Archives for November 2022

Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday made the “family politics” jibe at the ruling TRS in Telangana and said the state needs a government that works for all families and not just one.

Seeking to make light of criticism from his adversaries, Modi said the “2-3 kg” of abuses he receives everyday keep him going to serve people as such words are the “nutrition” that turns the harsh remarks into positive energy.

“The agenda in politics should be service-oriented. But in Telangana the mandate of those who got mandate–their entire focus is to abuse Modi. Sometimes people ask me, Modiji, are you not tired. Yesterday I was in Delhi in the morning then Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and now in Telangana. People ask me whether I don’t get tired,” he said at a public meeting here.

“Then I will tell them that daily I consume 2-3 kg of abusive words. And God has created me in such a way, God has blessed me in such way that all those abusive words are processed and converted as nutrition in my system. It becomes positive energy which will be helped to serve the people,” the PM said.

He further stated that some people, out of disappointment, depression and fear have ‘exhausted’ the dictionary to abuse him.

He asked his supporters not to be concerned with such abusive language as the rival was left with nothing other than such words.

“Don’t worry about it. I for the past 22 years received a variety of abusive words. Just laugh at them, have tea. The Lotus will bloom. go with that happy feeling,” he said. The BJP is making all efforts to challenge the ruling TRS in the 2023 Assembly polls. Lotus is the party’s symbol.

Those who abuse him day and night and also keep on searching for new abusive words.

“I want to tell them, whatever quantity of abusive words you use against Modi, I will digest all of them. You abuse BJP, no problem. We grew like that. But if you abuse the people of Telangana, then it becomes give and take,” he warned.

Training his guns against the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led TRS, Modi said the party on which people reposed faith has betrayed them.

Modi, who addressed BJP workers at the Begumpet airport here soon after his arrival for a visit to the State, said he regrets that the people who flourished and got power in the name of Telangana have pushed it backward.

“The government and the leader here continuously do injustice to the capacity of Telangana and the talent of the people of Telangana. The party which the Telangana people trusted the most, the same party has done the biggest betrayal to Telangana,” he charged, without naming TRS.

However, the Lotus starts blooming in circumstances when there is darkness, he reiterated.

In an obvious reference to the TRS frequently attacking him, Modi said he remains unperturbed by such criticism and appealed to the BJP activists in the State to not to worry about it.

He appreciated the BJP activists for remaining committed to service and keeping up the fight in the face of alleged tyranny.

Referring to the recent bypoll to Munugode Assembly where BJP stood second, he said the way the people of the constituency showed confidence in the party was, according to him, unprecedented.

The BJP workers have brought the entire Telangana government to one Assembly segment (Munugode), he said. People’s blessings are with the party, he said.

“In recent times, whatever bypolls were held, the message is loud and clear that the sunrise is not far in Telangana. Darkness will vanish. Lotus will bloom everywhere in Telangana,” Modi said, referring to the BJP’s successes in Dubbak and Huzurabad Assembly bypolls during the last two years.

Superstitions are being practised in the city, known for its information technology ecosystem, he said and opined such beliefs decide governance, in what seemed to be a veiled reference to Chief Minister Rao.

“Now, Telangana people want a government that works for all the families of Telangana instead of a single family,” Modi said while indirectly referring to the Chief Minister.

“They want a BJP government,” he added.

Recalling his speech from the Red Fort earlier where he spoke against family politics, Modi said the country is watching the people’s anger against corruption and family politics in Telangana.

“I assure the people of Telangana today. Those who loot the poor will not be spared,” he said.

Some people are trying to unite to save themselves from action and form an alliance of the corrupt, but people of Telangana and the country are watching this, and understand what is happening.

Corruption and family politics are the biggest enemies of the poor and development, and the BJP is fighting against them, he said.

He spoke about the NDA government’s efforts in direct benefit transfer, removing corruption in the process.

He highlighted his government’s welfare schemes, including free ration and the free vaccination drive.

