by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Jaideep Sarin,
Chandigarh : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi once caused a stir by claiming over 70 per cent Punjab’s youth were addicted to drugs. The party, which returned to power in March last year, had used every political trick to highlight the rampant drug abuse in the state during the campaign for the assembly polls. The issue has now returned to haunt its leaders.
With over 30 deaths linked to drug abuse being reported in June from different parts of Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is facing an onslaught from the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for his government’s failure to curb the menace.
Before coming to power, Amarinder Singh had, in December 2015, publicly taken a religious pledge by holding a copy of the “Gutka Sahib”, a Sikh holy book, and saying that if he came to power, he would wipe out the scourge of drugs from Punjab within four weeks.
His Congress government is now over 15 months old, and has clearly failed to contain the drug menace.
Faced with criticism and pressure from the opposition, Amarinder hurriedly called a special meeting of his cabinet on Monday to address the issue.
However, other than making statements and claims, and passing the buck to the central government by suggesting stronger laws against drug peddlers and smugglers, the Amarinder government has failed to do enough to contain the drug problem, say opposition leaders.
Be it heroin or “Chitta” (a white powder drug), other lifestyle chemical drugs and opium, the supply chain has not been broken in Punjab despite the Amarinder government’s claim that there has been a crackdown on those dealing in drugs.
The Chief Minister has, however, gone on record to claim that thousands of people linked to the drugs trade had been arrested.
“The intensive action plan unfolded and executed by us during the last over a year has resulted in arrest of 18,977 drug peddlers and treatment of more than two lakh drug victims,” Amarinder said this week.
In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, the Chief Minister pointed out that the existing Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, provides for death penalty for certain offences if these are committed for a second time.
“This means that a person can indulge in these nefarious activities and get away at least once, causing substantial damage to the youth and the society,” Amarinder pointed out, adding that a harsher penalty for first-time offenders in drugs could be a deterrent to those indulging in this illegal activity.
For the past over two decades, the unholy nexus of the drug peddlers and smugglers with police officials and politicians has been alleged but it has not been broken.
The Congress and AAP leaders used to accuse an Akali Dal minister of being involved in the drugs racket. The drug trade in Punjab has also been linked to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and other countries.
Leader of Opposition and AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira is not impressed by the statements being issued by the Amarinder government.
“The government is not doing anything concrete at the ground level. None of the so-called big fish in the drug trade have been arrested so far,” Khaira pointed out.
The government started on a positive note last year by setting up a Special Task Force (STF) to deal with the drugs menace.
A year down the line, the STF finds its wings clipped and its chief, senior police officer Harpreet Singh Sidhu, is not being allowed to use his powers to get to the bottom of the drug trade.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Union Minister Arun Jaitley’s allegation that “jehadists and Maoists” have earned the sympathy of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is “laughable and absurd” former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Saturday, adding that the party is “stoutly opposed” to the two groups.
Jaitley, in his hard-hitting blog post on Friday had said while “jehadis and Maoists” were threatening the rights of citizens, human rights organisations “taken over by the ultra-left” never spoke of this.
He alleged that even though the Congress historically and ideologically would have been opposed to these groups, they have earned sympathy in Rahul Gandhi’s heart.
“He had no qualms about joining those who raised subversive slogans at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and Hyderabad.
“With this initial success, the others amongst the so-called federal front have forgotten the dangers of these groups to India and Indian democracy.
“The political adventurists in parties like AAP (Aam Aadmi Party), TMC (Trinamool Congress) and the like only look for a political opportunity in these groups,” he wrote in his blog.
Senior Congress leader Chidambaram, hit out at Jaitley saying the United Progressive Alliance government led by the Congress had fought the jehadis in Jammu and Kashmir and brought down the level of violence substantially.
“The allegation that jehadists and Maoists have earned the sympathy of Rahul Gandhi is laughable and absurd. Congress is stoutly opposed to the two groups,” Chidambaram said in a series of tweets.
“Who can forget that Congress practically lost its entire leadership in Chhattisgarh to Maoist violence? Under UPA, the government fought the jehadists in Jammu and Kashmir and brought down the level of violence substantially,” he added.
The Union Minister, who underwent kidney replacement in May and is yet to rejoin his office, in his blog had said that the terrorists and the jehadis were threatening the human rights of the citizens in Jammu and Kashmir.
“They terrorise courts; they kill editors; they kill innocent citizens and they don’t allow any alternate religion to be practised. Who is threatening the human rights of the citizens of Kashmir? It is obvious that it is the terrorists and the jehadis.”
Meanwhile, Maoists don’t allow any development activity in tribal regions, he said. “They kill innocent tribals who don’t agree with them; they destroy public buildings; they kill security personnel and they even charge a parallel tax from helpless citizens.”
He said human rights were at the core of India’s Parliamentary democracy and the Constitution guaranteed these to every citizen. “Our policy has to be ‘save the human rights of every Indian – be it a tribal or a Kashmiri’ from terrorists,” Jaitley had written.
