Accusing the Congress of turning itself into an organisation with an anti-India mindset, the BJP on Monday sought an apology from its President Rahul Gandhi and sacking of Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu for his analogy between visiting Pakistan and south India.

BJP Spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao told the media that the Congress has been following a double-pronged strategy — hoping to make an entry in Pakistan’ politics by showing its “love and affection” for it and by following a “break India campaign”.

“Break the country is the new slogan of Rahul Gandhi. He is following a strategy creating division and disaffection between different regions of the country. The Congress is no longer a political party but has become an organisation with anti-India mindset,” Rao said citing recent incidents of migration of north Indians from Gujarat and Congress’ stand during action against urban naxals.

“This was done with a political narrative and the genesis of all this goes back to the manner in which Cambridge Analytica, a company which was retained by Congress, creates social and communal conflicts and caste divide,” he said.

The BJP’s attack on the Congress comes in the wake of Sidhu’s recent remarks at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival in Kasauli, where he drew an analogy between visiting Pakistan and south India.

Implying that Pakistan’s culture was more similar and familiar to Punjab than south India, he had said: “I can’t understand the language, it’s just one or two words. Not that I don’t like the food, but I cannot have it for a long time, the culture is totally different. When I go to Pakistan, the language is the same, like you know, when you abuse in English 10 times, one abuse in Punjabi overpowers all.”

Hitting out at Sidhu, Rao said that his analogy was an attempt to poison the minds of people to divide different parts of India and to create a negative and adverse image of south India.

“You should apologize and you have to sack Sidhu from Punjab cabinet. Nothing short of sacking will satisfy people from South. We will certainly raise this issue. We will hold protests against Sidhu and Rahul Gandhi. We will take to streets. Rahul Gandhi must apologize and sack Sidhu within this week. Otherwise be ready to face political consequences when you visit south,” Rao said.

He said Sidhu had no business to insult people of south India.

“You may love your leader, you may love your pasta and pizza or you may love Karachi kulche we have no problem but you have no business to say that I like Pakistan more than South India.

The BJP leader also accused the Congress of insulting former Prime Minister late P. V. Narasimha Rao, saying Sonia Gandhi’s hatred against South India did not allow Rao’s body to be taken to Congress headquarters in Delhi and his body was forcibly taken to Hyderabad despite the wishes of his family members, who wanted his cremation in Delhi.

“Rao (P.V.Narasimha), who was the real father of economic reforms, was not even cremated properly. Rahul Gandhi should apologize for ill treating a great statesman like Rao,” he said.

He took a dig at the Congress for not giving due credit to Rao in the Congress’s campaign and functions in South India specially in Telangana and said if the Congress does not do so the BJP will tell people to throw the party into the Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad.

IANS

Madhya Pradesh unit Congress chief Kamal Nath on Monday accused Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s government for the bad road condition in the state.

All previous records of corruption pale when compared to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rule of corruption in the state, the Office of Kamal Nath tweeted sharing a broken road photo in the state.

He also shared a video showing a car stuck in a muddy road, saying the Chouhan government should stop hiding its failure.

Chouhan responded to the Congress accusation saying the photos were of Bangladesh roads.

“Earlier, Digvijayji (former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh) brought Pakistan’s Bridge to Bhopal, and now Kamal Nathji took Bangladesh’s road to Madhya Pradesh,” he tweeted in Hindi.

IANS

Indian trains will soon have voice recorders or black boxes in a bid to facilitate investigators trying to identify the cause of accidents and assess crew performances, an official said on Monday.

Keeping in mind the safety of passengers, the Indian Railways has decided to install the Loco Cab Voice Recording (LCVR) devices in the locomotives, a Railway Ministry official said.

The system is in developmental stage, the official said.

The video/voice recording system in locomotives would provide invaluable data to investigators to help them understand the sequence of events leading to an accident and to identify operational issues and human factors, including crew performance.

The black box is currently used in aircraft.

It is made of two separate pieces of equipment — the flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder and is usually kept in the tail of the aircraft, where they are more likely to survive a crash.

With the Karnataka Assembly and Lok Sabha bye-polls slated for November 3, the three major parties in the state are gearing up to make sure they win. The JD(S) on Sunday evening finalised candidates for the Mandya and Shivamogga Lok Sabha seats.

The Ramanagaram and Jamkhandi assembly seats and the Shivamogga, Mandya and Ballari seats are currently vacant, polls for which will be held next month. The Ramanagaram seat was vacated by CM HD Kumaraswamy as he had won both the Ramanagaram and Channapattana seats in 2018. The MLA from Jamkhandi, Siddu Nyamagouda, had passed away in an accident in May earlier this year, soon after the Assembly elections.

