by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
N. Chandrababu Naidu
Amaravati : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said the corruption case against YSR Congress Party leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy might be back to square one with the bifurcation of the High Court at Hyderabad.
He told reporters here that the division of the court between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had come at a time when the case against Jaganmohan Reddy was coming to the trial stage.
“Now with the division of the court between two states, the judge will be also transferred and case will have to restart,” said Naidu while indirectly hinting at a conspiracy by the Central government to save the Leader of Opposition.
Jagan, as the YSR Congress chief is popularly known, is the prime accused in the cases relating to alleged investments made by various private firms and individuals in his businesses as a quid pro quo for various favours bestowed on them by the government of his father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in undivided Andhra Pradesh between 2004 and 2009.
The High Court at Hyderabad was serving as the common court for both the states since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
The Centre on Wednesday issued a notification which said that Andhra Pradesh will have its own High Court from January 1 at its capital Amaravati while the existing High Court in Hyderabad will become the High Court of Telangana.
Naidu found fault with the Central government for not giving time for the court employees to move from Hyderabad to Amaravati.
He said the Centre should have given 15 days to two months after issuing the notification so that the employees could mentally prepare themselves and necessary arrangements could be made for the buildings for the court and the accommodation of the judges and staff.
“Is this the way Centre should conduct itself,” asked the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief.
He said the High Court would function from the old building of Chief Minister’s Camp Office till the new building was ready. He said suitable accommodation for the judges and court officials was being arranged in hotels and other buildings.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, News, Politics
New Delhi : A coalition of road safety organisations on Friday called upon the Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari to take urgent steps to ensure the listing and passage of the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill, 2017 in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.
The Road Safety Network, a national coalition of road safety NGOs, said in a statement that it has been in constant touch with officials of the Ministry as well as opposition Members of Parliament for the passage of the Bill but it seems the government has other priorities.
“What is most troubling is that more than half-way through the session, the Bill has not even been listed even once,” said Piyush Tewari of SaveLIFE Foundation.
“The opposition is concerned about some of the clauses in the Bill but are in full support of the provisions that will strengthen road safety,” said Ranjit Gadgil of Parisar.
“Sadly, there seems to be no effort on the part of the Ministry to iron out the differences and ensure passage of the Bill,” he said.
A statement issued by the coalition said it is a cause of concern that the World Health Organisation’s “The Global Status Report on Road safety 2018” pegs annual road crash fatalities in India at almost three lakh — highest in the world.
“This is a staggering number given that India has only 2 per cent of the global vehicle population,” said George Cherian of CUTS International, a member of the coalition.
The Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill is seen as a much-needed fix for the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 whose “outdated provisions are failing to ensure strong enforcement and deterrence of egregious traffic violations”, the statement said.
The Bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha but is stalled in the Rajya Sabha.
The opposition has demanded that Gadkari clarify the stand of the government on many of the contentious clauses that relate to the privatisation of public transport and what are seen as dilution of state rights and a potential revenue loss for the state exchequer.
“It is quite inexplicable that the Minister has suddenly lost interest on this matter of national importance,” said Sumana of Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG), a Chennai-based NGO working on road safety.
“Earlier it was a priority, especially after the death of senior BJP leader and Cabinet Minister, Gopinath Munde, but now road safety does not seem to be on his (Gadkari’s) mind. It is believed that without the support and push by the Minister, the bill will not pass in this session and thus lapse. If that happens, it will be a big blow to the cause of road safety,” stated the coalition.
“We call upon Mr Gadkari to deliver on his promise to the nation to make the country’s roads safer by ensuring passage of this bill in this session of Parliament,” it added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Lucknow : The Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) has decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court in case the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre brings in an ordinance paving way for the construction of a grand Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, an office-bearer said on Wednesday.
He said the BMAC took the decision at a meeting on Tuesday.
The move comes ahead of the January 4 hearing by the apex court on the matter.
While right-wing groups and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) have been pressing for the ordinance, the opposition has been seeking a court verdict on the contentious issue.
One of the 70 persons, who attended the meeting, said it was a routine one and had no specific agenda. Though the possibility of the Modi government bringing in an ordinance or a legislation on the temple issue was discussed.
Convenor of the BMAC Zafaryab Jilani said the committee would also urge the Supreme Court to not rush through the matter and pronounce a verdict only after going through all aspects and studying all relevant papers and documents.
The BMAC members were also of the view that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) electoral defeats in three states, the whipping up of passion on the temple issue and the pro-temple statements by senior BJP leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, could not be taken in isolation or lightly.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, Politics
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : A year is a long time in politics. In Uttar Pradesh, the change of the calendar from 2017 to 2018 saw a tectonic shift in the political landscape, one that left the ruling BJP and its cadres shocked to the core. Mayawati, the Dalit powerhouse who was daggers drawn with arch rival, the Samajwadi Party (SP), since June 2, 1995, after a murderous attack on her at a guest house by its supporters, decided to bury the hatchet and join ranks with the party.
This was by far the biggest development in UP this year as Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the SP were sworn enemies for decades — using their stints in power to make flyovers next to the residences of each other, downgrade the other’s security cover, get political leaders bashed up by the police and what not. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had been benefitting from the divide and would often gleefully boast that as the “twain shall never meet” it would give the saffron camp increased seats, election after election.
Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav are now glued to each other in their hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and haunted by the spectre of his again returning to power in 2019. Political observers here say that this was the “only option before the regional satraps as they fought for survival and not success anymore”. And, as the Modi juggernaut rolled on, the BSP scored a duck in 2014 and the SP managed to win only four of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. The SP got under 50 seats and was booted out of power in the 2017 state assembly polls, while the BSP was reduced to 19.
