by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Tabassum Hasan, who opened the Rashtriya Lok Dal account in the 16th Lok Sabha on Thursday by defeating BJP’s Mriganka Singh in Kairana, is also the first Muslim MP from Uttar Pradesh among the present members of the House.
Hasan, who had support of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate by over 44,000 votes.
The Kairana seat had fallen vacant following the death of Mriganka Singh’s father and BJP MP Hukum Singh.
The BJP, which won 71 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls along with two won by its ally, now has 68 MPs from the state.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Economy, News, Politics, SMEs
By Brij Khandelwal,
Agra : The controversial Taj Heritage Corridor which brought down the Mayawati government in 2003 is being resurrected in a new avatar — but disturbing questions remain, environmentalists say.
The Uttar Pradesh horticulture department, in collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India, has started greening the vast wasteland sandwiched between two world heritage monuments, the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort, after the local MP and the chairman of the SC/ST Commission Ram Shankar Katheria laid the foundation stone of the new Taj View Garden a few days ago.
The Supreme Court, some 10 years ago, had asked the Archaeological Survey of India to clean up the debris from the corridor site and develop the 80 acres of reclaimed land as a green buffer to insulate the Taj Mahal from air pollution. But for want of resources, it took more than a decade for the work to start.
“We have laid a new lush green lawn and lined up ornamental plants. Come rainy season and the whole area would be a green delight and attract tourists,” UP horticulture department’s garden superintendent Mukesh Kumar said.
Agra Mayor Navin Jain has promised that the municipal corporation would extend the green frontiers and maintain the newly-developed park.
Once completed, the green stretch will be a new attraction for tourists.
Till recently the land was being used not only as a dumping ground for garbage but also as a place to bury bodies of children and aborted foetuses. The sprawling 80-acre platform, recovered through dredging of the river bed and refilling of the open space, was left unfinished after corruption charges were levelled against Mayawati. The charges eventually brought down her government.
The corridor was to begin from Khan-e-Alam, close to the Taj Mahal, and extend two kilometres towards the city behind the Agra Fort. It was to be extended later to allow tourists to reach Etmaddaula and Ram Bagh on the other side of the river.
For months, hundreds of tractors, earthmovers and machines worked round the clock to dig out silt and deposit it on the river bank to create a new platform, which was laid with Rajasthani stones.
The space was to be used to erect tall buildings, amusement parks, shopping malls and the like.
But, after a hue and cry from conservationists that the corridor would endanger the monument and allegations of large-scale corruption in the project, the Central government suspended the work in 2003. The alleged scandal reportedly involved government allotment of large tracts of land along the proposed corridor to a private builder for a song.
As the case against Mayawati dragged for years, the corridor remained an eyesore between two world heritage monuments. Scores of foreign tourists visit the site daily and take pictures that were not too flattering.
Environmentalists have on several occasions expressed concern at the alarming pollution level in the Yamuna after hundreds of truck-loads of waste, including carcasses of animals and bodies of children, was dumped into the river.
When tourists looked at the Taj Mahal from Agra Fort, what they saw was a disturbing sight — heaps of stinking garbage, carcasses and graves of children dotting the structure and mounds of rubble that invite mosquitoes, dogs, snakes, crows and vultures.
“Such an ugly sight near the world’s most beautiful monument can be repulsive and nauseating,” environmentalist Harendra Gupta said.
Rajiv Gupta, former president of the National Chamber of Industries and Commerce, thought that “a positive beginning has now been made and soon Agra will have a new tourist attraction”.
But local environmentalists point out that the so-called heritage corridor was, legally speaking, an encroachment on the Yamuna river bed. “That was the reason why work was stopped. Now instead of dismantling and removing the debris, they are seeking to legitimise an encroachment of public land,” said Shravan Kumar Singh of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society.
Eminent historian Prof R. Nath, who had first drawn attention to this controversial corridor back in 2002, told IANS on phone from Ajmer: “This corridor should be cleared and the Yamuna allowed to breathe free. Also, the artificial park created just behind the Taj Mahal on a mound of debris should be immediately cleared as it has distanced the river Yamuna which should flow touching the base of the monument. The powers that be should stop playing with monuments.”
(Brij Khandelwal can be contacted at brij.k@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday described as “unconstitutional” and set aside a provision of a law that allowed government accommodations to former Uttar Pradesh Chief Ministers.
A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said once a Chief Minister demits office, there was nothing to distinguish him or her from a common man.
