by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
G.D. Agrawal
Mumbai : The Agrawal community on Monday slammed the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “exploiting” the Ganga river issue for political purposes and not fulfilling its promise to clean up the holy river in the past over four years.
In a letter to Modi, Akhil Bharatiya Agrawal Sammelan (ABAS) National Secretary Summan R. Agrawal said that engineer-turned-environmentalist G.D. Agrawal died on October 9 after a 111-day-long protest for the cause of Ganga.
During his fast, he wrote three letters to Modi “but the government didn’t feel important to respond” to them. But after Agrawal’s death, Modi, all Ministers and the government tweeted about his great contribution to nature and environment.
“If the government is so anguished about Agarwal’s death, why didn’t the PM meet him at least once and accept his genuine demands, or at least, respond to any of his letters? Why does the Modi government show such hypocrisy and double standards,” Agrawal asked.
She pointed out that in his letters to the Prime Minister, the late Agrawal expressed confidence that after Modi took power in 2014, concrete steps would be taken to clean up the Ganga but later realized that nothing was done in the past four-and-a-half years.
These expectations were raised after Modi focused his entire election agenda in 2014 on the issue of ‘Maa Ganga’ and campaigning that ‘Na main aaya hoo, Na hi bheja gaya hoon; Mujhe to Maa Ganga ne bulaya haia’.
“Why ‘Maa Ganga’ didn’t call this self-proclaimed son Narendra Modi after his rise to the throne as PM in 2014? Modi again realized he has a ‘Maa Ganga only during Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh in 2017,” Agrawal said in her letter.
On the contrary, the late Agrawal’s letters mentioned how former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had taken cognizance of his several fasts and decided to stop or cancel all activities in a major project for the sake of Ganga.
“I would like to ask the Modi government, why the Agrawal community is constantly being ignored over the years… What happened to your favourite election war-cry – ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’? We, the Agrawal community, were expecting at least full state honours to (the late) Agarwal, the proud son of the community, but he was denied that too,” said Agrawal.
She said the entire 10-crore strong Agrawal community was “feeling orphaned due to his death” and warned that they will remember and express their sentiments in the 2019 elections.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : On the intervening night of February 28 and March 1, 2002 when Gujarat was engulfed in flames, Lt. Gen Zameer Uddin Shah, met the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in the presence of the then Defence Minister George Fernandes, at 2 am in Ahmedabad and gave him a list of immediate requirements to enable the Army columns to fan out to restore law and order.
But the 3,000 troops that had landed at the Ahmedabad airfield at 7 am on March 1, had to wait for a day before the Gujarat administration provided the transport — during which period hundreds of people were killed.
“These were crucial hours lost,” Shah, who retired as the Deputy Chief of Army Staff, has revealed in his upcoming memoir titled “The Sarkari Mussalman” (Konark Publishers) to be launched by former Vice President Hamid Ansari on October 13 at India International Centre here.
In the memoir, a copy of which is with IANS, Shah writes that the Gujarat government requested for deployment of the Army through the Union Home Ministry and the Ministry of Defence on February 28, 2002. The then Chief of Army Staff, General S. Padmanabhan was quoted by him as saying: “‘Zoom, get your formation to Gujarat tonight and quell the riots.’ I replied, ‘Sir, the road move will take us two days.’ He shot back, ‘The Air Force will take care of your move from Jodhpur. Get maximum troops to the airfield. Speed and resolute action are the need of the hour.'”
Upon arriving at the “dark and deserted” Ahmedabad airfield, he enquired: “Where are the vehicles and other logistic support we had been promised?” He learnt that the state government was still “making the necessary arrangements”.
“The crucial periods was the night of 28th February and the 1st of March. This is when the maximum damage was done. I met the chief minister at 2 am on the 1st morning. The troops sat on the airfield all through the 1st of March and we got the transport only on the 2nd of March. By then the mayhem had already been done,” Shah, who has been conferred Param Vishisht Seva Medal, Vishisht Seva Medal and Sena Medal for his services to the armed forces, told IANS.
Asked if the damage would be lesser had the army been allowed full freedom and provided with what he had personally asked Modi for, he agreed and said: “Most certainly the damage would have been much, much less had we got the vehicles at the right time. What the police couldn’t do in six days we did in 48 hours despite being six times smaller in size than them. We finished the operation in 48 hours on the 4th of March but it could have been finished on the 2nd of March itself had we not lost those crucial hours.”
He said that he is not blaming anyone in particular. “It may take some time in arranging transport but in a situation like that, it could have possibly been done faster,” he added.
He said the police were “dumb bystanders” while the “mob was setting fire on streets and houses”. They were taking “no action” to prevent the “mayhem” that was being done.
“I did see a lot of MLAs from the majority community sitting at the police stations. They had no business to be there. Whenever we used to tell the police to impose the curfew, they never did so in the minority areas. So the minorities were always surrounded by the mobs. It was a totally parochial and biased handling,” the decorated army veteran maintained.
Asked of the political links in the riot, Shah said that he does not “want to reopen any old wounds”, maintaining that the purpose of his memoir is “to tell the facts as they happened in Gujarat in 2002”.
