Citing health reasons, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who was once touted as a prime ministerial candidate in the BJP, on Tuesday said she has decided not to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

“Candidates are decided by the party. But I have made up my mind that I won’t be contesting in the next elections,” the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said on the sidelines of an event here. “This is in keeping with my health.”

The 66-year-old Sushma Swaraj, who underwent a kidney transplant in 2016, said she had conveyed her decision to the party.

The Vidisha MP’s decision not to contest in 2019 came even as campaigning for the November 28 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP is seeking a fourth consecutive term in office, was in full swing.

A former spokesperson of the party, Sushma Swaraj was said to have been reticent in backing Modi when he was first appointed the Chief Campaigner for the BJP in 2013 ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but later made up with him to be included in his cabinet.

A prominent face of the BJP with her political career spanning for decades, Sushma Swaraj was the youngest member of the Haryana Assembly when she was elected to it in 1977 at age 25 and made a Minister.

She also served as Delhi’s fifth Chief Minister in 1998, becoming its first women Chief Minister. She represented the South Delhi Lok Sabha constituency in 1996 and 1998.

She served as Union Cabinet Minister for Information and Broadcasting with additional charge of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Health Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s second government.

Sushma Swaraj, a four-time Lok Sabha and two-time Rajya Sabha member, also won the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 2004 and served as the leader of the Opposition during during UPA-II government between 2009 to 2014. replacing party veteran L.K. Advani.

IANS

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday slammed the Congress governments for repeatedly “cheating farmers” by making “fake promises” on their loan waiver schemes and transferring the money to their cronies who were not eligible for the benefit.

“The Congress keeps talking about farmers. What has it done for them? In Karnataka, it formed a government by making fake promises to farmers. But now it’s asking them to pay up or face imprisonment. When farmers turned up at their doors, they shooed them away calling them goons,” Modi said in his public address at Jhabua.

Elections for the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly are scheduled to take place on November 28.

Modi said that the Congress party did the same in 2008 just before the 2009 general election, when it did not waive the loans as promised.

“The Congress did a similar thing in 2008. Just before the elections, it promised to waive farm loans, which amounted to six lakh crore rupees then. But it did not waive loans worth even Rs 60,000 crore.

“This scam never got the limelight because of other big scams by the Congress such as coal scam, 2G scam, and Commonwealth Games scam,” he said.

Modi also referred to a certain finding by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, according to which, he said, the Congress granted loan waivers to 30-40 lakh people who were not on the rolls as beneficiaries.

“They looted the poor’s money by putting it in the pocket of their cronies… Then they did not even give certificate to 1.25 crore farmers who got waivers, a proof that their loan has been waived. And these people were then made to run from office to office,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister also mentioned his government’s success in curbing black money sources.

“This is the power of Modi that he forced these people to come out with their black money… And now that money is being spent on public welfare schemes.

The Prime Minister said that he had plugged all sources of corruption at the top level, but one is still cheated of small amounts at the low level. To stop that, the government is using technology for transferring money directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.

 A top CBI official, Manish Kumar Sinha, on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored SIT probe into the allegation of bribe against Special CBI Director Rakesh Asthana in the meat exporter Moin Qureshi case.

The petition refers to charges of bribe being made to a Union minister and the other accused claiming connections with the “high and mighty” in the power corridors, including National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval.

Sinha, a DIG-rank officer transferred to Nagpur on the dramatic night of October 23 when he was supervising the probe against Asthana, has said his transfer was “arbitrary, motivated and malafide”.

The application challenging his transfer to Nagpur, refers to November 8, 2018 purported message from Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer Rekha Rani to the office of Sana Sathish Babu claiming Union Law Secretary Suresh Chandra, who was in London, wanted to speak to Sathish Babu to convey a message of Cabinet Secretary P.K. Sinha offering “full protection” to Sathish Babu.

Sathish Babu is a witness in the Moin Qureshi case and the meeting between Asthana and Chief Vigilence Commissioner (CVC) V.K. Chaudhary at latter’s residence where matter relating to some transactions between Gorantla Ramesh, Sathish Babu and Moin Qureshi was discussed.

Seeking the top court direction for summoning of the records pertaining to the case against Asthana to ensure their safe custody and guard against tampering, Sinha in his application for impleadment has cited several instances where people who were interrogated in the case flaunted their high connections and one Manoj Prasad “dropped” the name of NSA Ajit Doval in the course of interrogation.

The payment of alleged illegal gratification involved a case against meat supplier Moin Qureshi. The accused in the case are Asthana, Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar, the investigating officer, two private persons Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad and unknown others.