Setting aside the provision of the law passed by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the court said it was “arbitrary”, “discriminatory” and “unconstitutional”.
The amendments made in Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions Act were introduced by then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s government in 2016.
The top court order came on a plea by NGO Lok Prahari.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : Is Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — in power for just over a year — fast losing his lustre?
Many here feel so.
A litany of complaints about his public conduct, his behaviour with colleagues as well as common people is fast eroding the aura he had built up as the five-time Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur who was catapulted to the Chief Minister’s office of a socially diverse and politically volatile state of 220 million people.
Last week, 24-year-old Ayush Bansal shocked many when he broke down in front of media in Gorakhpur and disclosed how the monk-turned-Chief Minister mocked him during a “junta darbaar” where he had gone to complain about a land-grab case in which independent legislator from Nautanwa, Amanmani Tripathi, was involved.
He also accused the Chief Minister of calling him “awaraa” (wayward) and pushing him while throwing his file in the air. “Maharaj ji angrily snapped at me and said my work will never be done and that I should get out of his sight,” Bansal told IANS.
While officials got down to damage control and said the matter was being looked into, the fact that Adityanath behaved in a manner unbecoming of a Chief Minister was neither contradicted by officials nor denied by the ruling party.
Barely had the din over this episode died down when two MPs of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) complained of similar behaviour. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP MP from Robertsganj Chhote Lal Kharwar, accused Adityanath of “scolding him and asking him to get out”. The MP said he was deeply pained at the behavior of the Chief Minister as he tried to draw his attention to issues faced by the party faithful.
“Never did the local administration listen to my plaints and when I went to meet the Chief Minister twice over many issues, ‘unhone mujhe daantkar bhaga diya‘ (he scolded me and chased me away),” the lawmaker said in his letter.
The BJP leader has also shot off a letter to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, seeking help. Lal also says that definite proof of wrong-doing and corruption presented by him went unheard and unaddressed.
What is surprising is that all this happened to a man who is the state president of the BJP’s SC/ST Morcha.
While Modi is learnt to have assured Lal of action, there are other similar murmurs about Adityanath’s rough behaviour. Etawah MP Ashok Dohre has also written to Modi accusing the state police of lodging fake cases against SCs and STs during the Bharat Bandh. When asked why he did not petition the Chief Minister, Dohre said he considered Modi his leader, and thus petitioned him.
Alarmed by the sudden “unease” among the party’s lawmakers, Amit Shah summoned Yogi to New Delhi over the weekend and is learnt to have asked him to mend his ways. Adityanth also met Modi. Interestingly, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who party insiders admit doesn’t see eye to eye with Yogi, was also called to Delhi at the same time.
Ironically, till not long ago, the 45-year-old Chief Minister was being venerated by the party faithful as a man next only to Modi. Insiders, however, now admit that not only has Adityanath failed to show his “pakad” (hold) on the party, but is also “awkwardly arrogant in his public conduct”, and not very able in his administration.
“He may be a busy man, so have been his predecessors… he remains inaccessible and uses foul and unacceptable language at times,” conceded a senior minister who did not wish to be named. Though stopping short of calling the Chief Minister arrogant, he suggested that “Yogi-ji is better advised to be more courteous and improve his time management”.
A senior party functionary too noted “the changing ways of Maharaj-ji”, though he felt “mood swings and the tongue-lashings could be because he has to handle a big state like Uttar Pradesh”.
A senior bureaucrat also alleged that the Chief Minister often “goes off the handle” and could be very acerbic in his dealing with officials.
The Chief Minister’s loyalists, however, point out that he does not like people to hang around him and wants officials to deliver fast and work within the system that has been set up. When there is any breach, he loses his temper, a close aide told IANS.
His failure to deliver on his promise to get all pot-holed roads fixed by a given deadline last year; the rollback — under pressure — in privatisation of the power sector in five cities; the poor showing in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha by-polls and reports that he and his deputy, Keshav Prasad Maurya, don’t get along well have already rung alarm bells in the establishment, sources said.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Quaid Najmi,
Mumbai : There are contradicting records of the numbers of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in stock, their costs, their mode of transportation and other details, as per replies received under the Right to Information Act.
Further, it has emerged that no audits have been conducted by the State Election Commissions of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh on EVMs.
Seeking to corroborate the information received from Election Commission of India (ECI), Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), Hyderabad and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), Bengaluru, Mumbai RTI activist Manoranjan S. Roy had sought information on EVMs from two major states — Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh — and received alarming replies.
