by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Chennai : Hours after a BJP office in Tamil Nadu was attacked, party National Secretary H. Raja on Wednesday expressed regret for his Facebook post that said statues of rationalist movement founder E.V.Ramasamy or Periyar would be razed to the ground in the state.
Early on Wednesday a petrol bomb was hurled at a BJP office around 500 km from here in Coimbatore by unidentified persons.
Later in a fresh Facebook post on Wednesday, Raja expressed his heartfelt regret for his Tuesday’s post, which he claimed was a message posted by his social media administrator without his permission and hence he had removed it.
Raja expressed regret if his post had hurt anybody’s feelings. According to him, damaging the statues of Ramasamy is not agreeable.
The message that was posted and later removed said: “Who is Lenin? What is the connection between him (Lenin) and India? What connection between communism and India?
“Lenin’s statue was broken down in Tripura. Today it is Lenin’s statue in Tripura and tomorrow it will be the statue of caste fanatic E.V.Ramasamy.”
Late on Tuesday, two persons were arrested in Thirupattur in Vellore district for vandalising Ramasamy’s statue.
The attackers at the BJP’s office in Coimbatore had come in a three wheeler and had thrown the petrol bomb inside the office. Police are investigating the case.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Kolkata : A day after a statue of Vladimir Lenin was razed in Tripura’s Belonia in a case of post-poll violence, West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh condemned the incident terming it as undemocratic.
“An ideology cannot be destroyed by breaking or demolishing something. Such incidents are not democratic,” Ghosh told reporters here.
Responding to the CPI-M’s allegation of large scale violence and vandalism by the BJP and RSS against their partymen in Tripura, Ghosh said it is a small reaction of the locals and their party activists against the CPI-M’s attack on them for the last 25 years.
“People of Tripura were silently bearing the undemocratic attitude and violence by CPI-M for the last 25 years. It was a reaction of their actions. The BJP activists are not outside the society.
“We were beaten up in Tripura for the last 25 years. Nine of our activists died before the election. Four RSS activists were kidnapped and murdered but CPI-M did not take any action. No one has forgotten that,” he claimed.
“So they would also have to be at the receiving end to some extent. It is obvious that there would be some percentage of reactions against the terror they have unleashed for so long. There is nothing to be sorry about it,” Ghosh added.
According to a leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the 11.5-feet fibre statue of Lenin was brought down with a bulldozer by the BJP activists in South Tripura’s district headquarters in Belonia on Monday evening.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Kolkata : Ridiculing Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s call for “Delhi Chalo” to her workers, West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh on Monday said after her party’s performance in Tripura polls, she should better concentrate on Bengal and stop being a big mouth.
“Trinamool has polled less than 0.3 per cent votes in Tripura, which is even less than the votes recorded under NOTA (None of the Above) in the election. But still Didi (Banerjee) dreams of going to Delhi.
“Her party has shut shop in Manipura, its shutters have come down in Tripura, the signboard has been removed in Punjab… So, she should desist from taking about Delhi, stop being a big mouth and rather concentrate on Bengal,” he said.
About Banerjee’s efforts to cobble up a third front, Ghosh said: “Who will she join hands with? RJD leader Laloo Prasad is in jail, she cannot decide whether to holds hands of the feuding father or the feuding son of the Samajwadi Party. And so, she has now joined hands with the Shiv Sena, which she has been labelling as communal all these years.”
On reports that TRS leader K.C. Rao would come to Kolkata on Tuesday and talk to Banerjee, Ghosh said: “I would caution him that before reaching Bengal, he should read Didi’s history. Whoeve she has joined hands with has been ruined. So I urge KCR, not to hold hands with her.”
Responding to Banerjee’s allegation that the BJP and the RSS cadres were throwing meat at religious placed to foment communal trouble, Ghosh said: “Banerjee is seeing nightmares in Bengal after what happened in Tripura. Be it BJP, or RSS, whoever is involved, the court will give them punishment.
“But how can she say so? Cadres of Jamaat, SIMI and Al Qaida are roaming freely in the state. They are being arrested daily,” he said.
Asked whether the Tripura verdict — where the BJP has come to power by unseating the 25-year-old Left Front regime — would impact Bengal, he said: “It is already… It has already impacted Trinamool.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ravi Shankar Prasad
New Delhi : Amid attacks from the Congress over the Rs. 12,600-crore PNB scam, the BJP on Monday accused former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram of aiding jewellers Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi — main accused in the multi-crore bank fraud case — through an 80:20 gold import scheme.
The Bharatiya Janata Party BJP) also targeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and sought answers from him on the issue.
Talking to reporters here, BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that Chidambaram gave his “blessings and benefits under the 80:20 scheme” to seven private jewellers on May 16, 2014, the day the results of Lok Sabha polls were announced.
“These seven jewellers included Geetanjali and Star jewellers,” Prasad said.
He said the 80:20 gold import scheme was started in August 2013 under the UPA government and was repealed by the Narendra Modi government three months after it came to power.
Prasad said earlier only Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation and public sector undertakings had the right to import gold, but that was changed.
“There was round-tripping under the scheme,” he alleged.
The 80:20 scheme was brought for nominated banks/ agencies/ entities to “rationalise” import of gold in any form to tame the current account deficit.
Prasad said exit polls had predicted that the Congress would lose elections and Chidambaram would not have been Finance Minister after the results were out.
