by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Lucknow : BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday marked her 63rd birthday with a fulsome attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of betraying the people on promises made in 2014 and the BJP of dividing people in the name of caste and religion and said the people would vote them out in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Three days after her party tied up with the Samajwadi Party for the Lok Sabha battle, she addressed a press conference again and said the alliance was giving the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and others “sleepless nights”.
“Modi is doing a number of rallies at many places. He is again making a number of false promises to the people like his earlier promises. And these promises will also be shelved,” she said.
Accusing the government of betraying the people, she said: “The government failed to fulfil its promise to farmers, students and others. They promised to bring back black money, they promised to put Rs 15 lakh in every bank account.”
Demanding that Muslims be also given 10 per cent reservation on the basis of their economic condition, she said, “The Modi government brought the 10 per cent reservation to the economically weaker sections of the upper caste in view of the elections. But our party supports the bill.
“But we want that the Muslims should also be given 10 per cent reservation on the same basis,” she said.
Targeting the BJP and Rastriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the four-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said: “They in the name of religion are not only doing wrong politics but now they have started doing politics on the caste of gods and creating communal divide for political gains.”
She accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of doing politics over Friday prayers by Muslims.
She alleged that the government was using religion based identities to alienate masses from one another.
Talking about the alliance of BSP and SP in the state, she said: “This year my birthday has come at a time when the Lok Sabha elections are very near. And keeping the polls in mind, my party has formed the alliance with the SP which has given sleepless nights to the BJP and also others.”
She accused the Centre of using the institutions like CBI to harass its political opponents.
“The best example is of Akhilesh Yadav, and such an act by the government is condemnable and unfortunate. It is a political conspiracy.”
On January 12, Mayawati and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav announced that the they will contest the coming Lok Sabha polls together in Uttar Pradesh sharing 38 seats each of the 80 in the state, while not putting up candidates in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the constituencies of Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress has otherwise been kept out of the alliance.
The Bahujan Samaj Party supremo also said that it was Uttar Pradesh that decides which party would form the government at the Centre. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its allies had won 73 seats.
Appealing to the party workers to vote for the alliance and forget earlier differences, she said: “To make this alliance a success, I appeal to all the workers of the SP and BSP to forget past differences and work for the victory of both parties’ candidates. This would be the biggest gift on my birthday.”
She also warned the party workers that the BJP was capable of spreading confusion and rumours and urged them to remain alert.
Slamming both the Centre and the Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, she said the BJP had lost support of the people of the state as they did not fulfil promises made in 2014.
Batting for a complete farm loan waiver of farmers, she said it would have been beneficial to the farmers of the country if the Modi government had implemented the Swmainathan Commission’s recommendations regarding the agriculture sector.
“The ground reality of the agrarian dimension is that small farmers still continue to opt for private money lenders and loans from private banks as there is no structured government policy of waiving their debt.
“The government should give 100 per cent farm loan waiver. Else farmer suicides will continue. A strong farm loan waiver policy should be made,” she said.
Mocking at the Congress’s farm loan waivers in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, she said the Congress government announced to waive farm loans till March 31, 2018 after it came to power on December 17, 2018.
The BSP leader blamed the BJP and Congress governments for corruption since Independence.
“Due to corruption, the farmers, Dalits and tribals did not get opportunity to progress. And thus we had to form the BSP after getting disillusioned,” she added.
At the event, Mayawati released the 14th edition of her “Blue Book”, which details her struggles as the BSP leader.
She also wished Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple, an MP from Kannauj, on her birthday which also falls on Tuesday.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Describing the coming Lok Sabha elections as a “battle of two ideologies”, BJP President Amit Shah on Friday hit out at the proposed opposition grand alliance describing it as an “eyewash” and attacked the coming together of the SP and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh because they have realised that they cannot defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi on their own individually.
Asserting that 2019 will be a year of expansion for the BJP, he said Modi was leading the NDA that has 35 parties, the opposition does not have either a leader of a policy.
Sounding the poll bugle at the inauguration of the party’s two-day National Convention, he asked the BJP workers to resolve to bring Modi back to power in the general elections saying the people of the country will elect a “mazboot sarkar (strong government) and not a “mazboor sarkar” (compromising government).
Under pressure from the RSS and other members of the ‘Sangh Parivar’, Shah utilised the opportunity to assert that the government is keen on the construction of a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya in accordance with Constitutional norms but accused the Congress of creating hurdles.
“This ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) is an eyewash. Everybody is fighting for their survival. We defeated them in 2014 and it is time to defeat them again. Politics is not physics but chemistry in which when two compounds meet they can lead to unintended consequences. They have come together for their self interest and for power. This is a battle that will have a far-reaching impact for centuries to come. It is necessary to win it.”
