by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Panaji: In a new twist, Goa’s Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo on Monday said that the swearing-in of the new Chief Minister, which was scheduled to be held at 11 pm at the Raj Bhavan, has been called off.
“There many things which are to be discussed among allies and BJP leaders. The swearing-in will not happen at 11 p.m. tonight,” the BJP MLA told reporters at a city resort near here.
Lobo, however, did not say whether the much-anticipated event had been called off or postponed.
An hour ago, the state government’s Information and Publicity Department had issued an message that the swearing-in ceremony for the new Chief Minister had been organised at 11 pm on Monday night at Raj Bhavan.
Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant was tipped to succeed Manohar Parrikar, who had died on Sunday evening after suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer for over a year, but there were reports that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s coalition allies – the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward – were not on board with the decision.
Political sources said that the decision to cancel the 11 pm swearing-in ceremony was taken because the ongoing discussions which were being conducted by top BJP leaders, including Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, with allied parties vis-a-vis power sharing and distribution of portfolios had prolonged.
(IANS)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Hyderabad : Controversial BJP legislator Raja Singh on Monday called for removing Indian tennis star Sania Mirza as the brand ambassador of Telangana, calling her “Pakistan’s daughter-in-law”.
The Telangana Assembly member said Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao must immediately remove Mirza as the brand ambassador in the wake of the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama that claimed the lives of 49 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers.
“We don’t need a Pakistani bahu as brand ambassador of Telangana,” said Raja Singh, who represents Goshamahal constituency in Hyderabad.
He feels that removing Sania Mirza, the wife of Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, as brand ambassador will send a strong message to Pakistan over its involvement in terror activities.
Raja Singh said when the Central government was taking a series of tough measures against Pakistan, the state government should also take the step to convey strong sentiments of the Indian citizens to Pakistan.
The BJP leader suggested that the state government could appoint any other player as its brand ambassador.
“We have cricketer V.V.S. Laxman and badminton stars Saina Nehwal or P.V. Sindhu, who are also from Telangana and who have brought many laurels to the state and to the country,” he added.
Telangana had named Sania Mirza as the state’s brand ambassador in July 2014. Then BJP leader in Telangana Assembly K. Laxman had termed Mirza as “non-local” and “Pakistan’s daughter-in-law” questioning her credentials to represent the state.
Reacting to Laxman’s comment, the tennis ace had said that though married to a Pakistani, she would remain an Indian until the end.
Married to Shoaib Malik in 2010, Sania Mirza gave birth to a baby boy in 2018.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Finance, Investing, News, Pensions & Sipps, Politics
Agartala : The BJP-led government in Tripura will continue with all 30 of the pension schemes introduced by the previous Left Front government that is benefiting 4,05,175 people, a Minister said here on Monday.
An amount of Rs 26.78 crore is being spent every month providing 33 different social pension schemes, three of which are sponsored by the Centre.
“Some vested interest quarters are campaigning that the 30 social pension schemes introduced by the previous government would be stopped. This is absolutely false,” state’s Social Welfare and Social Education Minister Santana Chakma told IANS.
The previous Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) dominated Left Front government had introduced the 30 pension schemes, ranging Rs 600 to Rs 2,500 per month, for the people belonging to various economically weaker sections, destitute, unmarried and unemployed women.
The Centre also has been providing three monthly allowances and pensions, including Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme. The state government has shares in all the three union government schemes.
“We have just undertaken a state-wide verification of the beneficiaries. The verification process would be completed by this month end. No body should be panicky about this ongoing verification process.
“No eligible beneficiary would be removed from any of the scheme,” she added.
“The verification of beneficiaries was launched to identify the genuine recipient under these 33 schemes not to deprive any legitimate pensioner.”
She said the Bharatiya Janata Party-Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (BJP-IPFT) coalition government has been working with hundred per cent transparency.
The minister’s statement comes after the opposition Left parties the alleged that the BJP led alliance government has been trying to either curtail the names of beneficiaries or stop the schemes as these were introduced by the previous Left government.
“In the name of verification and other excuses, the BJP government with the political motive, is keen to deprive a large number of people from getting benefits from the 33 social pension schemes,” Left Front Convener Bijan Dhar told the media on Sunday.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, Politics
By Saeed Naqvi,
The ghastly news from Kashmir did cast a shadow, otherwise Lucknow has had a festive February. The first week was filled with the five-day annual Sanatkada jamboree with fabled Baradari as the festooned focal point. While the mood still lingered, the city found itself riveted on Priyanka Gandhi’s roadshow with her brother and Congress President Rahul Gandhi in tow.
Those who had expressed doubts about her ability for hard work must have gasped: she interviewed candidates all night. Never mind if many of them did not come out with flying colours: some did not know basic facts about their respective constituencies.
Diplomats, who would normally send their Indian staff to study the local mood, have turned up themselves. While the Congress office at the Mall Avenue is crawling with aspiring netas, Taj hotel, where both Priyanka and Jyotiraditya Scindia are staying, has enough security to annoy the hotel’s other guests. Has security obstructed Priyanka kicking off the campaign with a dip in the Ganga during Kumbh? Congress choreographers had also floated the idea that a visit to a temple in Srinagar would authenticate her Kashmiri lineage. Who knows, that expedition may still be undertaken.
If arithmetic alone were to determine electoral outcomes, the Samajwadi Party-plus-Bahujan Samaj Party arrangement in Uttar Pradesh is formidable. But the chemistry of their workers at the constituency level has been adversarial.
