by admin | May 25, 2021 | Commodity Market, Investing, News, Politics
Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said the state ensured food security for more than 8.5 crore people through its “Khadya Sathi” scheme.
“Today is #WorldFoodDay. We have ensured the food security of more than 8.5 crore people of #Bangla through Khadya Sathi Scheme,” Banerjee tweeted.
Highlighting the ones who are given special attention she wrote: “Special assistance is also provided to the people of Jangalmahal and Hill areas, Aila-affected areas, farmers of Singur, tea garden workers and Toto tribe.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday alleged that several people from a certain community fled BJP ruled-Jharkhand to Bengal after police firing on them on Eid al-Adha and are being treated at hospitals in her state.
At least a dozen persons, including five policemen, were injured after villagers clashed with police over reports of alleged cow slaughter in Jharkhand’s Pakur district on Wednesday during Eid celebrations. Cow slaughter has been banned in Jharkhand since 2015.
According to police, the clashes took place after a police team arrived at Dangapara village and tried to stop animal slaughter in public.
“Several people belonging to a specific community were shot at in Jharkhand on Eid. They fled to Bengal and were admitted in our hospitals for treatment. Why would the BJP shoot people of a specific community just because they are the ruling party there? Isn’t it inhuman?” Banerjee said at the state Secretariat Nabanna here.
“It is mentioned in the United Nations’ convention that one has to give shelter to the refugees, whether they come from across the state or across international border. So, we are treating them here. But such incidents should not happen,” she said.
Accusing the BJP of trying to regulate people’s food habit, Banerjee dared the party to ban beef in northeastern states.
“Tribals and people from the northeast eat beef. Several Christians in European countries also eat it. I dare the BJP to ban beef in the northeast. Why can’t they do it there?” she said.
“We have no right to dictate what others will eat. Plants also have life. What will happen if someone raises questions about eating vegetables like potato? This is not right,” she claimed.
Banerjee alleged that the BJP was intimidating and buying off news channels while politicians of other parties were being threatened by misusing central agencies.
“We are living in an autocratic situation. The Centre’s ruling party (BJP) is deciding which agency will conduct raids in whose house, which television news channels should be stopped from broadcasting or which reporter should be sacked from a newspaper,” she said.
“The agencies conducted raid at the house of Karnataka Chief Minister Kumaraswamy’s officer yesterday (Thursday). They also raided the office of Delhi Chief Minister Aravind Kejriwal recently. Such things never happened in the country before. But their advantage is that they have bought off the entire national news channels,” she added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, Politics
By Amulya Ganguli,
After the hug and the wink, a step back. The Congress’s realisation, albeit belatedly, that Rahul Gandhi still does not have the gravitas required to become the prime minister will be generally welcomed. Evidently, the party is becoming more mature along with its president.
The retreat by Rahul Gandhi in favour of regional leaders will enable the opposition at the national level to focus more effectively on the issue, which is just as well because of the number of aspirants.
As the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) Tejashwi Yadav has said, there are at least four in the fray (apart from Rahul) — Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Chandrababu Naidu and Sharad Pawar. Mercifully, no one takes Arvind Kejriwal’s name any more, not even the Delhi chief minister himself.
Of the four, the West Bengal chief minister and the former U.P. chief minister can be regarded as front-runners. Both have made their intentions clear and are trying, for each of their parties, to win as many Lok Sabha seats as possible to buttress their claims.
The Trinamool Congress leader’s aim is to win all the 42 parliamentary seats in West Bengal. Since her party has 34 at present, her expectations cannot be said to be too high. However, winning all the Lok Sabha constituencies will not be easy at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seemingly gaining ground because of the prevailing lawlessness in the state which was seen during the recent panchayat polls.
As for Mayawati, her desire to have a nationwide alliance with the Congress and not in Madhya Pradesh alone, as the latter wants, is obviously intended to widen the prospect of her outfit, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), winning a fair number of seats. At present, the BSP has none in the Lok Sabha, but that is an oddity – a one-time failure which does not portend the future.
However, what the chasing of seats emphasises is the importance of the numbers game, which, of course, is the central feature of a parliamentary democracy.
In this respect, the Telugu Desam with 16 seats and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with seven may be theoretically ahead of the BSP. But they have several disadvantages.
For a start, as a south Indian party, the Telugu Desam may find the going tough in a political milieu where north Indian parties tend to be well ahead of those from elsewhere in terms of the popular perception about their successful strike rate. The reasons are, first, their fluency in Hindi which is understood nearly all over India, and, secondly, because, historically, north Indian politicians have dominated the corridors of power in New Delhi.
There has been only one prime minister from the south — H.D. Deve Gowda of Karnataka — but for only 10 months. The Telugu Desam leader, Chandrababu Naidu, will be hoping against hope, therefore, if he thinks that it will be an easy ride to Delhi’s 7, Lok Kalyan Marg (formerly Race Course Road), which is the prime minister’s official residence.