The three Lok Sabha seats became vacant after BS Yeddyurappa from Shivamogga, B Sriramulu from Ballari and CS Puttaraju from Mandya resigned as MPs to contest the 2018 Assembly polls.

The party has chosen Madhu Bangarappa for the Shivamogga seat and has finalised Shivarame Gowda as the candidate to contest the Mandya seat. The BJP, meanwhile, is planning to nominate BY Raghavendra, son of two-day CM of the state, BS Yeddyurappa, from Shivamogga. The party has chosen former bureaucrat Siddaramaiah to contest from Mandya.

Madhu Bangarappa, the son of former Karnataka Chief Minister Sorekoppa Bangarappa, is now the chosen candidate of the JD(S) to contest the Lok Sabha bye-polls from Shivamogga. A businessman-turned-politician, Madhu won the Sorab Assembly seat during the 2013 polls but lost to his brother Kumar in 2018.

Madhu Bangarappa was a former BJP leader, who joined the JD(S) owing to the strained relationship with his brother. Kumar Bangarappa was a former minister in SM Krishna’s cabinet and later joined BJP when the family feud blew out of proportion.

The problems in S Bangarappa’s family came out in the open when Kumar Bangarappa became a minister in S M Krishna’s cabinet. Madhu Bangarappa had during that time, incurred severe losses in his business and Kumar had refused to support him during his struggle.

The rift between the brothers widened in a run-up to the 2004 Assembly elections when Bangarappa fielded Madhu from Sorab on a BJP ticket. Kumar, who was a minister, resigned from Congress to join BJP on his father’s directions but returned to Congress on the same day when his brother Madhu was given the ticket.

After Bangarappa’s death in 2011, the feud between the brothers escalated with Madhu preventing Kumar from participating in the last rites of their father.

A businessman and educationist, Shivarame Gowda was a two-time Congress MLA, who had defected to the BJP due to internal differences. Shivarame Gowda had joined the BJP in 2009 ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and was defeated by N Cheluvarayaswamy, who was then with the JD(S).

Shivarame Gowda runs educational institutions in Bengaluru and one of his most successful ventures is the Royal Concorde International School in Bengaluru’s Kalyan Nagar. Shivarame Gowda is also the Chairman of the Karnataka Private School Management Joint Action Committee for CBSE, ICSE, IGSCE, IB and state syllabus and the Karnataka Federation Independent Schools Management.

Gowda had defected from BJP and joined the JD(S) on April 11, 2017, along with Congress leader K Suresh Babu, ahead of the 2018 state Assembly elections. Back then, Shivarame Gowda and Suresh Babu were both promised tickets to contest by JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda.

Suresh Kumar was given the ticket to contest from Nagamangala in Mandya district. He is now the MLA of Nagamangala. However, Shivarame Gowda was not given a ticket to contest and the ticket given to him now is the party’s way of making up to him, sources say.

The party is also fielding Anita Kumaraswamy, wife of CM HD Kumaraswamy, from Ramanagaram. Ramanagara Assembly constituency is a bastion of the JD(S). Ever since party president HD Kumaraswamy contested polls in 2004 from this area, the seat has never been lost to another party.

JD(S) insiders say that since Ramanagara is a district dominated by the Vokkaliga and the Muslim community, it has always been difficult for the BJP to make inroads.

The Congress, however, is fielding Anand Nyamagouda, son of the deceased Jamkhandi MLA Siddu Nyamagouda Patil. The party is banking on sympathy votes, just like it did in the 2017 Gundlupet bye-poll when it fielded Mohan Kumari, wife of the deceased MLA Mahadevprasad.

Popular among sugarcane farmers of Bagalkot’s Jamkhandi due of his efforts to build a barrage across the Krishna at Chikkapadasalagi village, Siddu Nyamagouda shot to fame in 1989. He completed the barrage in the taluk and helped irrigate the sugarcane fields solely with public contributions. He is fondly known as “Barrage Siddu” ever since.

The Congress party is yet to announce a candidate for the Ballari bye-poll owing to severe warring between various factions within the party. However, insiders say that it is learnt that Venkatesh Prasad, brother of Ballari MLA B Nagendra, is likely to get the ticket.

The battle in Ballari, party insiders say, is a proxy one between Water Resource Minister and the Congress’ troubleshooter, DK Shivakumar, and Molakalmuru MLA and BJP’s strategist B Sriramulu.

