Archives for June 2022

New Delhi TRS working president and Telangana IT Minister K T Rama Rao (KTR) on Monday described as “tokenism” the NDA’s decision to field a tribal candidate for the presidential election, and said the Modi government has done nothing for the uplift of the community in the last eight years.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is supporting the Opposition’s candidate Yashwant Sinha to uphold the constitutional values which are under attack in the Modi regime, he said.

The TRS leader was in the national capital to extend support to Sinha, who filed nomination his papers in the Parliament House on Monday.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has fielded tribal leader and former Jharkhand governor Droupadi Murmu as its candidate in the presidential poll to be held on July 18.

“We don’t believe in tokenism. It is not about Murmu’s candidature. She represents a party which is heavily reliant on unconstitutional practices. Therefore, we are vehemently opposing the BJP candidate,” Rao told reporters.

He alleged that the Modi government has been abusing all constitutional offices and there is a need to stop this. “Someone has to raise voice against this,” he said.

Even the plight of Dalits has not changed much after Ram Nath Kovind, a member of the community, became the President, he added.

Stating that BJP has not done anything for the welfare of the tribal community in the last eight years, the TRS leader said a tribal university was promised for Telangana as part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act but it has not seen the light of the day yet.

Besides, the Telangana government had requested the Centre to increase the reservation for tribal people in the state due to increase in their population. “A resolution was passed in the assembly four years back but the Centre has not accepted this request,” he said.

Rao also said that the NDA government through an ordinance forcefully took away seven blocks from Telangana which had more than 90 per cent tribal population.

“We don’t believe in tokenism. We don’t have any choice but to support Yashwant Sinhaji who has been supported by all Opposition parties. We are hopeful that he will be elected with (the support of) a lot of like-minded voters,” he said.

On the Maharashtra political crisis, the TRS working president said the Modi government has been successful in pulling down democratically elected governments in eight states, including Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

He complained that the central government has not done enough for Telangana despite the state government contributing a major share in the country’s growth annually.

“We are the fourth largest contributor to the country’s GDP. The state has constructed the world’s largest lift irrigation project Kaleshwaram. What has Modi government contributed in return to Telangana in last eight years? Let the Modi government bring out a white paper on this,” he said.

Bantwal: In an incident reported on Monday evening, a gang of miscreants that arrived on an auto, stabbed a woman to death near Neralakatte near Vitla here.

The murdered woman has been identified as Shakuntala (35), a resident of Devi Nagar here.

According to the reports, the incident took place when Shankuntala was heading towards Mani from Puttur on two-wheeler. A gang of miscreants arrived and assaulted her with knives leaving her critically injured.

Shakuntala was rushed to a local hospital where she was declared dead, reports added.

More details about the incident are awaited.

New Delhi: Welfare Party of India strongly condemned the arrest of Activist Teesta Setalvad and Ex IPS Officer Sreekumar and called it political vendetta by the ruling dispensation and a sad day for Democracy.

Dr. SQR Ilyas National President of the Welfare Party of India said the recent arrest displays the ugly picture of a new India under Modi’s rule which is intolerant, vengeful, intoxicated with power, and strongly criticized blatant misuse” of the central agency for “vindictive reasons”.

He pointed out that Setalvad was a bold and brave activist who had litigated the case of 2002 anti-Muslim massacres in Gujarat which led to the conviction of prominent BJP leader and former minister Maya Kodnani and called this vendetta murder of justice.

He pointed out that Sreekumar while in service had filed four affidavits before the Justice (retired) G T Nanavati and Justice (retired) Akshay Mehta Commission that had been set up by the Gujarat government to probe the Godhra incident. In the affidavits, he had claimed to have exposed “the alleged collusion of government agencies with rioters” for which he is targeted now.

He said a day after the Supreme Court upheld the clean chit by the SIT to then CM of Gujarat Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) arrested activist Teesta Setalvad and Sreekumar who backed the petitioner, Zakia Jafri.

Dr. Ilyas hailed Teesta Setalvad and Sreekumar for courageously exposing the criminal involvement of BJP leaders in the Gujarat riots and implored the citizens of the country to stand up in unison against this arrest.

Sanjay Raut

Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Monday termed the Enforcement Directorate’s summons issued to him as a “conspiracy” to stop him from fighting against their political opponents, and said he will not be able to appear before the agency on Tuesday as he has to attend a meeting in Alibaug.

Raut, who is the Shiv Sena’s chief spokesperson, also said that even if he is killed, he will not resort to the “Guwahati route” taken by rebel MLAs from Maharashtra.

The ED has summoned Rajya Sabha member Raut on Tuesday for questioning in a money laundering probe linked to the re-development of a Mumbai ‘chawl’ and other related financial transactions involving his wife and friends, officials said.