The allegation of illegal gratification against Asthana, the application says, primarily pertained to December 2017 and October 2018. There are two instances of acceptance of bribe in December 2017 totalling to Rs 2.95 crore and three instances of acceptance of bribe in October 2018 totalling to around Rs 36 lakh.

This is a case in which Sathish Babu is a complainant who has recorded his complaint before a magistrate in Delhi.

Recalling the course of the events, Sinha in his application says that Manoj Prasad was intercepted at Delhi airport on his arrival from Dubai on the morning of October 16, 2018. He was brought to the CBI headquarters, where in the first few hours of his arrival, Manoj was “garrulous and arrogant, both at the same time, and in equal measure”.

“He tried his best to ward off the investigation by dropping names of ‘high and mighty’ and mentioning his ‘top contacts’ to create fear in our mind,” says the application.

Taking exception to CBI picking him from the airport, Manoj told the interrogators that his father Dineshwar Prasad “retired as Joint Secretary, RAW and has close acquaintance with present NSA Shri Ajit K. Doval.”

Manoj Prasad also claimed that his brother Somesh Prasad was “very close to an officer at Dubai (name withheld) and to Samant Goel, presently Special Secretary, RAW and he can get us ‘finished off/kicked out’.”

The application says that no attempt was made to verify genuineness his claim about his closeness to NSA Doval.

In another revelation pointing to alleged close connections of the accused to the power corridors, the application says after the arrest of Manoj Prasad on the intervening night of October 16/17, in the morning of October 17 there was a call from Special Cell of Delhi Police to CBI Dy.SP A.K. Bassi, investigating the case but he did not take the call. Later, another Inspector of Special Cell called up and sought to know if Manoj had been arrested.

Enquiries revealed that the query had originated from the Cabinet Secretariat, says the application.

The application says that immediately after it became public that the arrest of Manoj Prasad in the intervening night of October 16 ad 17, there were “4 calls between Somesh and Samant Goel and 4 calls between Samant Goel and Shri Rakesh Asthana by 17th afternoon”.

Manoj also claimed that he and his contact Samant Goel “helped NSA Shri Ajit Doval on an important personal matter”. He further claimed that India opted out of a contest for a post in the Interpol.

Sinha says that on verification it was found to be correct.

India was to contest for the post of delegate in Interpol and CBI Joint Director (Policy) A.K. Sharma was its nominee. There were four other contending countries. The elections were to be held sometime in the third week of November this year. Sometime in September, Sharma was to go abroad for a meeting but at the last minute, his trip was abruptly cancelled.

Meanwhile, CBI Director Alok Verma on Monday filed his reply to the adverse findings against him by the CVC after the anti-corruption watchdog inquired into the allegations of corruption levelled against him by his second in command Special Dirtector Rakesh Asthana.

 The Karnataka Farmers’ Association (KFA) on Monday gave the state government 15 days to meet their demands, including loan waiver, minimum support price for all crops and compensation for drought, failing which they would resume and intensify their stir.

“We are suspending our agitation till December 4 and giving the government 15 days to meet all our 39 demands. If they are not fulfilled, we will resume the stir and intensify it across the state,” KFA President K.T. Gangadhar told reporters here.

The KFA has made a representation to state Co-operation Minister Bandeppa Khashempur at the Freedom Park in the City Centre where thousands of farmers from across the state staged a day-long protest demonstration against the state government’s indifference to their woes.

“As deficit rains during the monsoon period have resulted in drought in 17 of the 30 districts across the state, the affected farmers should be given Rs 25,000 per hectare as compensation for suffering crop loss,” said Gangadhar.

Among the demands are subsidy on seeds and fertilizers for rabi crop, fresh credit at lower interest rate for purchasing farm machinery to increase yield per acre and completion of all irrigation tanks/projects for expanding cultivation.

Assuring the farmers of considering most of their demands, as some of them would take time and require resources, Khashempur said the JD-S-Congress coalition government was committed to protecting their interests.

“Our government is pro-farmer and agriculture is a priority sector for us, as 60 per cent of the people are dependent on farming and horticulture. We will study your demands and try to address many of them, if not all due to constraints,” said Khashempur.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of farmers reached the city by buses, trains, trucks and tractors from 20 districts including Ramanagara, Mandya, Mysuru, Kodagu, Kolar, Gadag, Tumukuru, Shivamogga, Hassan, Haveri, Hubballi, Belagavi and Bagalkote as their demands remained pending months after the the current government was formed.

“Though Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy announced farm loan waiver in June, the banks have not written off a rupee even after five months. Except for making announcements and giving assurances, nothing has happened.

“We are also unable to take fresh credit as old loans have not been waived off as yet,” Karnataka Raitha Sangha head Chamraj Patil told reporters.