He said the Telangana government talked about building double-bedroom houses for poor but it did not let houses to be constructed under the PM Awas Yojana.

“Today, Telangana wants positivity, progress that only BJP can give,” he said.

Chandrasekhar Rao did not receive the Prime Minister at the Begumpet airport.

Ruling TRS MLC K Kavitha alleged the Prime Minister came empty-handed without announcing anything concrete for Telangana.

“Today Prime Minister Modi came to our State. He came empty-handed…other than delivering empty words, he doesn’t do anything good for us,” said Kavitha, daughter of Chandrasekhar Rao.

Sukesh Chandrashekhar

New Delhi: Jailed conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar has said he was ready to face a polygraph test but demanded that it should be conducted “face-to-face” with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP minister Satyendar Jain and the process be telecast live.

In a statement issued through his lawyer, Chandrashekhar also insisted that his allegations were true.

“The polygraph test (should) be conducted as a face-to-face confrontation conducted in the presence of all the three together and the process be telecasted live so that the whole country can watch the ‘pandora’s box’ of reality of Mr Kejriwal and Mr Jain unfold in the open,” he said in the statement dated November 11.

On Tuesday, BJP MP and the party’s former Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari demanded a televised lie detector test for Kejriwal, Jain and Chandrashekhar.

Earlier this week, Chandrashekhar wrote to Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena alleging that he was receiving threats to withdraw his complaints against Kejriwal and AAP leaders Jain and Kailash Gehlot, and sought transfer to a jail outside the city.

Chandrashekhar had earlier written to Saxena seeking a CBI probe against Kejriwal and others for alleged threat and corruption. He had alleged that Jain extorted Rs 10 crore from him in 2019 in exchange for his safety in prison. Chandrashekhar later issued a press release alleging that he had delivered Rs 50 crore to Jain at his farmhouse in Asola in 2016, after which Kejriwal and others met him at a hotel for dinner.

Earlier in the day, Kejriwal said the BJP should make Chandrashekhar its national president as he was speaking the same language as the saffron party.

During a press conference, Kejriwal alleged that the BJP had brought Chandrashekhar into its fold as a star campaigner.

“The BJP demands my lie-detector test and even Sukesh Chandrshekhar makes the same demand. They speak the same language. He is fully trained to join the BJP now,” Kejriwal said.

The Delhi chief minister went on to add, “I have heard that Modiji”s roadshows are not drawing crowds. They should bring Sukesh Chandrshekhar to those roadshows. He has so many stories of how he cheated people that the crowd will just come to watch and listen to his stories. In fact, he should be made the BJP’s national president.” 

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut walked out of Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail on Wednesday evening, hours after a special court granted him bail in a money laundering case.

He was arrested on August 1 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the money laundering case related to a housing project in suburban Goregaon.

At around 5 pm, Raut’s legal team dropped his bail order into the Arthur Road jail box and at about 6.50 pm, the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader stepped out of the prison, where he had spent more than three months.

A large number of supporters of the Rajya Sabha member, who had assembled outside the jail, burst into celebration as soon as he walked out of the jail and raised slogans hailing him. Firecrackers were set off near the jail in central Mumbai by Raut’s supporters.

The arrest of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut in a money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was “illegal” and a “witch-hunt”, a special court here said on Wednesday while granting him bail in the Patra Chawl redevelopment matter.

It also questioned why the main accused in the case, Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan of real estate firm HDIL, were never arrested by the ED.

Further, the reason the agency did not arrest concerned officials of MHADA and other government departments was “nothing, but conveying a message to then Union agriculture minister and then (Maharashtra) chief minister, creating a fear psyche in their mind that they are the next in this queue,” the judge said.

It was an “astonishing admitted fact that main accused Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan of HDIL, who had not only generated over Rs 1,000 crore, but also allegedly placed, layered and integrated the same, were never arrested by the ED,” it said.