The development comes as the Shiv Sena battles rebellion from a group of its MLAs, putting a question mark on the future of Maharashtra’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

Rebel Shiv Sena legislators, who were first taken to Surat, are now camping in Guwahati.

Raut in a tweet said, “I just came to know that the ED has summoned me. Good! There are big political developments in Maharashtra. We, Balasaheb’s Shivsainiks are fighting a big battle. This is a conspiracy to stop me. Even if you behead me, I won’t take the Guwahati route.”

“Arrest me ! Jai Hind!” he added. In his tweet in Marathi, he also tagged BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis.

Later, talking to reporters, Raut said, “I cannot go tomorrow as I have to attend a public meeting in Alibaug, and I will attend it.” The parliamentarian said he is a “Shiv Sena tiger” and the executive editor of a fierce newspaper like the (Sena mouthpiece) ‘Saamana’.

He asserted that such actions cannot weaken him mentally. Raut said if there are orders from the BJP leaders, they (the probe agency sleuths) can arrest him.

Sanjay Raut’s brother MLA Sunil Raut claimed the ED summons were to scare the parliamentarian as he has been opposing the BJP.

In April, the ED provisionally attached assets worth more than Rs 11.15 crore of Sanjay Raut’s wife Varsha Raut and two of his associates as part of this investigation.

NEW DELHI: Social network Twitter was asked by the government to block multiple accounts and some tweets from advocacy group Freedom House, journalists, politicians, and supporters of farmers’ protest last year, according to a document filed by the platform on June 26.

The requests from the government were sent between January 5, 2021, and December 29, 2021, according to the document filed with Lumen database.

Leading internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter file information with Lumen database about weblinks or accounts that they have been asked to block by any entity under applicable laws.

However, details about whether the request to block a link or account was fulfilled are not available on the database.

According to the document filed by Twitter, the social network was asked by the government to block tweets of the international advocacy group Freedom House which conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights including freedom of speech and expression on the internet across the world.

An e-mail query sent to the Ministry of Electronics and IT did not elicit any reply.h

According to the document, the government had asked Twitter to block a few tweets from Freedom House which talked about the state of internet freedom in 2020 and noted its sharp decline in India.

The document showed that the government requested to block tweets belonging to members of the Indian National Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, including MLA Jarnail Singh.

The government had also requested Twitter to block the account of Kisan Ekta Morcha.

A random check showed that most of the tweets and Twitter accounts that were requested to be blocked were accessible to users.

In a statement released on Monday, the umbrella body of farmers’ unions, Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), raised strong objections to the requests made by the government for blocking tweets of those who stood in its support.

“Samyukta Kisan Morcha strongly opposes and condemns the withholding Twitter accounts allied with the farm movement on the instructions of the Union Government. Twitter has withheld about a dozen Twitter accounts in India, including the Twitter handle @kisanektamorcha allied with the Farm Movement, without any warning,” SKM said.

The international group Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the government’s move to block tweets of journalists– Rana Ayyub and CJ Werleman.

“Twitter complying with the Indian government’s directive to withhold journalist @RanaAyyub’s tweet and block columnist @cjwerleman’s account in India are part of an unacceptable new trend of censorship on social media. This must stop! Journalists’ voices are essential for a democracy,” CPJ Asia tweeted.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The fifth session of the 15th Kerala Legislative Assembly was adjourned briefly on Monday morning after the opposition members started shouting slogans in connection with recent political developments in the state, including the vandalism of Rahul Gandhi’s Wayanad office allegedly by SFI activists.

As the question hour of the Assembly session commenced at 9 AM, the opposition began thumping the tables and then as the first question was being answered, they started shouting slogans.

Speaker M B Rajesh urged them several times to refrain from disrupting the question hour of the House, but the opposition members did not pay heed.

The Speaker also asked the opposition members to sit down and not wave placards and banners as it was a violation of the House norms.

He also said that their notice for adjournment was before him for consideration, but the opposition members continued shouting slogans, like “SFI goondaism.”

However, they did not pay heed to that either and resulted in a shouting match between them and the LDF MLAs.

As the opposition was not willing to quieten down despite his repeated urgings, the Speaker said the session is adjourned for now and walked away. He did not say when it would recommence and till 9.42 AM it had not commenced.

The fifth session was expected to take a turbulent turn as the opposition led by the Congress was equipped with enough ammunition, ranging from the startling revelations by a key accused in the gold smuggling case against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to the vandalisation of Rahul Gandhi’s office by SFI activists, to take on the CPI(M)-led LDF government.

The one-month-long session was being convened mainly to discuss and pass the demands for grants for the financial year 2022-23.

However, the Congress-led UDF had made it clear that they would raise the ongoing controversies in the House.