However, he had accused the human rights organisations of being taken over by the ultra-left and said they never spoke about the deprivation of the human rights of the citizens, and “never shed a tear for the indiscriminate killing of the security personnel”.
“These human right organisations are an over-ground face of the underground. In the system that they believe in, there is no place for life, liberty, equality and free speech, election or Parliamentary democracy.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi : In a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi following the resignation of Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa ahead of the trust vote, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday termed him “corruption” and that Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and the RSS considered no institution “worthy of respect”.
Addressing the media here shortly after Yeddyurappa’s resignation, he said the Congress will work with other opposition parties to defeat the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Gandhi said Modi’s model of leadership is not that of democratic person but that of a dictator and “even Supreme Court knows that”.
Accusing Modi of promoting corruption in Karnataka to gain support for the BJP, which had emerged the single-largest party amid split verdict in by the May 12 assembly election, he cited attempts at horse-trading, including purported telephonic conversations of some BJP leaders to get support of Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) legislators, who formed a post-poll coalition.
People saw “how the Prime Minister authorised directly buying MLAs in Karnataka from our party and from the JD-S”, he said, adding Modi’s talks of fighting corruption are a “blatant lie”.
“He is corruption. He is doing everything to subvert this nation and he is doing it across the board. There are phone conversations of MLAs being approached for purchase by the BJP and that was directly authorised from Delhi,” he said.
He alleged that RSS, the BJP’s ideological patron, wants to capture every institution “and that is what we are fighting” and will “work with the opposition to defeat the BJP”.
He hoped that the BJP and RSS will learn a lesson from the developments in Karnataka where Governor Vajubhai Vala had invited the BJP to form government, “that the institutions of this country, the will of the people of this country cannot be disrespected”.
The Congress had moved the Supreme Court following th3e Governor inviting Yeddyurappa to form government and giving him 15 days to prove majority. The apex court had slashed the time for trust vote and fixed it for Saturday.
Contending that the Prime Minister is not bigger than people of India, the Supreme Court or members of parliament and assemblies, Gandhi said: “I am doubtful that Prime Minister will understand that because he had been trained throughout his life by the RSS never to respect another institution except the RSS. But that is the message that people of Karnataka and the people of India have given to the Prime Minister.”
“I am very proud to say that they have been shown that in India, power is not everything, money is not everything, corruption is not everything. In India, the will of the people is everything. We have explained to the people in the BJP and the RSS that there are limits to your arrogance, there are limits to how you are trying to run this country,” he said.
Accusing Modi, Amit Shah and RSS of believing “that every institution can be destroyed”, he said:
“You can disrespect anybody in this country simply because you happen to be in power? And the BJP and the RSS does it again and again. That there is no institution in this country that is worthy of the respect of the Prime Minister, Amit Shah and the RSS.”
He also accused the BJP of disrespecting the proceedings of the Karnataka Assembly, saying the national anthem was not played after Yeddyurappa announced his resignation and the BJP legislators and the Pro-tem Speaker left the house. “In a way, this is what we are fighting today… The idea that you can rubbish every single institution in this country.”
Asked if the state Governor should resign, Gandhi said the power was completely controlled by the Prime Minister and the RSS. “So, it is a good idea to resign, but I can guarantee you that, under the BJP regime, the next man will do exactly the same thing,” he said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Kamal Nath
By Prashant Sood and Sidhartha Dutta,
New Delhi : Newly-appointed Congress President in Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath says that it is not a practice in his party to declare a chief ministerial candidate in a poll-bound state and Rahul Gandhi will do so in the state, if the need is felt.
He also says that the people in Madhya Pradesh are angry with the “thuggery” of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government and the Congress is much better organised to defeat it in the assembly polls to be held later this year.
“Well, there is no doubt the time is short. But I am confident that we will be able to strengthen the party at the village level. This is a contest against the BJP’s organisational strength and their money power,” he said in an interview with IANS.
Kamal Nath, 71, who is MP from Chhindwara and has been elected to the Lok Sabha nine times, said that the decision about changes in the state unit should have been made “much earlier” in view of the coming elections but he was not going to look back and think why the decision was not made.
The former union minister, who was appointed Madhya Pradesh Congress chief on April 26, said he has no faction, has good relations with all leaders and does not have to strive to bring about factional unity.
Kamal Nath appeared to be keeping open the option of contestng the Assembly polls. “I have been fighting for 40 years. I am the longest serving MP.” Asked if party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia will contest, he said, “I don’t know”.
Asked about the party not declaring a chief ministerial candidate and if the appointment of Scindia as head of the Campaign Committee was a balancing act, he said: “Madhya Pradesh is a complex state and no one face can win you the election. You need several faces. And that’s what has been done.”
Asked if he would have liked the party to have declared a CM candidate, he said that the strategy varies from state to state.