Touching upon the proposed alliance between arch rivals in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP President asked “if bua-bhatija’ (aunt-nephew) come together what will happen. They did not want to see each other’s face a few months back. They cannot sit together.”
“We are ready to fight the battle to get over 50 per cent vote share in Uttar Pradesh. We will get not less than 74 seats (one more than what the BJP and its allies got in 2014). They have united because they cannot defeat Modi on their own. This is acceptance of our strength, of the strength of Prime Minister Modi,” he said.
“There was a time when it used to be Congress versus all. Today it is a matter of pride that it is Modi versus all. He is a pole of Indian politics on the strength of his hard work,” he said.
Calling upon the BJP workers to take a resolve for the re-election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, Amit Shah compared the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to the third battle of Panipat.
Shah said the party was gaining momentum in Odisha and West Bengal and he was personally keen to see a BJP government in Kerala.
Referring to the contentious issue of the Ram Temple, he said it was being said that the party has deviated from its earlier words.
“The ideology with which we started in 1950, the journey is continuing in the same direction. The BJP wants that Ram Temple should be constructed at the earliest and a grand temple should be built at Ayodhya. We are trying that the issue is settled soon as per constitutional norms. The matter is pending in the Supreme Court. Congress is creating road blocks. We were and are committed for Ram temple,” he said.
He laid out the issues that will be the campaign themes of the party in the next three months including upper caste job reservation and welfare measures for the poor including toilets, gas, housing, Ayushman Bharat and financial inclusion.
Shah accused Congress President Rahul Gandhi of “manufacturing” allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal and talked of surgical strikes and said Modi had enhanced India’s stature in the world.
Speaking of the rise of the Marathas under Shivaji and subsequent warriors, he said they lost in the Battle of Panipat in 1761 and the country later came under the rule of the British for 200 years.
“That was a decisive battle. Today the situation is the same. The country’s politics saw several ups and downs in the last 70 years. The BJP started its journey from Jan Sangh and got full majority in 2014 under Narendra Modi. In 2014 we were in power in six states, today we are in power in 16,” he said.
He said the Modi-led government was transparent, decisive, sensitive and based on democratic values.
“When we went for election in 2014, we had cadre. Today we have nine crore active workers. There are 22 crore beneficiaries of government schemes. Last time people wanted to give Modi a chance, this time we are fighting on the basis of his performance.”
“We have leadership of the most popular, hardworking, transparent and visionary leader. I am working with him since 1987. He has never been defeated. There is no question of stopping. We will again make a full majority NDA government in 2019.”
He urged the people to have faith in Modi again and said no one else can give a strong government.
He said the Modi government had a “spotless record” and attacked Rahul Gandhi and his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
“Those who are on bail and are facing income tax notices are making allegations of corruption against us. People of the country are not going to believe this.”
He said the Supreme Court had said that there was no need to probe the Rafale fighter deal and answers were given in parliament but Rahul Gandhi was still making allegations.
“What is this frustration. Five years are about to end. If they do not rake up allegations, how will they fight. They (the Congress) has indulged in corruption in every defence deal. If Michel mama is caught, they start sweating.”
“The history of their four generations is marked by corruption and you are making allegations against us.”
Referring to fugitive economic offenders Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya, he said they were “in comfort” during the UPA rule but were forced to flee when the Modi government came to power.
“Chowkidar will bring all the thieves. It is only a matter of time. They will have to return the money pending against their names,” he said.
He said India is the fastest growing economy and the government had implemented its promise of giving farmers prices at 50 per cent over their input cost.
He talked of efforts to bring justice to various sections including the Sikhs and efforts to empower weaker sections including Dalits, women and tribals.
Shah said the NDA had made a difference to the lives of the poor by providing a record number of houses, toilets, banking, electricity and gas connections in the last five years.
He made repeated mention of the bill to provide 10 per cent reservation to the economically backward sections among the upper castes in education and government jobs and said the poor among the general categories will get their first opportunity for a slice of the pie of reserved government jobs.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : Special SIT court judge P.B. Desai “ignored evidence” that former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed in a mob attack in Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Housing Society during the 2002 riots, did all that was possible within his power to protect Muslims from the “rage of the mob” and instead echoed the position of then Chief Minister Narendra Modi that his killing was only a “reaction” to his “action” of shooting at the mob, says human rights activist Harsh Mander.
He says that “the learned judge”, who retired in December 2017, overlooked statements by surviving witnesses that Jafri made repeated desperate calls to senior police officers and other persons in authority, “including allegedly Chief Minister Modi”, pleading that security forces be sent to “disperse the crowd” and rescue those “against whom the mob had laid a powerful siege”.