MUMBAI:  Amid political turmoil, except Aaditya Thackeray, all eight ministers who were elected in Maharashtra state assembly, have left Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and joined the rebel Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde camp in Guwahati. 

Aaditya is the son of Uddhav Thackeray. Interestingly, Uday Samant, the higher education minister, who attended national executive committee meeting of Shiv Sena on Saturday, is among the deserters. He quietly left on Sunday to Surat to join Shinde’s camp. Samant was the last minister except Aaditya to join the rebel camp.

The eight ministers who have quit MVA government include Eknath Shinde, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sandeepan Bhumare, Shambhuraje Desai, Abdul Sattar, Uday Samant and Bacchu Kadu. They are now camped in Guwahati. Two ministers Subhash Desai and Anil Parab, who come from state legislative council, have remained with Uddhav in this crisis.

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW/TRIPURA: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha was among the victorious BJP candidates in the by-poll results announced on Sunday as the party bagged three out of four assembly seats in the eastern state and wrested the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, while the AAP lost Punjab’s Sangrur parliamentary constituency.javascript:false

However, there was some cheer for Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party as it retained Rajinder Nagar assembly seat in the national capital.

The Congress won a seat each in Tripura, where it opened its account after drawing nil in the last assembly polls, and Jharkhand, while the ruling YSR Congress emerged victorious in Atmakuru Assembly seat in Andhra Pradesh.

Counting of votes was held on Sunday for the June 23 by-election to three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi.

In Uttar Pradesh, ruling BJP candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi won the Rampur parliamentary seat by a margin of over 42,000 votes.

Lodhi defeated SP’s Mohd Asim Raja, considered close to senior SP leader Mohd Azam Khan who won the seat in 2019 but vacated it after being elected to the assembly.

In Azamgarh, also a pocket borough of the SP and vacated by party chief Akhilesh Yadav after his election to the state assembly, BJP candidate Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ defeated Dharmendra Yadav of SP by a margin of 8,679 votes.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the victory to the work done by the ”double-engine” government of the BJP.

”People have sent a message they aren’t ready to accept dynastic and casteist parties who incite communal tension,” he said.

In Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar, AAP’s Durgesh Pathak defeated BJP candidate Rajesh Bhatia by a margin of over 11,000 votes, officials said.

“People defeated their dirty politics and appreciated our good work. Thank you Rajinder Nagar, thank you Delhi,” Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal said.

The party, however, suffered a jolt in Punjab as SAD (Amritsar) leader Simranjit Singh Mann won the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat defeating AAP’s Gurmail Singh by a margin of 5,822 votes.

The seat was won twice by AAP leader and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

The defeat came just three months after AAP registered a resounding victory in the assembly elections when it won 92 of the 117 assembly segments.

Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) president and candidate Mann, 77, has been elected from Sangrur nearly 23 years after winning from the seat in 1999.

The BJP consolidated its position in Tripura winning three of the four assembly seats.

Chief Minister Manik Saha secured 17,181 votes, which is 51.63 per cent of the total votes polled.

“The people who voted for me, I thank them. This is the victory of BJP workers. I expected the margin to be a bit more. However, the results prove the understanding between the CPI(M) and Congress. We will work accordingly in the future, but people did not take this understanding in a good way,” the chief minister told reporters.

The TMC, which was looking to make inroads in the northeastern state, performed dismally with its candidates losing deposits in all the seats.

Congress candidate Sudip Roy Barman won the Agartala seat by a margin of 3,163 votes.

He secured 17,241 votes, which is 43.46 per cent of the total votes polled.

At least 19 people including Tripura PCC chief Birajit Sinha were injured in a clash between Congress and BJP supporters in front of Congress Bhavan in the state capital after the results of the by-elections for four assembly seats were declared.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the people.

The CPI(M) lost its citadel of Jubarajnagar to the BJP by a margin of 4,572 votes.

BJP candidate Malina Debnath got 18,769 votes (51.83 per cent), while CPI(M)’s Shailendra Chandra Nath secured 14,197 votes (39.2 per cent).

In Surma, BJP’s Swapna Das won by a margin of 4,583 votes, securing a total of 16,677 votes (42.34 per cent).

Her nearest rival Baburam Satnami of TIPRA Motha got 12,094 votes (30.7 per cent).

The ruling YSR Congress retained the Atmakuru Assembly seat in SPS Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh by a huge margin of 82,888 votes.

YSRC’s Mekapati Vikram Reddy secured 1,02,241 votes against his rival G Bharat Kumar Yadav of the BJP, who managed to get only 19,353.

Congress candidate Shilpi Neha Tirkey won from Jharkhand’s Mandar seat, defeating BJP’s Gangotri Kujur by margin of 23,517 votes.