by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Mohammed Shafeeq,
Hyderabad : Early Assembly elections and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) retaining power with a landslide majority earlier this month dominated the events in Telangana during 2018.
Eight months before the expiry of the Assembly’s term, the TRS government recommended dissolution of the House on September 6. Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan accepted the recommendation the same day.
Chief Minister and TRS President K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s gamble of early polls paid rich dividends as the party bagged 88 seats in 119-member Assembly. The historic alliance between Congress and its arch rival for 36 years, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) — and the formation of four-party People’s Alliance led by Congress — failed to stop the TRS juggernaut.
The Assembly elections were originally scheduled along with Lok Sabha polls in 2019 but by advancing them, KCR (as the Chief Minister is popularly known) ensured that the focus remained on his narrative of development and welfare. The welfare schemes implemented during the last four-and-a-half-years and the ‘Telangana pride’ factor due to campaigning by TDP President and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu helped the TRS sail through with flying colours.
Buoyed by the massive victory, KCR announced he will play a crucial role in national politics by bringing together all regional parties under proposed Federal Front to provide an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP. In another related key development, the TRS chief handed over the party affairs to his son K.T. Rama Rao, by appointing him the party’s Working President.
The year began with the launch of free 24-hour electricity to the agriculture sector. This made Telangana the first state in the country to provide this facility to farmers.
The year also saw the launch of two major schemes for farmers. Under ‘Rythu Bandhu’, an investment support of Rs 8,000 is being provided to each farmer per acre per year for two crops. ‘Rythu Beema’ offers Rs 5 lakh life insurance cover to every farmer.
Earlier, this month the government announced that Telangana had achieved 29.97 per cent growth during the current financial year up to November. It claimed that no other state in the country recorded such a high growth rate.
After the formation of Telangana, during the first four financial years, the state recorded growth of 17.17 percent on an average every year.
Telangana registered information technology exports worth Rs 93,422 crore in the 2017-18 fiscal, a Cumulative Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.6 per cent as against the national average of 10.30 per cent.
The Hyderabad Metro Rail commenced operations in September on the 16-km Ameerpet-LB Nagar line. With the 46-km now operational, the Hyderabad Metro has become India’s second largest such network after Delhi.
Leading Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA opened its first India store in Hyderabad in August with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore on 13 acre of land in Hitec City, the IT hub.
Earlier this month, star shuttler P.V. Sindhu became first Indian to win the BWF Tour Finals. Her first gold medal of the year came after she finished runner-up in seven tournaments including World Championships, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.
While Sindhu was battling in BWF Finals in China, her seniors and star shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap tied the knot in Hyderabad.
Another celebrity, tennis star Sania Mirza, was in news for becoming a mother. Sania, who married Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik in 2010, gave birth to their first child, a baby boy, on October 30.
There was also a share of tragedies. Telugu actor and former Andhra Pradesh minister N. Harikrishna died in a road accident in Nalgonda district. He was the son of TDP founder and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao.
In the worst tragedy during the year, 57 people were killed when an over-crowded bus of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) plunged into a gorge near Kondagattu temple in Jagtial district on September 11.
The legal system hit the news when a special NIA court in September sentenced to death two operatives of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and jailed a third for life in the 2007 twin bomb blast case. The blasts at an eatery and a park in Hyderabad on August 25, 2007 had killed 44 people.
Earlier in April, another special court had acquitted right-wing activist Swami Aseemanand and four others in the Makkah Masjid bomb blast case. The blast, during Friday prayers on May 8, 2007, had claimed nine lives.
(Mohammed Shafeeq can be contated at m.shafeeq@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : A day ahead of the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, his successor Narendra Modi on Monday released a commemorative Rs 100 coin to honour the late leader, who passed away in August.
Addressing a gathering at the Parliament House Annexe here, Modi said Vajpayee never compromised on the ideologies of the party and always spoke about national interest.
“For some people, power is oxygen…they can’t live without it…A long part of Atalji’s career was spent in the opposition benches but he spoke about national interest and never compromised on the ideology of the party.
