TNM

The Congress on Friday demanded that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Goa prove that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is suffering from a pancreatic ailment for nearly eight months and has not been seen in public since October 14, is fit to govern.

Addressing a press conference at the Congress state headquarters in Panaji on Friday, party spokesperson Jitendra Deshprabhu said the Opposition party would have to approach the Court to seek directions to the government to issue a medical bulletin specifying the health of the former Defence Minister.

“At least they should release a video showing that the Chief Minister is walking, speaking and working. There is no bulletin or any doctor speaking on his health condition,” Deshprabhu said.

Parrikar has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New York and Delhi. His absence has created a political leadership vacuum in Goa, even as the Opposition has demanded that he step aside to focus on his treatment.

“We request the BJP president not to misguide people. The fact should be known to the people of Goa,” Deshprabhu said.

IANS

It cannot but be politically embarrassing for the Narendra Modi government that the decision to send two squabbling Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials on leave by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), presumably at the government’s behest, has barely passed muster in the Supreme Court.

The court may not have reinstated the director, Alok Verma, and the special director, Rakesh Asthana, but it has requested a retired Supreme Court judge, A.K. Patnaik, to monitor the CVC’s probe into the allegations against Verma which led to his removal. The centre and the CVC have also been asked to file their response to Verma’s petition on the steps taken against him.

Any presumption on the government’s part, therefore, that its intervention in the CBI in what has been called by its critics as a midnight coup will mean that it will be back to business in the organisation under a new director, M. Nageswara Rao, has been belied.

Far from being defused, the controversy has only been put on the back burner with the court virtually assuming the role of governing the premier investigative agency with Rao being told not to take any policy decisions.

For any government, the loss of control over a major institution is tantamount to a loss of face. It is also a godsend to the opposition. Till now, the latter had been groping for an issue with which to attack the government in the run-up to the assembly elections in five states.

But, now, even more than the Rafael aircraft deal which is being used by the Congress to accuse the government of crony capitalism, l’affaire CBI will give the party a handy stick with which to beat the ruling dispensation.

The latter, too, and also the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will be worried about the impact of the court case on the middle class. If it transpires that there is a grain of truth in the charge that the root of the infighting at the top of the organisation was the foisting of what has been called the ruling party’s blue-eyed boy, Asthana, in the CBI, then the reaction of the volatile middle class cannot be favourable.

This influential group may be willing to bide its time before the promises of vikas are fulfilled. But any suggestion that the government was undermining the autonomy of a generally well-regarded institution by playing favourites with the officials can have politically damaging consequences.

As it is, the CBI had been called a “caged parrot” by the Supreme Court when it was described as the “Congress Bureau of Investigation” when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister. The expectation was that the outfit would be put back on its feet by the new dispensation so that it would be able to retain its reputation for integrity and efficiency. But the latest turn of events suggests that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

One reason why the CBI had become the last resort for all controversial cases was the steady deterioration in the impartiality and competence of the police, which had long become a plaything in the hands of politicians where bending the rules were concerned.

If the CBI is also seen to be going down the same path, the government will have to share a great deal of the blame. The chances of this happening are high considering that the Supreme Court will deal with a petition by a non-government organisation on a probe into the allegations of corruption against Asthana and other CBI officials.

It cannot be a matter of solace to the government that the Supreme Court is increasingly assuming the role of an arbiter in areas where the government and the legislature should have had the final say such as determining the rights of homosexuals or the entry of women into temples.

If the government is in retreat in these matters, the reason apparently is that it is unable to evolve a consensus among all the parties about the right step not only because of the varying opinions among them, but also because it is unwilling to adopt a bold approach of the kind which the judiciary is doing.

Since the government seems to prefer to opt for the soft option of leaving a controversial matter to the judges, it cannot afford to carp against judicial activism, as it occasionally does, or advise the judiciary not to be guided by “five-star” activists, as the prime minister once did.

The CBI affair is a reaffirmation, therefore, of the need for the judiciary to set things right because of the inadequacies of the first two “estates” – the government and the legislature.

In the CBI’s case, the Supreme Court had no option but to step in because the aggrieved officials approached it for redressal. But, in general, the gradual widening of the judiciary’s ambit will be welcomed because of its growing reputation for taking sensible decisions as nearly all the recent instances have shown.

In contrast, the government has been seen to be either hesitant, as on decriminalising homosexuality and upholding the right to privacy, or obscurantist as in the case of women entering a temple which bars those who are between 10 and 50 years old.

IANS

A Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officer has been killed in a militant attack on Srinagar’s outskirts, police said on Saturday.

“Assistant Sub-Inspector Rajendra Prasad sustained serious bullet injuries on the intervening night of Friday-Saturday during a standoff fire by terrorists at the grid Station Wagoora in Nowgam area,” a police spokesperson said.

He later succumbed at the hospital.

“The attack was successfully repulsed by the alert sentry at the spot and the area was sanitised,” he added.