Mander, who quit the IAS in Gujarat in the wake of the riots, makes these observations in his just released book, “Partitions of the Heart: Unmaking the Idea of India”, published by Penguin.
The 66-year-old activist, who works with survivors of mass violence and hunger as well as homeless persons and street children, goes on to quote the late journalist Kuldip Nayar to establish that Jafri had desperately telephoned him, “begging him to contact someone in authority to send in the police or the Army to rescue them”.
Mander says Nayar rang up the Union Home Ministry to convey to it the seriousness of the situation. The Home Ministry said it was in touch with the state government and was “watching” the situation. Jafri called again, pleading with Nayar to do something as the mob was threatening to lynch him.
In the chapter titled “Whatever happened in Gulberg Society?”, Mander contends that Jafri did everything within his power to protect “those who believed that his influence would shield them from the rage of the mob”. Mander says Jafri begged the mob to “take his life instead” and in a show of valour went out “to plead and negotiate” with the angry crowd.
“When he realised that no one in authority would come in for their protection, he also did pick up his licensed firearm and shoot at the crowd…,” Mander notes, describing it as the “final vain bid” on behalf of Jafri to protect the Muslims in the line of fire.
The author notes that in describing Jafri’s final resort to firing as an illegitimate action, the judge only echoed the position taken repeatedly by Modi, who had given an interview to a newspaper in which he had said that it was Jafri who had first fired at the mob.
“He forgot to say what a citizen is expected to do when a menacing mob, which has already slaughtered many, approaches him and the police has deliberately not responded to his pleas,” says Mander.
He says that it was as if even when under attack and surrounded by an armed mob warning to slaughter them, “and with acid bombs and burning rags flung at them”, a good Muslim victim should do nothing except plead, and this would ensure their safety.
Ehsan Jafri’s wife Zakia Jafri, according to Mander, was firmly convinced that her husband was killed because of a conspiracy that went right to the top of the state administration, beginning with Modi. The author notes that the court, in its judgement running into more than 1,300 pages, disagreed.
“It did indict 11 people for the murder but they were just foot soldiers,” observed Mander.
He further says that the story the survivors told the judge over prolonged hearings was consistent but Judge Desai was convinced that there was “no conspiracy behind the slaughter” and that the administration did all it could to control it.
“Jafri, by the judge’s reckoning, and that of Modi, was responsible for his own slaughter,” he laments.
Mander also argues in the book that recurring episodes of communal violence in Ahmedabad had altered the city’s demography, dividing it into Hindu and Muslim areas and Gulberg was among the last remaining “Muslim” settlements in the “Hindu” section of the city.
He says that Desai also disregarded the evidence in the conversations secretly taped by Tehelka reporters, mentioning that superior courts, according to Desai himself, have ruled that while a person cannot be convicted exclusively based on the evidence collected in such “sting operations”, such evidence is certainly “admissible as corroborative proof”.
“But he chose to disregard this evidence, not because there was proof that these video recordings were in any way doctored or false but simply because the Special Investigative Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court of India chose to ignore this evidence,” says Mander.
According to Mander, the Tehelka recordings “certainly supported the theory that there was indeed a plan to collect, incite and arm the mob to undertake the gruesome slaughter”.
The SIT was headed by R.K. Raghavan, today Ambassador to Cyprus. Mander contends in the book that just because the investigators did not pursue Tehelka recordings in greater depth, Desai concluded that the “recordings cannot be relied upon as trustworthy of substantial evidence and establish any conspiracy herein”.
In the book, Mander takes stock of whether India has upheld the values it had set out to achieve and offers painful, unsparing insight into the contours of violence. The book is now available both online and in bookstores.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump have agreed to further boost New Delhi-Washington bilateral ties while taking a positive note on cooperation across various sectors, the External Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday.
According to a Ministry statement, the two leaders exchanged New Year greetings in a telephonic conversation on Monday evening.
“They expressed satisfaction at the progress in India-US strategic partnership in 2018,” the statement said.
“They appreciated developments such as the launch of the new 2+2 Dialogue mechanism and the first-ever trilateral summit of India, the US and Japan.”
Modi, Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on the idelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires last November.
The three countries along with Australia, are part of a quad that was revived in 2017 seeking to work for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Ministry statement said that Modi and Trump also “took positive note of growing bilateral cooperation in defence, counter-terrorism and energy and coordination on regional and global issues”.