“For long, the voice of Atalji was the voice of the nation,” Modi said.
“I assume that there must be invitations from other ideologies for joining hands to remain in power. Such things must have happened. But he never compromised.
“He was among those who could die for the nation, but would never compromise on the ideologies,” Modi said.
Vajpayee wanted democracy to be supreme. He built the Jana Sangh but when time came to rescue democracy he and others went to the Janata Party, Modi added.
“Likewise, when the choice was between remaining in power or comprising on ideology, he left Janata Party and formed the Bharatiya Janata Party” which “has become among the largest of political parties”, the Prime Minister said.
Hailing Vajpayee as “the best orator”, Modi said “the mind is not ready to believe that Atalji is no longer with us. He was a stalwart loved and respected across all sections of society.
Modi said e would go to Vajpayee’s memorial on Tuesday — his birth anniversary — to reiterate his commitment to the ideology and path shown by the leader.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Minister of State for Culture Mahesh Sharma, BJP national President Amit Shah and veteran BJP leader and Vajpayee’s contemporary L.K. Advani were also present at the event to release the coin.
Commemorative coins are usually issued to celebrate some special occasion or to mark a special event. They also have been issued as a mark of respect towards some distinguished individuals or monument.
The coin, Modi said, is a small effort to show our respect to the former Prime Minister, “whose life is a message for all of us”.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away on August 16 at the age of 93 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here following a prolonged illness.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, Politics
Mamata Banerjee
By Amulya Ganguli,
For a leader who enjoys a huge majority in the state assembly and faces virtually no credible challenge from her opponents, Mamata Banerjee is surprisingly insecure.
Her uncertainty about her political position could be seen in the violence unleashed by her party men during the panchayat elections last summer when 16,000 of the 50,000 seats went uncontested by the opposition parties apparently because the ruling Trinamool Congress activists scared away all her adversaries.
The Supreme Court had expressed shock over the absence – forced or otherwise – of the Trinamool Congress’s opponents in the polls. Now, the Calcutta High Court is considering her trepidations about the proposed Rath Yatras of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While an earlier judgment rejected the state government’s plea for banning the Yatras by saying that a threat of violence as argued by the government has to be “real, not imaginary or a likely possibility”, a subseauent verdict has favoured a closer look at what the intelligence agencies are saying.
There is little doubt, however, that Mamata Banerjee nowadays regards the BJP as a greater political threat than either the Congress, which has 42 seats in the assembly against the Trinamool Congress’s 213 in the 295-member House, or the Left which has 32. The BJP, in contrast, has three.
What is clearly worrying the Chief Minister is the jump in the BJP’s vote share from three per cent in 2013 to 23 per cent in a by-election this year where it secured the second place, relegating the Congress-Left combine to the third place. Moreover, a survey has predicted the BJP’s emergence as the principal opposition party in the state.
Behind the BJP’s rise is the perception that Mamata Banerjee is rather too lenient towards the Muslims as they comprise 28 per cent of the population. In addition, there is the longstanding problem of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, who are called “termites” by BJP president Amit Shah.
The Chief Minister’s fear probably is that the proposed Rath Yatras will raise the issue of the “termites” and call for a headcount of the “ghuspetiyas” (infiltrators) under the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in West Bengal, similar to the enumeration that has already been carried out In Assam.
Reports suggest that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) foot soldiers are currently active in West Bengal with their propaganda in favour of an NRC on the grounds that if urgent steps are not taken, “then the Bengali Hindus will be aceannihilated”, as an RSS functionary has said.
The state government’s fears about the Rath Yatras are probably based on the fact that the processions taken out by the BJP on the occasion of Navratri with “weapons” in March had led to sporadic communal clashes, although they were not as serious as in neighbouring Bihar.
Although most people in West Bengal will consider Amit Shah’s boast of the BJP winning 22 of the 42 parliamentary seats in the state in 2019 as an instance of hyperbole, Mamata Banerjee cannot afford to take the “threat” lightly, for a rise in the BJP’s number of Lok Sabha seats from the present two with three runners-up will be a blow not only to her political prestige, but also to the state’s self-cultivated Leftist-“progressive” image.
