All Congress complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah will have to be resolved by Monday, the Supreme Court has told the Election Commission. The Congress had appealed to the top court last week, accusing the Commission of delaying its decision in cases involving the Prime Minister and the BJP chief, while handing out prompt penalties to opposition leaders.

Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that 11 complaints have been made against the Prime Minister and Amit Shah, but till today, the Commission has taken decision on only two.

In both cases, the Commission has given a clean chit to the Prime Minister. Mr Singhvi argued that even in these cases, the Congress did not get a reasoned order.

The Commission told the court that it hopes to take a decision on the rest of the cases by Wednesday. A report, it said, could be submitted to the court on Thursday.  But the bench, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, refused to give it extra time.  

The Commission contended that it needs more time as it has to get the entire transcript from the ground – and has to conduct the elections at the same time, but the court did not budge.

The top court has repeatedly prodded the Commission through this election to take action on the alleged Model Code violations.

At a hearing last month, upset by a series of violations of the Model Code of Conduct, the court had pulled up the Commission. When the Commission claimed it was “toothless” and “powerless” to act against hate speeches, the court had questioned whether it was even aware of its powers.

Since then, the Commission has handed temporary bans to a string of leaders and ministers caught violating the Model Code. It, however, gave a clean chit to PM Modi for two of his speeches, where the Congress alleged Model Code violation.5

In an appeal to the top court, Congress’s Sushmita Dev said PM Modi and Mr Shah used “hate speech” at rallies to polarise voters, and referred to the operations by the armed forces in their “political propaganda” despite the poll body’s ban.

Agencies

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting in the Capital to review preparedness for cyclone Fani. 

The meeting was attended by Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha, Principal Secretary to the PM Nripendra Mishra, Additional Principal Secretary to the PM Pramod Kumar Mishra, Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, and other senior officials from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Prime Minister`s Office.

Severe cyclonic storm “Fani” was centred in the west of the Bay of Bengal, the India Meteorological Office said. The south coast of Odisha was also expected to get heavy to very heavy rainfall on Thursday, it said in a bulletin.

The Prime Minister was briefed on the likely path of the cyclone, and the ongoing precautionary and preparatory measures being undertaken, said a statement. 

“These include provision of adequate resources; deployment of teams from NDRF and the Armed Forces; arrangements to provide drinking water; and standby systems to restore power and telecom services.”

After reviewing the emerging situation, PM instructed senior officials of the Union government to maintain close coordination with officers of the affected states, to ensure preventive measures, and also to take effective steps for relief and rescue operations, as required. 

Meanwhile, people at Puri beach were warned against venturing into the sea as cyclone Fani is expected to make landfall in Puri district on Friday.

Agencies

Amid hectic campaigning in her parliamentary constituency,  Minister Smriti Irani hit out at Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and claimed that people should keep their children away from the latter.

Irani was reacting to news of a viral video of a group of children raising slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Priyanka’s presence. While the authenticity of the video hasn’t been verified, Irani said, “She makes children abuse. She asked children to abuse the Prime Minister. You cannot use children for political campaigns. What will children learn out of this? I will ask all cultured families to keep their children away from Priyanka Gandhi. I am happy that the family which claims to be cultured stands unmasked.”

Talking to media, Irani said that the Congress was fighting a losing battle in UP. “We gave such a chase to Congress President that he had to literally run even after SP-BSP pledged support on this seat. This is not a fight between BJP & Congress, this is a genuine fight between people & a ‘lapata sansad’.”

Irani’s jibe was directed at Rahul Gandhi who is contesting from Amethi as well as Wayanad in Kerala.

Earlier, while addressing a gathering in Rae Bareli, Priyanka had taken a veiled dig at both the Prime Minister and the UP Chief Minister and said, “The Prime Minister did not get time to visit a single village of his constituency during five years. Had he talked to
farmers about their lives, he would have come to know what name the farmers have given to stray animals around them.”

To this, Irani said, “This is her real face. She is disrespecting a prime minister and a state chief. She denigrated Gorakhnath math adhyaksh (Yogi Adityanath). Will she do the same in Gorakhpur?”

As to Priyanka’s role, Irani said the former was standing in for her brother who had already ceded ground in Amethi. “Priyanka is not a candidate, in fact, her very presence here is recognition of Rahul’s incapacity,” she said.

Agencies

New Delhi, May 2 : Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said he is more concerned for Hindus than Mr Modi is.
In an interview to a news channel, Mr Kejriwal said,”Mr Modi doesn’t love Hindus, but actually hates Muslims and gets them killed. People are targetted for speaking against Mr Modi. I want to ask if you are a party of Hindus, what have you done for Hindus?
Have the BJP people arranged for school admission of even one Hindu child? Have BJP people even provided employment to one Hindu youth in these years? Did BJP people get even one Hindu child admitted in a hospital for treatment? Kejriwal did it.”
”Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) even admitted Hindu students in schools. They even provided employment to Hindu youth. AAP even helped in the medical treatment of Hindu kids. I am more concerned for Hindus than Modi is. Modi does not think about Hindus,” he said.
”What does Mr Modi do? Modi kills Muslims. And after killing Muslims he says I care for Hindus. You hate Muslims, you don’t love Hindus. We love Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains,” Mr Kejriwal said.
Expressing displeasure at Congress’ refusal to form an alliance with AAP, he accused the latter of ‘cutting anti-BJP votes’.