True, grassroots workers are grappling with instructions from their leaders to tone down their animosities. But there are other complications, particularly in Akhilesh Yadav’s camp. His uncle, Shivpal Yadav, is not reconciled to Akhilesh Yadav’s unbridled control over the SP apparatus. So he has opened his own shop to trade his dwindling clout at the grassroots with anybody eager to damage the SP-BSP alliance. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is so flushed with funds that it will loosen all its purse strings for Shivpal Yadav’s anti-Akhilesh mission. The choice is Shivpal Yadav’s: pocket the money or waste it.
Meanwhile, Mulayam Singh Yadav, founder of SP, is so torn between his son and younger brother that he waffles something in favour of both alternately. In Parliament last week he left Sonia Gandhi, like everyone else, in a state of wonder. Making eye contact with a grinning Narendra Modi he said: “May you come back to power”. The ear-to-ear smile on Mulayam Singh Yadav’s face was interpreted by most as a clue to a deep understanding. He has so far been protected from the Enforcement Directorate.
“We shall not be on the back foot,” was Rahul Gandhi’s reaction to the insult heaped on the Congress by SP-BSP distributing nearly all the 80 seats among themselves, leaving two each for the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). He virtually advanced his proprietary claim on Uttar Pradesh by announcing that his party would contest all 80 seats.
In making this announcement Rahul Gandhi fell back once again on a delusion the party has nursed ever since it dropped to 140 seats after the Babari Masjid debacle. It is aching to revive. It is well nigh impossible for this desire to be fulfilled. A political party waxes and wanes, revives and loses, is up and down alternatively only in a two party system. In a country with 31 states, each with its own shade of politics, the seesaw model cannot work. The Congress must recognize the reality of a federal India. Otherwise it will continue to reset its target. Let me explain.
For 2019, the declared aim of all parties is to remove the BJP. Mamata Banerjee has grasped the reality. At the meeting called by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Jantar Mantar Road, she said that all regional parties must fight the BJP from their respective states and regions. “The Congress should fight from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh – states where it has shown that it is strong.”
The Congress is uncomfortable being so circumscribed. It will not recover from a hangover of years long past when it was the only political party. In its origins, it represented diverse interests federated behind a programme for freedom. Subsequently, almost every political party came out of the Congress womb. Once Krishna Menon, Congressman closest to the Communists, and S.K. Patil, far right capitalist, fought the 1957 election on Congress ticket from different districts of Bombay (Mumbai).
In time, disparate interests, glued together, splintered. In 1967, eight Indian states had non-Congress governments. But the Congress remained in power in the centre for a simple reason: its social base remained relatively cohesive. But when in 1990, with Mandal Commission report giving reservations in government jobs to the OBCs whipping up the tempo of caste politics in North India, the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation was dusted up to promote Hindu consolidation. This would minimize the settlement at the lower reaches of the caste pyramid. Hindu consolidation would be best affected by bringing out the “other” in bolder relief. I have always believed that in India communal politics is a strategy to manage caste upheaval.
The unease in Hindu-Muslim relations since Partition exploded into full blown communalism in the 90s. It peaked with the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, the blame for which the minorities placed at the Congress Prime Minister’s door. The Muslim voter left the Congress en masse. In the 1996 elections, the Congress was down to its lowest Lok Sabha tally ever — 140 seats. It hovered around that figure, leapt to 206 in 2009 (for a range of reasons) and dived to 44 in 2014. Post 9/11 global Islmophobia was a Godsend to Hindutva, compelling the Congress into temple hopping and relentless cow worshiping for sheer survival.
There are reasons to believe that the BJP will not be able to repeat its 2014 performance in 2019. The nation is, therefore, headed for two distinct coalitions, facing each other across the aisle. One coalition will be led by the BJP. It is to make sure that it alone leads the other coalition that the Congress is playing risky games in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and to some extent West Bengal. In these states it is either threatening or fighting formations implacably opposed to the BJP.
(Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
On board Vande Bharat Express : Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Friday said the high-speed Vande Bharat Express is the first step to heralding the bullet train in India.
“I am very happy that Vande Bharat (formerly Train 18) is an icon of our engineering efficiency and skills,” the former Union Minister told IANS on board the train that touches 160 km an hour, the fastest on Indian Railways.
“This train passes through Kanpur, which I represent in the Lok Sabha now, Prayagraj and Benares which I had represented in the past. This train originates from Delhi, my place of birth,” Joshi said.
He said he was also happy that this train was a culmination of the seeding of a vision for a future railway system which may lead to the development of a bullet train that will be completely designed and manufactured in India.
“We should be prepared to face the challenge and make improvements in our engineering skills and economies of scale so that its acceptability is for all. The fares should be acceptable for the poor sections too.
“The safety of the system should also be ensured because we should be careful about the safety on the system keeping in mind terror attacks like (in) Pulwama. Therefore, we should be careful about protection of the railway system,” he said.
Joshi also said that all political parties should take a unified approach on combating Pakistan-sponsored terrorism without trying to score political points.
“I feel the country must take a unified stand on whatever decisions (are taken) to combat Pakistan-sponsored terrorism without any difference of opinion. All parties should devise a common approach and wholeheartedly join them.
“No place should be allowed to support terrorism and bigotry and no one should try to draw political benefit at the cost of the country’s interest,” Joshi told IANS on board the train that links New Delhi and Varanasi and was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday morning.
Joshi was reacting to the worst ever terror attack on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday that left 45 CRPF troopers dead at the hands of a suicide bomber in Pulwama district.
Joshi described Thursday’s incident as a ghastly attack which deserved condemnation of not only in India but everyone across the world to create an international bulwark for crushing terrorist elements.
“These are aspects of international consolidation of democratic and peaceful societies.”
Second, Joshi said, terrorist elements and tendencies should be identified in the country and such platforms should be demolished.
For this, psychological efforts were needed to change the mindset of people, especially youth, to create abhorrence for violence.
—IANS