An improved performance by the BJP will also undercut the Trinamool Congress leader’s national ambition as one of the architects of the anti-BJP mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) at the national level and of herself as a possible prime ministerial candidate.
As it is, the violence during the panchayat elections had shown her in poor light. Now, if the BJP Rath Yatras attract sizeable crowds, she will be even more on the defensive.
For a doughty fighter, who had routed the well-trenched Marxists, pushing them into a corner from where they are finding it difficult to emerge, the ascendancy is unthinkable of a north Indian party of vegetarian, cow-worshipping “Hindi-wallahs”, who revere a north Indian god like Ram, as a new member of the Trinamool Congress, who was earlier in the BJP, has said.
Arguably, Mamata Banerjee’s combative instincts are fired up when she has a battle on her hands. But the problem is that her party men are not among the most disciplined. Since many of them have switched to the Trinamool Congress from the Marxist communist party, they have a “history” of being violent.
But it is the BJP which will gain if the party is seen to be specifically targeted. As of now, the judiciary is with her, but she will be on a weak wicket if she tries too deseperately to stop what is undoubtedly the democratic right of an opposition party to take out Yatras. Her desperation can also be construed as a sign of being scared.
(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
Panaji : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed the BJP for what he described as an orchestrated attack on his party workers at a demonstration organised here by the state BJP to protest against his allegations of irregularities in the Rafale fighter jet deal.
In his message shared on Facebook, Gandhi also said that he was proud of the “spirit of Gandhigiri” displayed by Congress’ state women’s chief Pratima Coutinho, who was allegedly attacked by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters during the clash on Thursday afternoon.
“Democracy frustrates the BJP. This designed, deliberated and organised attack on Congress workers in Goa is an exemplification of that feeling. The attempt is to instil fear,” Gandhi said on the social media site.
“The cowards who came to attack us in Goa, and their bosses sitting here in Delhi, should know, fear is alien to the workers of the Congress party,” Gandhi said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should “read about the fate of those rulers who chose to attack non-violent Congress workers in this country”.
Meanwhile, the state Congress legislative party and the Pradesh Congress Committee on Saturday met to condemn Friday’s attack on the party’s workers.
“It was a completely state-sponsored mob which included members of the Chief Minister’s Office, Speaker’s Office, MLAs, Ministers, top BJP functionaries including the state president and was supported by the police machinery,” state Congress President Girish Chodankar said.
Congress leaders also met state Director General of Police Muktesh Chander and demanded action against senior BJP functionaries named in the complaint.
Both the Congress as well as the BJP leaders have filed First Information Reports against each other following the clash, with each accusing the other of rioting, assault, and outraging the modesty of women.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Finance, News, Politics
Yogi Adityanath
Lucknow : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government on Wednesday presented a Rs 8,054.49-crore second supplementary budget in the state Assembly, of which Rs 3,000 crore has been earmarked for the “Swachh Bharat” project.
Besides, the Yogi Adityanath government has set aside Rs 100 crore for the forthcoming Kumbh Mela, which will take place in Allahabad in January. Millions from across the world are likely to participate in the religious congregation.
Rs 800 crore had been earmarked for Kumbh in the first supplementary budget. Over Rs 1,500 crore had been allocated in the budget for the current fiscal for Kumbh-2019.
The state government has also proposed a sum of Rs 300 crore for the ambitious Jewar international airport in Noida and Rs 200 crore for constructing an airport in the temple town of Ayodhya.
The state government has allocated Rs 10 crore for setting up of a medical university to be name after late Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the state capital, while Rs 3,3894 crore has been proposed to be spent for power-related projects in the state.
An official informed that Rs 25 crore has been put for emoluments of Aanganwadi workers, while Rs 48 crore has been earmarked for increased wages of Gram Prahris.
The state government had presented a budget of Rs 4.28 lakh crore for the financial year 2018-19 and in August a supplementary budget of Rs 34.833 crore was presented.
—IANS