“It is sometimes necessary, sometimes not necessary. Who did BJP have as a chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh? Who did they have their CM candidate in Uttarakhand. They never had a chief ministerial candidate. So, it depends,” he said.
On his earlier views in an interview that party should define in every state who the leader is, Kamal Nath said: “If a need is felt, the Congress President will declare one.”
Kamal Nath said his priorities as PCC chief will be to strengthen the party at the village level. “Election has become very localised. This we must understand.”
“Every section of society in MP is in distress, farmers, the youth, traders, the labourers, women. Never in the history of politics, has there been a situation where every section of society is against you. The people of Madhya Pradesh are simple and docile. They sometimes will accept being disappointed, but will not accept being thugged. The voters are feeling that they have been thugged,” he added.
Asked about the strategy to defeat the BJP with about seven months left for the polls, he said: “We have a strategy to strengthen the party at the grassroots level. There is a micro strategy which obviously is to be kept within our party.”
The Congress has lost the last three assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh to the BJP.
Kamal Nath alleged that all promises of BJP government have fallen flat.
“We are better organised this time and all the announcements and promises made by the BJP have fallen flat on their face. On the ground there is nothing. When every section of society is against them, then what is there,” he said.
“Organisationally we are better organised. Do you think we have been battling for this election for the last one year. It’s not that. We started much earlier maybe under a different PCC leadership. But everybody is working,” he added.
Answering a query about former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh and his role, he said: “Everybody is close with me, remember that. Make no mistake. Digvijay Singh has large organisational knowledge of the state. And he will need to be active. He has already announced that he is not for any post or position.”
Asked if wide acceptability was a reason for his appointment as PCC chief, Kamal Nath said, “Whatever the reason that Rahul Gandhi will tell you but the fact is this that I am one person who has very good relations with everybody. So for me it is not a challenge to bring unity to the party. I am fortunate that there is no need for me to do it. There already is unity.”
Kamal Nath said his contest is against the incumbent Chief Minister unless Prime Minister Narendra Modi turns it into one against him.
Asked if there were internal differences in the party with Scindia feeling that he has lost out, Kamal Nath said he did not think so.
He said Scindia was in Bhopal during a road show to mark fresh appointments in the state and they met every few days.
(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in and Sidhartha Dutta at sidhartha.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the BJP-led NDA government of “crushing” the Supreme Court and said that the Dalits may get killed and women may face rapes but Prime Minister Narendra Modi was only interested in himself and in becoming PM again.
Addressing a gathering here to mark the party’s “Save the Constitution” campaign, he accused Modi of destroying country’s reputation abroad and slammed his government’s record in protecting the weaker sections and minorities.
The campaign, launched against the backdrop of uproar in the country over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua and incidents of rapes in other parts of the country including in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao where the accused is a BJP MLA, is also aimed at boosting Congress prospects for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Citing Modi’s slogan of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, Gandhi said it had become “Beti Bachao from BJP.”
Claiming that institutions such as the Supreme Court, high courts, Parliament, assemblies and the Election Commission, IITs, IIMs have been built on the basis of the Constitution which has been given to the country by B.R. Ambedkar and the Congress, Gandhi alleged that people with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background were being inducted in these institutions by the Modi government.
“It has happened for the first time that four judges of the Supreme Court went to the people to seek justice. The Supreme court is being crushed, it is being suppressed. Parliament was not allowed to run and the press is also being crushed,” he said on a day when the impeachment notice given against Chief Justice of India by members of Congress and six other opposition parties was rejected by Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu.
Referring to Modi’s radio programme “Mann ki baat”, Gandhi said people will tell him their “mann ki baat” in 2019.
“Dalits may get killed, minorities face atrocities, country may burn, women may face rapes, it is nothing. Narendra Modi only wants to understand one thing that how he can become Prime Minister (again). What all has to be done to be prime minister.. only this is his interest,” he said, alleging Modi was afraid to face Parliament on issues like the PNB fraud scam, deportation of Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallaya and the Rafale fighter deal.
“If I am allowed to speak for 15 minutes on Rafale issue in Parliament before Modi, he will not be able to withstand it,” he said.
Referring to the second half of the budget session of Parliament, Gandhi said it was for the first time that the treasury benches “disrupted” the Houses, instead of the opposition.
Noting IMF chief Christine Lagarde had told Modi recently that atrocities were being committed against women in India, he said that even despite this, the Prime Minister was quiet.
He also questioned Modi for associating spirituality with cleaning of toilets, saying for him, the only spirituality was in “becoming the Prime Minister”.
Gandhi, who faced a question during his address, asked media persons if they could pose a query to Modi when he was speaking.
“That’s the difference between us and them. You attack us and we protect you. That is what we are. We defend the press. That is the difference between us and them. We will continue to do so. And will support you because we know you are brave people. And we will support your fight,” he said.
—IANS