The Maharashtra State Election Commission (M-SEC) informed on May 2, 2017 that since 2014-2017, it had not conducted any audit pertaining to the number of EVMs, their cost, the security staff, mode of transportation of the EVMs, etc.
However, M-SEC confirmed it is in possession of 76,250 Balloting Units (BUs) and 76,050 Controlling Units (CUs) — the two parts of the EVM system. Additionally, the ECI had provided it with another 15,000 BUs and 110,000 CUs, each costing Rs.9,200 (BU+CU). But it gave no information on the number of defective EVMs lying with it.
When probed further on this, major differences came up in the information provided by the ECI on March 03, 2017 and July 01, 2017 — which points a needle of suspicion towards misuse of EVMs, Roy contended.
In response to a query, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that for corporation elections on February 21, 2017, it had set up 7,304 polling centres in which it deployed 8,161 BUs and 7,304 CUs.
At that time, 136 BUs and 752 CUs were were found to be defective prior to the elections and another 16 BUs and 15 CUs broke down on election day.
To similar queries, the Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission (UP-SEC) said on 08-05-2017 that it had deployed a total 159,791 BUs and 147,164 CUs in the February-March 2017 assembly elections.
Like M-SEC, the UP-SEC also stated that no audits were conducted for the same, adding the (audit) could be available with ECI.
There were differences in the number of EVMs the UP-SEC said it had received from ECIL in 2012, since the ECIL had already made it clear it had not supplied any EVMs to any state during 2006-2013.
Also, the ECI and UP-SEC figures differ vastly on number of polling booths. According to UP-SEC, the total number of polling booths set up were 190,388 in Assembly elections 2017 while the ECI said the number of booths were 11,356 — an obviously incorrect figure.
For those elections, the BEL supplied 139,438 BUs and 105,218 CUs of Model M2MEK, and ECIL supplied 84,480 BUs and 85,170 CUs from five different states, totaling to 224,918 BUs and 190,388 CUs for the assembly polls.
Again at variance with the ECIL’s replies, the UP-SEC said on 30-10-2017 that in 2011, the company had supplied 16,730 BUs and 12,100 CUs for a payment of Rs 142.86 crore plus transportation and VAT of Rs 32,276.
The ECIL had earlier stated that from 2006-2013, it had not supplied any EVMs to any state, as per RTI reply of 16-09-2017.
No transportation details were provided by UP-SEC on grounds that the EVMs were received from different states across India.
The UP-SEC said for the 2017 elections, it received 6,000 BUs and 3,000 CUs from Maharashtra plus another 81,800 BUs and 47,750 CUs from the ECIL, contradicting the UP-SEC’s own figures which said on 08-05-2017 it had deployed a total 159,791 BUs and 147,164 CUs in the assembly elections.
On January 11, 2018, the Madhya Pradesh-State Election Commission (MP-SEC) had supplied on loan 50,000 BUs and 25,000 CUs of EVM Model M1 to the UP-SEC.
“The RTI replies by both Maharashtra and UP SEC’s show they have not conducted audits, maintained proper accounts, there are contradictions galore among all the concerned agencies on the number of EVMs supplies Or received, raising serious doubts on where such huge amounts of public money have actually gone,” Roy said.
“There are absolutely no records of which EVMs were actually used for elections, how many are defective or defunct, why and which different models were deployed, who has approved these different models, the type of software-hardware used and whether they are hack-proof, whether the software is dedicated (exclusive) or purchased from the markets, etc,” Roy said.
The net result is that large stocks of unaccounted EVMs along with BUs/CUs are lying with various state elections commissions all over India and prone to severe misuse by vested interests during different elections where they are deployed, he explained, adding that Karnataka elections are coming up in May 2018.
Moreover, since the past 30 years, there is continuous purchase of EVMs by the ECI for the elections, but even the basic details are missing.
“There’s clearly (unexplained discrepancy) running into many thousands of crores of rupees, blatantly going on since nearly three decades. If this is the situation in just two states, the state of affairs in all other states can well be imagined,” Roy said.
All this calls for a thorough review of the authentic stock position of all EVMs from 1989, the number of non-functional or defective EVMs of both the suppliers and the available stocks with all states, the models and software installed, etc, well before the next general elections, Roy demanded.
Roy has filed a Public Interest Litigation in Bombay High Court, seeking directions to all parties to provide all records/documents pertaining to EVMs, setting up of a suitable probe panel to ban EVMs till the logical outcome of the probe.
Part-1 : EVM skeletons in RTI replies: Contradictory numbers from EC, suppliers raise question mark on polls
—IANS