“It takes three generations to forget. I do not want to reopen the wounds. I have spoken the truth about police and I stand by every word I have written,” he said.
The government had told the parliament in 2005 that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed, 223 more people reported missing and another 2,500 injured during the 2002 riots in Gujarat. Shah maintains in the book that the “official figures of deaths and damage do not reflect a true picture of the actual extent of the carnage”.
The book — packed with revelations as also his personal experiences in life, both as an army man and a Muslim in India — has been endorsed by at least two chiefs of army staff, including General S. Padmanabhan.
“Many eyebrows were raised when I nominate‘ ‘Zoom’ to lead the Army complement to Gujarat. Some seniors told me of their misgivings. I told them in no uncertain terms that the choice of troops and their leader was a military decision and not open to debate. The Army moved into Gujarat, led b‘ ‘Zoom’ whose ability, impartiality and pragmatic decision making, soon brought the situation under control,” Gen Padmanabhan wrote as an endorsement of the book.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Tariq Anwar
Katihar (Bihar) : Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) General Secretary Tariq Anwar on Friday quit the party and the Lok Sabha, expressing his disagreement with party chief Sharad Pawar who gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal.
“I have resigned from the NCP as well as the membership of Lok Sabha because I totally disagree with Sharad Pawar’s statement in support of Modi on Rafale deal,” he told the media here.
“The Prime Minister is fully involved in the Rafale deal,” he said, reacting to Pawar’s television interview in which he had said he did not think people doubt Modi’s intentions on a personal level.
Pawar’s statement was welcomed by BJP chief Amit Shah who praised him for “placing national interests above party politics”.
Anwar, 67, who was expelled from the Congress in 1999 along with Pawar and P.A. Sangma after they questioned the foreign origins of Sonia Gandhi, said he personally respected and honoured Pawar but felt his statement in support of Modi was unfortunate.
“I do not agree with his statement and have resigned from the party and membership of Parliament,” the MP from Katihar said.
Anwar told IANS that he was forced to take this decision to prove his moral stand in politics. “I am telling people one thing and cannot take another stand,” he said.
Anwar, who has been a Lok Sabha member several times and in the Rajya Sabha once, said he will talk to his supporters before taking a move to join any party.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, News, Politics
By Maeeshat.in,
Mumbai: Congress Party’s Leader in Lok Sabha and General Secretary in-charge Of Maharashtra Mallikarjun Kharge will lead a massive protest march against Rafale Scam in Mumbai Thursday demanding immediate resignation of PM Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The morcha will start at 12:30 pm and will culminate at August Kranti Maidan. After the protest, Congress Party’s delegation will meet Hon. Governor of Maharashtra demanding the same. Congress Party’s another demand with regard to the Rafale Scam is to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the whole matter.
Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam who is organising this massive protest march along with his team said, “This scam is a classic case of crony capitalism. PM Modi and Defence Minister Sitharaman have not only engaged in this scam but also have tried to cover it by providing misleading information about the entire deal. This is the biggest scam of the century. PM Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman have cheated the country and need to be removed from their respective posts with immediate effect”.
Along with Mallikarjun Kharge and Sanjay Nirupam, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President Ashok Chavan, Former Maharashtra CM Prithiviraj Chavan, Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Former State Unit Chief Manikrao Thakre and many other senior party leaders will hit the streets tomorrow demanding resignation of PM Modi and Sitharaman.
On 10 April 2015 PM Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafele jets after having talks with the then French President François Hollande. However, last week Hollande claimed that the Govt of India had suggested Reliance Defence as an offset partner for Dassault Aviation which was always refuted by the BJP Govt. Congress President Rahul Gandhi had raised this issue exposing PM Modi and his Govt’s corruption in the Rafale Scam in which he stated that it is PM Modi who has brought Anil Ambani into this whole deal side-lining public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The Modi-led BJP Govt had then said that bringing Anil Ambani in this whole deal was not their decision but a decision taken by Dassault. Recently the then French President François Hollande contradicted the Govt of India’s stand and said that it was the Govt of India which persuaded Dassault to take Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence as their partner. Since then, it has become a huge embarrassment for the Modi Govt and the BJP. As a part of national campaign against Rafale scam, Mumbai Congress along with MPCC has organised this massive protest tomorrow to expose the deep-rooted corruption existing in the BJP-led Modi Govt.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, News, Politics
New Delhi : A Congress delegation on Wednesday met the Comptroller and Auditor General to seek a probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets by the Narendra Modi government.
The delegation consisting of senior party leaders A.K. Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Mukul Vasnik, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Surjewala, Rajeev Shukla and Vivek Tankha reached the CAG office around 11 a.m.
According to the party, the delegation would also submit a memorandum seeking the probe.
The party has already held a series of press conferences on the issue, raising several questions on the deal done by the Modi government with France to purchase the fighter jets.
The government has, however, denied all the allegations.
The move is seen as an effort by the party to raise the pitch over the issue ahead of the Assembly polls later this year and the parliamentary elections in 2019.
—IANS