The new understanding between the two seemed to have found favour with the voters who threw their lot behind the duo after which SP candidates romped home winners in the Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana parliamentary by-polls. Having tasted blood, the two parties now have more or less cemented a seat-sharing agreement for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Tackling a whimsical Behenji, Akhilesh Yadav knows, is not an easy task — but he, unlike his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, is ready to bend backwards to see the alliance through.
Even BJP chief Amit Shah has conceded that the coming together of the SP and BSP would cost the party dearly in UP. The mandarins in the BJP camp, however, are now working the wires to ensure that this does not become a reality and a nightmare for them.
“From the ED (Enforcement Directorate) to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) to other factors, all are at work — but we are determined to decimate the BJP this time,” said an informed source in the SP who is privy to the seat-sharing talks. And so, while the hostility between the Jatavs (the BSP vote bank) and Yadavs (SP’s electoral backbone) continues to simmer, hopes of the alliance arithmetic percolating down to the grassroots is not lost on both the parties.
The other significant change in the opposition camp this year was the parting of ways of Shivpal Singh Yadav from his political alma mater, the SP. A man credited with grooming the SP from scratch to three times in power finally threw in the towel after being completely sidelined by his estranged nephew and party chief Akhilesh Yadav. As a first step to breaking ranks with his party of 26 years, he formed a front but finally took the plunge and floated his own political party named Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP).
While his elder brother, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has been swinging like a pendulum between both the factions, sometimes making a guest appearance at SP events and also turning up at a PSP rally, party veterans seem to be siding with Shivpal Singh Yadav, who is extremely popular with workers and middle-rung leaders. Deepak Mishra, the spokesman of the PSP, told IANS that, in a short span of time, it is “ready with its organisational structure and is upbeat about contesting all 80 LS seats in UP”.
He also termed as opportunistic the SP-BSP alliance. “We have the old guard, the real socialists, with us who have been fighting the communal forces for years,” he claimed, adding that any party or formation will not be able to take on the BJP without the PSP’s support.
Another significant churn in politics this year was caused by the floating of his own party by independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh, aka Raja Bhaiyya.
The Kunda legislator, for the last 25 years, has been the favourite pick and essential part of almost all governments, barring Mayawati’s. This time has decided to form his own party and contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats. Having christened his party Jansatta, he said his aim was transfer power to the people. In his initial public outings after declaring his party, Raja Bhaiyya has been wooing the upper castes by drumming up the fear of the SC/ST Atrocities Act and has openly declared the legislation was potentially a big threat to the “savarns” (upper castes).
With all political parties in the state tilting towards the OBC and Dalits, Raja Bhaiyya hopes to corner the upper caste votes from the Congress and the BJP. Insiders said his electoral foray is backed by the BJP, which feels that certain upper castes — Brahmins and Thakurs — could go to the Congress because of the Act. In such a grim scenario, they would prefer to shift the vote to Jansatta rather than the Congress.
Raja Bhaiyya’s ideological proximity to the saffron camp is well known. He has been thrice minister in BJP governments in UP.
As the year draws to a close, a lot of political activity has happened in the state, enough to make 2019 an interesting year as the race for the Delhi Durbar hots up.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, Politics
Prem Das Rai
By Brajendra Nath Singh,
New Delhi : The charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dimmed and it would be highly problematic for the BJP to return to power in 2019 if the grand alliance of the opposition parties takes shape, says Sikkim’s sole MP P.D. Rai, whose Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) is a constituent of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
“We, as a regional party, will surely win the next election. But on the national scene, I think the charisma of Modiji has come down. The divisiveness with which the BJP has acted is something whose backlash is already coming,” Rai told IANS in an interview in Parliament House.
Rai, a two-term MP seeking a third, also says that the non-functioning of Parliament was affecting smaller parties like his and their right to be heard was getting “trampled” by the larger parties.
Referring to Congress’ performance in the recent elections, Rai said that, except in Chhattisgarh, the Congress won in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan with a very small majority but the opposition party will be able to energise its own cadres in a much better way and it may translate into more seats.
“I think there would be a tough fight between the two sides and I think if the ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance of opposition parties) takes shape, it could be highly problematic for the BJP,” he said, claiming that “there is going to be a lot of churning within all the parties, including the BJP and the Congress, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls”.
The SDF MP, who is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Ahmedabad, asserted that the public and the intelligentsia were not very happy with the way many of the institutions like the CBI, the RBI were allegedly being attacked by the Modi government.
“This perhaps may go against the BJP,” he said. He made it clear as a party with only one MP in the Lok Sabha, it would, however, always go with the ruling party to safeguard the border state’s interests.
Asked about Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Rai said after having taken over as the president of the party, he has in many ways had a tough time getting the younger people to have some space within the party.
“But he has managed to do that. He has also understood that he has not only to back young people but also to look at the senior people as they are very valuable within the party. This (appointment of Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot as chief ministers) has sent out a good message to the senior cadre of the Congress. This is something which, I believe, is a very positive development for the Congress,” he said.
Rai, a member of the Parliament Standing Committee on Finance, said that farmers’ plight in the country has emerged as a huge problem but asserted that waiving of loans was not an answer.
“If you waive farms loans there is a big problem on the fiscal side. It is populist to say that I would waive the loans. On the other hand, people say if the corporate loans can be waived, then why not the farmers’ loans. But looking at holistic and structured reforms in the agriculture sector is long overdue.
“This is something we will have to look at. There are many, many pillars around which the farmers’ eco-system thrives and we will have to look into the whole crisis holistically,” he added.
(Brajendra Nath Singh can be contacted at brajendra.n@ians.in)
—IANS