The special judge for cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, M G Deshpande, granted bail to Sanjay Raut, arrested on August 1, and his aide Praveen Raut, arrested in February 2022.

The Wadhawans were arrested and could not secure bail to date in many other cases filed by the ED.

“However, in the instant case considering the major role attributed to them which they have also admitted, yet ED has not arrested and allowed them to be scot free, for the reason best known to them(probe agency),” the judge said.

The ED arrested Pravin Raut purely for a “civil dispute” and Sanjay Raut for “no reasons”, it said.

“Basically, there was no reason nor any occasion to arrest both of them under section 19 of the PMLA for the allegations which are basically nothing but a civil dispute,” the court said.

Section 19 of PMLA grants power to arrest any person to the concerned government officials.

There is absolutely nothing to show that right from the inception in 2006 -2007 Pravin Raut and Sanjay Raut entered the redevelopment project “with an intention to fraudulently induce and cheat MHADA and 672 occupants thereof,” the court said.

Wadhawans and their firm, HDIL, had clearly admitted that their misdeeds caused delay and the same was acknowledged by the High Court when the MHADA too consented, said the judge.

All this has been ignored by ED, it said.

Sanjay Raut had sought time to appear before the ED when it summoned him, but this could not be the reason to arrest him, said the court.

“Therefore, I am of the firm opinion that the arrest of both accused is basically illegal without any qualifications required under the provisions of PML Act,” it said.

It also referred to Sanjay Raut’s plea that he had undergone angioplasty twice and he was kept in a room where there was no ventilation.

“It is only then due to the court intervention he could get a room with some ventilation in ED custody. All this prima- facie indicates that his arrest is nothing but a witch- hunt and annihilation of his valuable rights,” the judge said.

The court referred to the statement of a witness Chandan Kelekar who alleged there were two meetings regarding the redevelopment which were attended by then Union Agriculture Minister (Sharad Pawar) and then Maharashtra Chief Minister; and this formed the basis for a supplementary complaint.

“Skipping all MHADA and government officials (from arrest) is nothing, but conveying a message to the then Union agriculture minister and then chief minister, creating a fear psyche in their mind that they are the next in this queue,” the court held.

The court also said there were no `proceeds of crime’ in the case that could have attracted PMLA, nor was there any evidence that whatever received by Sanjay Raut was proceeds of crime.

The ED had not concluded “even a single trial right from the establishment of this designated court by leading evidence and the court could not give a single judgment right from the last decade,” the judge observed.

“…the extra ordinary pace with which ED arrests accused becomes not even a snail speed in conducting trials,” the court added.

The ED’s probe pertained to alleged financial irregularities in the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl, row tenement in suburban Goregaon, and related financial transactions involving Sanjay Raut’s wife and associates.

In 2008, MHADA, a government agency, assigned a redevelopment contract for the Chawl to Guru Ashish Construction Private Limited (GACPL), a sister company of the Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL).

The GACPL was supposed to build 672 flats for the tenants and also give some flats to MHADA. It was free to sell the remaining land to private developers.

But the tenants did not get a single flat in the last 14 years as the company did not redevelop the Patra Chawl and sold land parcels and Floor Space Index (FSI) to other builders for Rs 1,034 crore, as per the ED.

London: The High Court in London on Wednesday ordered diamond merchant Nirav Modi’s extradition to India to face charges of fraud and money laundering, amounting to an estimated USD 2 billion in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case.

Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay, who presided over the appeal hearing earlier this year, delivered the verdict.

The 51-year-old businessman, who remains behind bars at Wandsworth prison in south-east London, had been granted permission to appeal against District Judge Sam Goozee’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court ruling in favour of extradition last February.

The leave to appeal in the High Court was granted on two grounds under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to hear arguments if it would unjust or oppressive to extradite Modi due to his mental state and Section 91 of the Extradition Act 2003, also related to mental ill health.

Modi is the subject of two sets of criminal proceedings, with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case relating to a large-scale fraud upon PNB through the fraudulent obtaining of letters of undertaking (LoUs) or loan agreements, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case relating to the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.

