this year, says state Congress chief Sachin Pilot, who also feels that the BJP is finding it difficult to find a state unit chief as no one wants to be a scapegoat after the assembly elections later this year.
Pilot, 40, says that caste is not the pivot around which everything works in an election and young people were now looking beyond caste while voting.
Pilot said it had been almost four weeks since the state BJP president Ashok Parnami “was made to resign”.
“And for four weeks they have not found a person to do the job because nobody wants to be a scapegoat. They know in 5-6 months, they will lose the election. For four weeks, the BJP, the party with a difference and so-called largest party in the world, is unable to find somebody who is willing to do the job of a state president. This shows the reality of the government of Rajasthan and BJP itself,” Pilot told IANS in an interview.
Taking a dig at Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, he said she had visited the national capital not to seek development funds “but to lobby for (appointment of) a state president.
“So there is obvious infighting (in BJP). There is a lack of coordination between the state and central governments, and people are suffering because of that,” he said.
Pilot said Raje has lost control over governance and there is “unemployment, agrarian distress, farmers’ suicides, atrocities against tribals and Dalits and scams relating to land and mining”.
Asked about former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s remarks, apparently aimed at him, that younger leaders should stay in the queue and those who break the line risked a premature end to their political career, Pilot referred to Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s speech at the party’s plenary in March where he had talked of breaking down walls.
“I don’t think Gehlotji was trying to attack anybody. But I do remember that speech Mr Rahul Gandhi made, where he committed himself to breaking down the walls in politics and in the Congress party. So, when the Congress president is breaking down the walls, where is the question of any line and queues?” he asked.
Asked about Gehlot’s other remark that a PCC chief should not be automatically considered as chief ministerial choice, Pilot said the party has been fighting elections under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and will do so in Rajasthan also.
“The aim and objective for all of us is to secure a mandate for the Congress and who will get what position is not a matter of concern for me or others. We are fighting as a team,” he said.
Asked about Gehlot’s appointment as a party general secretary and his remarks that he had not been separated from Rajasthan politics, Pilot said: “Even if Ashok Gehlotji wants himself to be away from Rajasthan, as party president I won’t allow him to be away from Rajasthan.”
On ticket distribution, Pilot, who was appointed state Congress chief after the party’s debacle in the 2013 assembly polls, said winnability and consensus will be the criteria and “people who have worked in the last four years to rebuild the party, their efforts will be rewarded”.
“We are focusing on booths. The fake voters that the BJP had included, we are taking them out. And we are taking the battle to the polling stations. At the right time we will declare the candidates,” he said.
Asked about the reasons for the party’s debacle in the assembly polls, he said a factor was the party not being able to translate the good work done into political dividends.
“It requires some sort of communication strategy, some sort of self-marketing, which perhaps we didn’t do well. But we lost (due) to many other reasons.”
Pilot noted that he was a MP at 26, a Union minister at 31 and made chief of the Rajasthan Congress at 35. “The party has given me so much; now it’s time for me to give back to the party,” he said.
On a query on the caste matrix, he said: “As far as caste communities are concerned, they will vote on issues and the Congress is the only party that has the capacity and the intent to carry all communities together, all castes together,” he added.
The Congress had been reduced to 21 seats in the 200-seat Assembly in the 2013 elections but won four of six assembly by-polls and the two parliamentary by-elections to Ajmer and Alwar earlier this year. The party led in all the 16 segments of two parliamentary seats.
Pilot said no ruling party in Rajasthan has lost a parliamentary by-election in the last 40 years and it showed the depth of anger against BJP across all communities and regions.
(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in and Sidhartha Dutta at sidhartha.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Bengaluru : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday urged the Election Commission to countermand the Assembly election in the Rajarajeshwari Nagar segment of the city’s southwest suburb after about 10,000 allegedly fake voter IDs were allegedly found in the locality.
“The BJP demands countermanding of elections in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in light of latest revelations of tens of thousands of fake voter IDs and empty packets of hard currency. This is Congress conspiracy to rig election in the face of their imminent defeat,” tweeted Union Human Resource Minister and the party’s in-charge for state polls Prakash Javadekar.
The state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar, addressing the reporters on late Tuesday night, said 9,746 voter cards were seized from a flat in the constituency.
“After a surprise visit was paid to a flat in Jalahalli locality (in the Rajarajeshwari constituency) nearly 9,746 voter ID cards were found. Five laptops and one printer was also found in the flat,” Kumar said.
There were over a lakh slips resembling acknowledgement slips used for adding names into the electoral rolls, the CEO said.
“On preliminary verification, these voter ID cards were found to be genuine, but the counterfoils need to be verified through investigation.”
The EC will register a First Information Report (FIR) on the matter and would take action after investigation, Kumar added.
The Assembly election across 223 constituencies of the state will be held on May 12.
Of the 225-member lower house, including one nominated, election in the Jayanagar seat in south Bangalore has been countermanded and postponed owing to the death of BJP candidate B.N. Vijaya Kumar on May 4. Votes will be counted on May 15.
—IANS