Police blocked hundreds of agitators from marching from the Freedom Park to the State Secretariat.

Security was stepped up in the city, with about 1,000 police personnel deployed in the central business district to ensure that the agitation was peaceful.

The other demands include payment of Rs 1,500 crore dues from state-run and private sugar mills for fiscal 2017-18 and Rs 3,000 per tonne minimum support price (MSP) for sugarcane from Rs 2,500 per tonne fixed last year.

“Glut in production, higher inventory of unsold stock and imports have reduced retail price of sugar to Rs 30 per kg even as input costs have doubled,” Patil added.

Karnataka is the third-largest sugarcane producer after Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, which had harvested 32 million tonne in 2017-18.

The drought has affected 15 lakh hectares of agricultural and horticultural crops in 17 districts across the state, with an estimated loss of Rs 8,000 crore.

IANS

Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Monday said the southern state was open defecation free in its rural areas.

“Earlier statistics showed that only half or one-third of the rural households had individual toilets, but presently, all the 70.2 lakh rural households in the state have been provided with individual toilets, thereby reducing open defecation,” Kumaraswamy said at a state government’s event in Bengaluru.

The state’s Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department has built 45 lakh toilets in about five years, said Kumaraswamy at the event held to mark the World Toilet Day in Bengaluru.

The United Nations observes World Toilet Day each year globally to tackle sanitation crisis.

The 45 lakh toilets were built since October 2014 across Karnataka’s 6,022 local bodies (gram panchayats) in all the 176 taluks (sub-districts) of the state’s 30 districts, an official statement said.

“While the central government has been pushing for ‘Swacch Bharat’ Mission (Clean India Mission) to make the country open defecation free, Karnataka has executed it ahead of time,” Kumaraswamy claimed.

“The 45 lakh toilets in rural areas were built at a cost of Rs 6,300-crore,” an official from the Rural Development department told IANS in a statement.

The official, however, admitted that while the southern state’s rural parts have been declared open defecation free, its towns and cities were not.

The state had aimed to become open defecation free by 2018, a year ahead of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary in 2019, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara said on the occasion.

Cleanliness and sanitation has a positive impact on the lives of people in the state, said the state’s Rural Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda.

“All sections of the society must contribute to making the state a model by staying open defecation free. It will have a strong, positive impact on the lives of women and children,” Gowda said.

TNM

The Karnataka state government has directed bars, pubs, hotels and restaurants to have designated smoking areas.

The circular issued by  Directorate of Municipal Administration stated that bars, pubs, hotels and restaurants in Karnataka should have smoking areas and it also stated that food, chairs, tables, ashtrays, matchboxes and lighters should not be allowed into this smoking areas.

Following this order Minister for Urban Development and Housing, UT Khader said that as per the Karnataka Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Health of Non-Smokers Act 2001 any violations on this rule will result in cancellation of their licences and this rule will be strictly implemented in the state.

 Over 3,500 candidates have filed their nominations for the December 7 Telangana Assembly elections, officials said.

With the deadline for filing of nominations coming to an end on Monday, a total of 3,584 candidates filed their papers in all 119 constituencies.

According to a statement released from the office of Chief Electoral Officer late on Monday, 2,087 nominations were filed on the last day. The number stood at 1,497 on Sunday.

The nominations will be scrutinized on Tuesday while the last date for withdrawal of nominations is November 22.

Elections to 119-member Assembly are scheduled to be held in a single phase while counting would take place on December 11.

The Assembly was dissolved on September 6, eight months before its term was to expire, as the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) opted for early elections.

TRS is contesting all seats on its own while Congress is leading ‘Mahakutami’ or grand alliance of opposition, which also includes Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) and Communist Party of India (CPI).

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also going alone in the polls.

According to Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar, the total number of voters in the state is 2,80,64,680 including 7,46,077 new voters.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami on Monday announced a sum of Rs 1,000 crore for carrying out relief works in the cyclone Gaja affected districts.

He also said the death toll due to cyclone has gone up to 46.

In a statement issued here, Palaniswami said a solatium of Rs 10 lakh will be given to the families of the dead, Rs 100,000 to those who are severely injured and Rs 25,000 for those who have suffered minor injuries.

Cyclone Gaja crossed the Tamil Nadu coast last Friday leaving a trail of destruction in several districts.

Palaniswami said a total of 11 districts — Nagapattina, Thiruvarur, Thanjavur, Pudukkottai, Dindigul, Trichy, Sivaganga, Cuddalore, Karur, Ramanathapuram and Theni — were affected by cyclone.

He also listed out the amount of compensation to be paid for those who had lost their homes, household items, livestock, crops, coconut trees and others.

IANS