Agencies

Addressing the media, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also slammed the opposition parties for their stand on the declaration.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley jointly addressed a press conference on Thursday where they praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “persistent efforts” behind the designation of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UNSC.

“We would like to highlight the fact that the zero tolerance policy for terrorism by the PM has borne fruit. This is something this government will draw attention of the people of India to,” Sitharaman said at the press conference in New Delhi.

“In every opportunity the PM had during his bilateral meetings and in multilateral fora, (raised) the need to recognise Pakistan as the land where, as per publically available data, has more than 35 declared terror organisations are located.

“Azhar’s name as the leader and mastermind of several attacks has all been recognised. But it is the persistent effort taken by this government under the leadership of PM which has brought this result for us today,” she added.

“The outcome of persistent measures taken by MEA under the leadership of PM and the PM’s own visits have resulted in this,” Sitharaman said.

Addressing the media, Jaitley slammed the opposition parties for their stand on the declaration.

“The whole country is praising the government and the PM. When the country wins, every Indian wins but it is unfortunate that some friends in the opposition think that if they join in this victory they might have to pay a political price for it,” he said.

He also took a jibe at the claims by the opposition that they carried out “invisible surgical strikes” when they were in power.

“When we succeeded after 10 long years, they reacted by saying that there is no big deal. India’s tradition was that all parties were united when it came to the country’s foreign and defence policy but in the last few days have witnessed attempts at breaking this tradition,” he said.

Calling the Congress a “fringe organisation”, Jaitley said that “Congress blackmails institutions and if the institutions do not agree with them they tarnish the institutions”.

He also said that Congress comes out with frivolous complaints and puts unnecessary pressure on Election Commission.

“Model Code of Conduct does not encroach into free speech. It is subject to free speech; both have to exist together harmoniously,” he said.

“How can calling for votes in the name of nationalism violate MCC? Has Article 19-1(A) been deleted from the Constitution? Is MCC a substitute for free speech? The answer is no. The MCC is subject to free speech. It doesn’t shrink free speech,” Jaitley added.

Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar was on Wednesday declared as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee 1267.

The proposal was recently moved by France, UK and the US but was blocked by China.

Beijing lifted its “technical hold” on Wednesday just over a week after Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in China, thus making it a huge diplomatic win for India.

Syed Akbaruddin, India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said that Azhar’s listing is a significant outcome for India because “we have been at it for several years”.

“The first effort was made in 2009. More recently, we have been persistent, diligent and, in a subterranean manner, making all our efforts towards this goal. Today that goal stands achieved,” he said.

Masood Azhar is the chief of JeM, which carried out a series of terror attacks on India including the 2001 Parliament attack, the January 2016 Pathankot terror attack and the September 2016 Uri terror attack. The most recent attack was the 14 February Pulwama terror attack which killed 40 CRPF personnel.

Agencies

Higher education minister G T Devegowda dropped a bomb on Wednesday when he said that JDS supporters may have voted for the BJP and not the Congress in Mysuru. While he clarified soon after that he was referring to just one gram panchayat, his statements came as no surprise to leaders of the Congress, especially those in the close circles of legislative party chief Siddaramaiah.

Gowda simply spoke what was on Siddaramaiah’s mind all along, ever since phase II voting concluded in Karnataka. Sources close to the coordination committee chief suggest that the JDS leadership’s inability to ensure a transfer of votes to alliance candidate Vijayshankar has him fuming. “Despite the rebellion in Mandya, Congress leaders tried their best to coax their workers into voting for CM H D Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil Kumar, but not a single leader of the JDS was willing to even ask the local leadership to campaign or vote for Vijayshankar,” said a Congress leader close to Siddaramaiah.

Mysore Lok Sabha seat was a matter of pride for Siddaramaiah, who had bargained hard to retain it with the Congress during seat sharing agreement. With coalition candidate Vijayashankar, a Kuruba, Siddaramaiah had hoped to beat the BJP’s number game with absolute consolidation of Kurub, OBC votes and gain a major chunk of Vokkaliga votes from the JDS, considering that the SC/ST vote would be split between the coalition and the BJP.

“Transfering the JDS vote to Krishna Byregowda, a Vokkaliga, in Bangalore North, was not a challenge but convincing cadres to vote for Vijayshankar, a Kuruba, when another Vokkaliga — Pratap Simha — was in the fray was never going to be easy,” another Congress leader said. Congress is basing its argument on voter turnout in all eight assembly segments of Mysore Lok Sabha seats. Congress has an MLA in just one of the eight assembly segments, while JDS has three MLAs and BJP has four. Madikeri, considered a BJP bastion, recorded the highest voter turnout, followed closely by Hunsur — a seat where JDS holds the sway.

Sources close to Siddaramaiah insisted that the former CM is waiting for May 23. “He will speak to the central leadership on the bearing of this coalition on the Congress after elections. His argument will be based on vote share and actual transfer,” said an aid of Siddaramaiah. While the Congress acknowledges that some vote transfer has taken place, will that suffice to ensure a victory to the coalition candidate, is the real question.

Agencies