In a setback to Telangana’s ruling TRS ahead of the December 7 assembly elections, two of its senior leaders joined Congress party on Saturday.

Telangana State Road Development Corporation (TSRDC) Chairman T. Narsa Reddy and Member of Telangana Legislative Council S. Ramulu Naik joined the Congress in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had suspended Narsa Reddy for anti-party activities on Friday. Ramulu Naik, a founder member of TRS, was also suspended from the party on similar grounds last week.

TRS leader and Rajya Sabha member D. Srinivas also met Gandhi on the day and expressed his desire to return to the party.

Srinivas, who was in Congress since 1969, had switched loyalties to TRS in 2015, a year after the party formed the first government in the newly-created Telangana state.

Srinivas had served as a minister in undivided Andhra Pradesh and also headed the Congress party’s state unit.

Congress General Secretary R.C. Khuntia, who is in-charge of party affairs in Telangana, told reporters that Narsa Reddy and Ramulu Naik joining the party would further bolster the party’s prospects.

As Narsa Reddy hails from Gajwel, a constituency represented by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, Khuntia hoped it would help the Congress defeat the TRS chief on his home turf.

It was home coming for Narsa Reddy, who had contested against TRS chief as Congress candidate in 2014 elections. V. Pratap Reddy, who had contested the election from Gahwel as Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate in 2014 and finished runners-up, joined Congress party six months ago.

Both Narsa Reddy and Ramulu Naik alleged that there is no respect for leaders in TRS as KCR remains inaccessible to them. They alleged that the TRS government had benefited only KCR’s family.

IANS

An ashram run by a supporter of the Supreme Court’s Sabarimala verdict came under attack early on Saturday here, Kerala Police said, and announced a probe by a special team.

While Swami Sandeepananda Giri accused the BJP-RSS combine for the attack, a Sabarimala tantri family member said the monk himself set his property ablaze to implicate the saffron brigade, who in their turn named the Left party for trying to frame them for the religious fallout.

Two cars and a two-wheeler parked outside the ashram were set on fire around 2 a.m., said Giri, who was present on the premises at the time.

Giri has been taking a strong stand against the BJP-RSS combine in the state that has criticised the apex court’s September 28 verdict opening the gates of the Lord Ayyappa shrine for all women.

The attack coming amidst an ongoing crackdown on protesters who prevented women between the 10-50 age group from entering the temple between October 17 and 22, saw Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan immediately by Giri’s side.

Vijayan was accompanied by Finance Minister Thomas Issac and State Devasom Minister Kadakampally Surendran.

“The Sangh Parivar is trying to silence me for my position taken against them,” Giri told Vijayan, fearing for his life.

The Chief Minister who has taken a strong stand against any breach of the court’s verdict asked Director General of Police Loknath Behra to take immediate action.

The security at the ashram has been taken up by the police, Behra said, adding that a special team headed by Trivandrum City Commissioner P. Prakash would be investigating the attack and “nothing will be left to chance”.

Vijayan told the media at the ashram that the secular minds of Kerala were fully behind Giri. “Kerala knows the stand that the Swami has taken and is known for his secular outlook.

“Those behind this attack will be taken to task and the criminals who have done this will be brought before the law,” he said.

Rahul Eashwar, a member of the Sabarimala tantri family, who had come under attack from Giri said that it’s for the police to find out who was behind the arson.

“If the police finds out that I am responsible, then I should be arrested and if it’s found out that the Swami himself started the fire, he should be taken to task,” said Eashwar.

Senior Congress legislator K. Muraleedharan under whose constituency the ashram is located dismissed Eashwar’s statement. “I know what the Swami stands for and he will never do such a thing. This is nothing but a baseless allegation,” said Muraleedharan.

However, state Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson A.N. Radhakrishnan told the media that it’s the Communist Party of India-Marxist who has attacked the ashram.

“The CPI-M is behind this attack and propagating that we are behind it. We have no role in this,” said Radhakrishnan.

IANS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday left for Japan to hold the annual India-Japan bilateral summit with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

This is Modi’s third visit to Japan for the summit and will be his 12th meeting with Abe since 2014.

Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and in the defence and security sector, and leveraging Japanese capabilities for India’s development initiatives will be the highlights of the agenda in the summit which will be held on Monday.

India is the only country with which Japan holds annual bilateral summits while India has a similar arrangement with Russia too.

Days after quitting the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Tariq Anwar on Saturday returned to the Congress here in the presence of party President Rahul Gandhi – almost two decades after he had walked out.

Gandhi has welcomed Anwar into “the Congress family”, the party tweeted posting a picture of the two leaders shaking hands.

Anwar had quit the NCP and his Lok Sabha membership on September 28 expressing disagreement with party chief Sharad Pawar whom he has been upset with for giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal.

Anwar had in 1999 joined NCP chief Sharad Pawar and some others in quitting the Congress to protest against the appointment of a person of foreign origin – Sonia Gandhi being appointed the party chief.