“They agreed to continue to work together for further strengthening India-US bilateral relations in 2019.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The sniping over Rafale deal showed no signs of ending with the Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a debate on the Rafale deal and accusing Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of “lying” over the contracts given to public sector undertaking HAL even as she accused him of raising “incorrect and misleading” doubts regarding her statement in Parliament.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also slammed Gandhi describing his allegations on the deal to purchase fighter jets from France as “completely false” and said these were based on complete “commercial interests” and to “promote a competitor.”
Making a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said she had received confirmation from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) that during 2014 to 2018, contracts amounting to Rs 26,570.80 crore had been signed with the public sector company and orders worth approximately Rs 73,000 crore were in the pipeline.
“Doubts are being raised on my statement made on the floor of the house on January 4 regarding procurement orders in the pipeline for HAL… I would like to set all doubts to rest by adding that I have received confirmation from HAL that during 2014-2018, contracts amounting to Rs 26,570.80 crore have already been signed with HAL and orders approximately of Rs 73,000 crore are in the pipeline,” she said without naming Gandhi.
“I had specifically mentioned that there are 83 LCA Tejas fighters ordered worth Rs 50,000 crore, 15 combat helicopters worth Rs 3,000 crore, 200 more helicopters worth Rs 20,000 crore, 19 Dornier transport aircraft worth Rs 3,400 crore, helicopters worth Rs 15,000 crore, and aero-engines worth Rs 8,400 crore. All of them put together amount to Rs 1 lakh crore,” she added.
Placing documents related to those orders on the floor, Sitharaman said they “clearly confirm the correctness of my statement made on the floor of this house and (prove that) the doubts raised in this regard are incorrect and misleading”.
Gandhi had alleged on Sunday that Sitharaman had “lied” to Parliament asked her to produce documents that the government had given contracts of Rs one lakh crore to HAL.
Gandhi kept up his attack on Monday following her statement in the Lok Sabha and described her as a “spokesperson of Narendra Modi”.
He said only contracts worth Rs 26,570 crore have been given to HAL not Rs 1 lakh crore “as stated” by the Minister while replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha last week.
“She spoke a clear lie in Parliament. Contracts of Rs 26,570 crore have been given to HAL. Remarks that more contracts of Rs 73,000 crore have been given is a total sham,” Gandhi told reporters in Parliament House complex.
He said the Modi government had given Dassault Aviation Rs 20,000 crore though they had not delivered a single Rafale aircraft but HAL, which had delivered on its orders including helicopters, was awaiting payment of Rs 15,700 crore. He accused the government of trying to wreck HAL.
Gandhi also accused Modi of doing a “bypass surgery” on the Rafale deal and said Sitharaman should give a “yes” or “no” answer to his question.
“I am asking Prime Minister and Defence Minister: Did officials of Air Force, Defence Ministry say that Narendra Modi had interfered in the deal,” he said.
The Congress chief said when he raised the question in Parliament, Sitharaman started talking about her middle class background which was “also not true”.
He accused Modi of being scared of facing Parliament.
“The chowkidar of the country is scared to face Parliament. He cannot stand in a Rafale debate. Give me 15 minutes with Narendra Modi, the whole country will know (the truth),” he said.
Gandhi also tweeted and said it is surprising that HAL doesn’t have enough cash to pay salaries.
Party leader Kapil Sibal also attacked the Modi government.
“Modiji’s Make in India. IAF pays foreign vendors on schedule, holds back payments to HAL. HAL employees entered New Year without payment of December salaries. HAL takes Rs 781 crore bank loan for running costs. End of this financial year IAF will owe HAL Rs 20,000 crore. Wah Modiji!,” Sibal said.
Prasad told the media that available documents in the public domain raised serious suspicious circumstances of the intention of Rahul Gandhi and Congress.
“It is too well known that the Congress party is never happy unless there is deal in the defence deal. Why is it that the leading family namely the Gandhi family appear in documents after documents, be it the AgustaWestland, be it the Air Force fighter planes for Rafale and their competitor Eurofighter?” he asked.
“Today a media house has come out with a document which says a strategy paper seized during the raids at Italian middleman Guido Haschke’s residence and offices has revealed that Christian Michel and Haschke worked on a plan to place Rafale’s prime competitor in the win zone.”
He said that one of of the middlemen Michel, a British national who is under detention, and others were also pushing the case for Eurofighter, which was in competition with Rafale. He claimed that the documents which have been shown were “explosive” in nature.
Firing salvos at the Congress chief, Prasad said: “Please explain what proximity you and your family have with Michel and Hasche?”
He said that despite Dassault emerging as the lowest bidder, the Congress government wanted a review of the decision-making process.
“How long will you keep on playing with national security?” he asked.
—IANS