“When the BJP tried their hand at horse-trading, DK Shivakumar was the one who put an end to the deals being proposed by Sriramulu. The BJP needed just nine more candidates and if Shivakumar had not intervened, they would have poached the MLAs easily. Sriramulu was put in charge of ensuring that the BJP had its numbers on the day of the trust vote. When the BJP could not ensure that they had numbers, they withdrew the motion for a trust vote and walked out. Ever since the game of one-upmanship began between DK Shivakumar and Sriramulu,” a Congress source said.

Sriramulu has decided to field his sister J Shantha from Ballari. Congress Party MLAs from the Ballari are divided, with MLAs B Nagendra, Bheema Naik and their followers backing Venkatesh Prasad. The Hosapete MLA Anand Singh and others are opposing Venkatesh Prasad’s nomination fearing that Nagendra’s influence in the region could surpass the other MLAs.

The party is also looking into fielding VS Ugrappa as a compromise candidate. Ugrappa is a party loyalist and an ardent supporter of former CM Siddaramaiah. Although there are 12 aspirants in the Congress for the Ballari ticket, sources in that party say that DK Shivakumar will have the final word on the matter and he is keen on fielding Venkatesh Prasad.

Dissent has been brewing within the BJP and the Congress due to the choice of candidates. BJP’s Srinivas is threatening to contest as an independent candidate from Ballari due to Sriramulu’s decision to field his sister.

The Congress is also witnessing dissent from various leaders in the party over the selection of candidates for bye-polls. The rebels are mostly from Mandya and Ramanagara areas where the Congress had to compromise and allow JD(S) candidates to contest.

Sources in the party revealed that leader Ravikumar Gowda, who lost in Mandya during the Assembly elections in May this year, was hoping to get a ticket.

“Ravikumar has vowed not to support the JD(S) candidate and not to campaign for him. The JD(S) and Congress’ senior leaders had decided that they would support each other during the campaign. Ravikumar is saying he will not do so,” a party source said.

In Ramanagara too, Congress leaders are unwilling to support JD(S) candidate Anita Kumaraswamy. Congress leader Iqbal Hussain, an aspirant for the Ramanagaram ticket, is unhappy with the party’s decision. “He tried to request DK Suresh, MP of Ramanagara, to reconsider but since the high command has decided that the Congress would support JD(S), nothing could be done. He is also unwilling to help JD(S) win,” the source added.

The Agrawal community on Monday slammed the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “exploiting” the Ganga river issue for political purposes and not fulfilling its promise to clean up the holy river in the past over four years.

In a letter to Modi, Akhil Bharatiya Agrawal Sammelan (ABAS) National Secretary Summan R. Agrawal said that engineer-turned-environmentalist G.D. Agrawal died on October 9 after a 111-day-long protest for the cause of Ganga.

During his fast, he wrote three letters to Modi “but the government didn’t feel important to respond” to them. But after Agrawal’s death, Modi, all Ministers and the government tweeted about his great contribution to nature and environment.

“If the government is so anguished about Agarwal’s death, why didn’t the PM meet him at least once and accept his genuine demands, or at least, respond to any of his letters? Why does the Modi government show such hypocrisy and double standards,” Agrawal asked.

She pointed out that in his letters to the Prime Minister, the late Agrawal expressed confidence that after Modi took power in 2014, concrete steps would be taken to clean up the Ganga but later realized that nothing was done in the past four-and-a-half years.

These expectations were raised after Modi focused his entire election agenda in 2014 on the issue of ‘Maa Ganga’ and campaigning that ‘Na main aaya hoo, Na hi bheja gaya hoon; Mujhe to Maa Ganga ne bulaya haia’.

“Why ‘Maa Ganga’ didn’t call this self-proclaimed son Narendra Modi after his rise to the throne as PM in 2014? Modi again realized he has a ‘Maa Ganga only during Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh in 2017,” Agrawal said in her letter.

On the contrary, the late Agrawal’s letters mentioned how former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had taken cognizance of his several fasts and decided to stop or cancel all activities in a major project for the sake of Ganga.

“I would like to ask the Modi government, why the Agrawal community is constantly being ignored over the years… What happened to your favourite election war-cry – ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’? We, the Agrawal community, were expecting at least full state honours to (the late) Agarwal, the proud son of the community, but he was denied that too,” said Agrawal.

She said the entire 10-crore strong Agrawal community was “feeling orphaned due to his death” and warned that they will remember and express their sentiments in the 2019 elections.