“It was expected of the then learned Finance Minister that he will follow constitutional norms (of not taking important decisions),” Prassad said.
“Chidambaram should say, Rahul Gandhi should say why benefits were passed on to seven private companies under 80:20 scheme on May 16. The nation wants to know,” he asked.
He said Chidambaram’s order was subsequently cleared by the Reserve Bank of India on May 21.
“Mr. Chidambaram, is it ‘jumla’ or corruption? We want that real picture of Chidambaram should come before people. Mr. Chidambaram, please reply is it jumla, blatant favouritism, malafide conduct or rampant corruption?” Prasad said.
He alleged that the Congress was trying to spread misinformation about and fear against the BJP among people.
“Congress should reply who were the people lobbying for Geetanjali and what was the cut?” he said.
Prasad also targeted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the increase in stressed assets of banks under the UPA government.
He said that the total advance given by banks in 2008 was Rs 18.06 lakh crore which rose to Rs 52.15 lakh crore in March 2014.
Prasad said that stressed assets of banks were pegged at 36 per cent in March 2014 but these subsequently rose to 82 per cent.
“Several times the real picture was not allowed to come on bank records during the UPA rule. The economic structure of the country was shattered by the Congress,” he said.
The Minister stressed there had been no NPAs (non-performing assets) in the loans given under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
“Under the so-called economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system was completely sought to be derailed because of interventions, because of pressures, because of patronage,” Prasad said.
The Congress has been targeting the government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the Rs 12,600-crore PNB bank fraud case and seeking answers from then over Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi being able to leave the country.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amulya Ganguli,
Prima facie, it can seem that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been able to achieve its objective of ushering in a Congress-mukt (free) India in the northeast, especially in Tripura, by being in a position to come to power in at least two of the three states which went to the polls last month.
However, such a conclusion will be facile. The reason is that in Tripura, for instance, the BJP has succeeded in coopting virtually all the entire 30-plus per cent support base of the Congress. As a result, it can be said that the BJP in Tripura at present is really the Congress by another name.
True, there will be elements in the party who are ideologically close to the BJP, mostly as a result of the groundwork done by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the state. But their numbers cannot be large considering that the BJP’s vote share in the last three elections hovered around one per cent while the Congressa¿s voting percentage was consistently above 30 per cent. It is difficult to believe, therefore, that the BJP’s jump from zero seats in the state assembly to 40-odd was the outcome of an entirely new party coming into existence.
It is not easy to pinpoint what is behind the wholesale transfer of the Congress base to the BJP. The BJP’s seemingly limitless resources have been mentioned in this context. But the main explanation apparently lies in the continuing popular belief in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of development.
Even if the expectations in this respect have not quite been fulfilled in other parts of the country, where the BJP has consequently suffered reverses, as in the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by-elections, the hope of the people in the northeast about employment-oriented growth has not been dimmed.
One reason why it hasn’t is the failure of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to perceptively boost Tripura’s economy. Similar inabilities of the governments in the two other states — Meghalaya and Nagaland — undoubtedly played a role in undermining the prospects of the ruling parties.
What the turn in the BJP’s favour means is that the party has been able to overcome to a very large extent the disadvantages posed by its image as a party of Hindu chauvinists which will impose its fetishes about not eating beef and pursue its policies denigrating Christian missionaries by effectively playing its “sabka saath, sabka vikas” or development for all card.
Considering that the northeast has always lagged behind the rest of the country where infrastructure and economic growth are considered, the possibility of vikas with the added advantage of the new rulers in the states being able to act in sync with the centre evidently had an irresistible appeal.
This attraction could not but be boosted by the anti-incumbency factor in a state like Tripura where the CPI-M has been in power for the last quarter of a century. It is no longer enough for a chief minister to gain votes by being the “poorest” person to hold the position, as Manik Sarkar did. The ideology of “simple living and high thinking” which used to attract the ordinary people to communism has been eroded, first, by the not-so-abstemious lifestyle of some of the comrades and, secondly, by a sluggish economy. Any promise, therefore, of rapid material advancement pays political dividends.
Sarkar may have also paid the price of being a follower of the Prakash Karat-line of the CPI-M’s politics which refuses to align with the Congress to fight the BJP. It appears, therefore, that the Marxists in Tripura did not take the challenge posed by the BJP seriously enough and continued to regard the Congress as the main adversary even if it was fading away. Had the party been able to focus more aggressively on what it sees as the BJP’s politics of communal polarization, it might have been to save its last remaining bastion.
What the outcome points to is the need for a party to constantly reinvent itself. The CPI-M failed to do so, sticking instead to an ideology which died with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Neither did the Congress, which was seemingly clueless about its members fleeing in droves to the Trinamool Congress and the CPI-M. It also did not pay enough attention to the region with Rahul Gandhi failing to match the energetic campaigning of Modi and Amit Shah.
In contrast, the BJP provides an excellent example of donning a new garb because it has been able to develop opportunism to a fine art. For one, it has no compunctions about gobbling up an entire party to win. Although such an act of absorption does not speak well of a party which has thus been swallowed, it shows that the BJP will stop at nothing to go past the winning line without any thought to whether its act will cause indigestion. The BJP evidently believes in living in the present.
For another, the BJP has no hesitation about dispensing with its reservations about beef in order to get the parties in Meghalaya and Nagaland on board, confirming what Asaduddin Owaisi of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen said about the cow being “mummy” in north India, but yummy in the northeast.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