He also faces two additional charges of “causing the disappearance of evidence” and intimidating witnesses or criminal intimidation to cause death , which were added to the CBI case.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday was once again trolled for allegedly setting up a ploy to pull public attention after a video of him stopping his convoy to let an ambulance pass went viral across social media platforms.

PM Modi was in Chambi of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday when he reportedly stopped his convoy to let an ambulance pass.

In the video, PM Modi can be seen sitting in the front seat when the ambulance pass and the video is being shot from the back seat. The video of the ambulance passing was also shot from several angles outside PM Modi’s car.

Users took note of the video soon after it went viral on social media platforms and trolled PM Modi and called it another of his gimmick to pull attention. They alleged that the passing of the ambulance was staged and asked who shoots PM Modi all the time from the backseat of the car.

Some of the users also accused PM Modi of repeating the same “script” of a similar previous incident wherein he had stopped his convoy to let an ambulance pass.

Pune: There are 2.49 lakh voters aged above 100 in India, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said on Wednesday.

Besides, 1.80 crore voters are over 80 years of age, Kumar said after flagging off a bicycle rally in Maharashtra’s Pune city on Wednesday to create an awareness about voter registration as part of the national level launch of a special summary revision of the voters’ list.

The Election Commission of India’s initiative is aimed at increasing the electoral rolls in urban areas.

Explaining the robustness and beauty of the Indian electoral rolls, Kumar said the country has voters from the highest peaks of Himalayas, from the 6,000-km coastline in south, deserts in the west and regions from the east.

“You will be happy to know we have close to 2.49 lakh voters in our rolls who are (aged) 100 plus and what a relief and ecstasy it gives when you interact with them and find that they have been voting all through their lives,” he said.

Besides, there are 1.80 crore voters who are above 80 years of age, he told reporters after the rally.

The CEC said India’s first voter Shyam Saran Negi, who recently died, was 106 years old and voted through postal ballot just three days before his death. “That is the spirit,” he added.

Kumar said the summary revision takes place every year, but this year they are doing a very focused activity and starting it all over the country from Pune with a specific purpose to increase the participation of citizens from urban areas.

“What does it mean? Everywhere in the country and the farthest possible states, be it hills, coastal lines, everywhere, inaccessible terrains, deserts, everywhere every single citizen gets enlisted as a voter and strengthens the democracy by not only getting registered but also casting his/her vote,” the CEC said.

Kumar said they want to request all voters in the urban areas, all the youth to come participate, get registered and vote.

“It is only through your voting that the democratic traditions become absolutely robust and strong,” the CEC said.

“Some of the cities, I am not naming them, do not really do that kind of voting and there is a whole lot of ground which we have to cover in urban areas, that is why this rally was organised to create awareness,” he said.

Kumar flagged off the bicycle rally at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune’s Balewadi area.

He later told reporters that there are some advanced, big metro cities where apathy is seen among the urban voters, but it is expected that these cities should also participate in voting whole-heartedly and help strengthen the democracy.

“The same applies to the youth also. If they can put forth their views on WhatsApp, they can very well put forth their opinion on casting votes,” he said.

Kumar said Pune has been chosen for the national launch of the special summary revision of the voters’ list as it is the “city of knowledge” and the message gets spread faster from here.

When pointed out that Pune had recorded a low voting percentage, the CEC said, “Yes, there is little apathy.”

Notably, in the 2019 general elections, the overall voting percentage for the Pune Lok Sabha constituency was 49.84 per cent.

Kumar said on the day of voting, a holiday is declared as per the Negotiable Instruments Act and some people think “let’s enjoy the holiday instead of going and casting vote”, but they should go and vote as holidays are always there.

Kumar said the importance of special summary revision is that if anyone is left and not included as a voter, he or she will be included through this initiative.

“Also, young voters who are turning 18 on qualifying dates have a chance to get enrolled,” he added.