The NCP’s Sharad Pawar is another claimant although he has never said so himself; nor has Naidu. But though now an elder statesman, the 78-year-old Pawar, who became chief minister of Maharashtra at the age of 38, and has held a number of major portfolios at the centre, is now past his prime.
That leaves the two women — Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati. Before considering their cases, it has to be remembered that the last word may not have been said about Rahul. If the Congress sweeps the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh assembly elections and does fairly well in Chhattisgarh, it would have overcome much of the ignominy of its present lowly status in the Lok Sabha with 48 seats and think of taking on the BJP almost on equal terms in 2019. Such a turn of events will make Rahul a serious contender once again.
The problem with Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati is that they do not have an across-the-board, pan-Indian appeal. Both are largely based in their own states — West Bengal and U.P. — with Mamata suffering from the added disadvantage of being less than fluent in Hindi.
Mayawati may attract the Dalit and Muslim votes, but how enthusiastic the backward castes and the upper castes will be at the national level is open to question. In U.P., the Samajwadi Party leader, Akhilesh Yadav, may ensure that his ally, Mayawati, gets the backward caste votes, but she may face difficulties elsewhere because the Dalits and the backward castes have not always had the best of relations. The upper castes, of course, are even more opposed to the Dalits.
It is understandable, therefore, why the non-BJP parties have kept their options open about the prime ministerial candidate till after the elections. Their hope is that the numbers will be the decisive factor and make the choice for them. But there is also the need for those not in the running like Sonia Gandhi to play a mediatory role of the kind Jayaprakash Narayan and J.B. Kripalani played in 1977 to calm tempers and massage the egos.
(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
Mamata Banerjee
Kolkata : Raising the pitch for her proposed Federal Front of opposition parties, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Saturday asked her party workers to launch a fortnight-long campaign from August 1 to defeat the ‘communal BJP’.
She also said her party would organise a “huge” rally in the city on January 19 next year, where leaders of the proposed Front would call for defeating the BJP at the Centre.
Addressing party workers on the party’s Martyrs’ Day rally, she said: “Bengal will show the way to India, we will show the way to Parliament in the coming days.”
Banerjee said the August campaign ‘remove communal BJP, save the country’ would spell out her party’s political programme. “On Aaugust 15 (Independence Day), all of you should raise the Tricolour and take a vow to ensure that none from the BJP raises the national flag from the Red Fort from 2019 onwards,” she told her party workers.
She appealed to Trinamool activists to work for the victory of the party in all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in the next year’s general elections.
Banerjee said the January 19 rally would be held at the sprawling Brigade Parade ground, “from where we will be giving a call to capture power at the Centre.”
“I will bring leaders from across the country on the stage, including those from the Federal Front,” she said. “We will organise the rally in a big way…our workers should ensure a bigger turnout than today’s,” said. Banerjee
The Trinamool supremo, who has in the past made clear her national ambitions, said: “We don’t like the chair (top post) that much, we don’t care for the chair, but we care for the country, the people, the soil of the land”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Kalimpong : Citing the unprecedented violence, agitation and a prolonged shutdown in the northern West Bengal hills last year over the demands for separate state of Gorkhaland, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday urged locals to forget the past and “work together like a family” for the betterment of the people.
Claiming that the 104-day long complete shutdown in the hills of Darjeeling from mid-June to September last year had critically impacted the development and economy of the region, she said the state government and the local administrative boards like Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) have to work hand in hand to recover the lost ground.
“Whatever has happened, has happened. I want to forget that. I want that if there was any mistake from my part, we can work towards rectifying that mistake. It is important to work for the betterment of people with an honest heart to bring about the ‘Acche Din’ (better days),” Banerjee said at a public meeting in Darjeeling district’s hill town Kalimpong.
“I want the hills to make progress. If some leaders call strike for six to eight months in the hills, the people here suffer immensely. Unemployment goes up and the developmental projects of the government come to a halt…Whichever board does better work, I will help them more. I will help the GTA too. Let’s stay together like a family and work together for the betterment of hills,” she said.
Congratulating the Darjeeling hills for the tourist inflow this year, the Chief Minister encouraged more numbers of tourist sectors, home stays and industries in the region. She also pointed out that special stress should be given on agriculture, horticulture and food processing.
However, the Trinamool Congress supremo asked the local developmental boards to spend the government aid properly and maintain a clean financial record.
“We gave Rs 3,804.17 crore to the previous GTA board. After the new board was formed, we have handed them Rs 705.58 crore for doing the work. Total Rs 4,509.75 crore has been given. We want the GTA and all the other boards to properly utilise the money and keep their financial records clean,” Banerjee said.
She also said the state government wants to build an educational hub in Darjeeling and the process of building a state university in Mongpu under Kurseong sub-division has started.
—IANS
