In recent times, a concerted effort has been launched by the ‘intellectual elite’ to paint Hindus as aggressors and Muslims as victims of hate crimes even if the crime was not motivated by religion. IndiaSpend’s faulty ‘hate tracker‘ is one such initiative. The MASUKA was another.
Speculations have been made that ‘civil society’ was laying down the foundations for Communal Violence Bill 2.0. The Congress manifesto, it appears, confirms such speculations.
It says on page 42:
“We will pass a new law in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha and in the Rajya Sabha to prevent and punish hate crimes such as mob-engineered stripping, burning and lynching. The law will contain provisions to compensate the victims and to hold accountable the police and district administration for proven negligence.”
Although the manifesto does not make any references to religion, the past conduct of the Congress party in this regard is abundant confirmation of where it’s heading. Considering the extremely anti-Hindu nature of the Communal Violence Bill, it appears almost certain that any Violence Bill proposed by the Congress will follow along the same lines.
The MASUKA is a draft legislation that was created to address exactly the issues mentioned in the Congress manifesto. It casts a wide net to cover offences under such Acts, including defining victims as those who have suffered even ‘mental and psychological harm’, the goal is to make it extremely tough to even protect oneself from actual crimes in these scenarios. An excellent critique of MASUKA has been made here.
Considering the fact that the Congress party charged a group of individuals from foreign funded NGOs to draft the Communal Violence Bill and that the grounds for new legislation on the specific issues were laid by these same sections of ‘Civil Society’, it appears certain that the new law will have the same anti-Hindu slant as the previously touted Bill. Moreover, the Congress party has also laid strong emphasis on strengthening ‘Civil Society’ in its manifesto.
Most significantly, the victims of ‘hate crimes’ invariably turn out to be members of the minority community according to ‘civil society‘ even when the motivations aren’t religious. Similarly, Hindus are not called victims of hate crimes even when the motivations are religious.
In yet another jolt to the political career for the newly inducted member of the Congress party and Patidar leader, Hardik Patel, the Supreme court has declined a plea seeking an urgent hearing on his conviction in a riot case Tuesday.
On March 29, the Congress leader had received a major blow from the Gujarat High court, which, by declining his plea seeking the suspension of his conviction in a rioting case in 2015 had put his political aspirations in jeopardy.
Patel had sought the suspension as due to his conviction he is barred under the Representation of People Act, 1951, from contesting the Lok Sabha elections.
Now, with barely two days left for the last date of nomination filing, the Supreme Court’s decision to not hear his plea leaves Hardik Patel in a tight spot. He may have to give up his hopes of contesting from the Jamnagar Lok Sabha seat.
The last day to file nominations before the country goes in for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is April 4.
Patel had moved the Supreme Court on April 1, challenging the Gujarat High Court order rejecting his plea to stay his conviction so that he could contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
“If the conviction is not stayed, the petitioner may lose the right to contest upcoming Lok Sabha elections of 2019,” Patel had reportedly contended in his petition.
The bench comprising justices M M Shantanagoudar and Navin Sinha told the counsel appearing for Patel that there was no urgency in hearing the matter as the High Court order was passed in August last year.
With this Supreme Court order, Patel, who had started preparing to contest from Jamnagar on a Congress ticket after joining the party on March 12, may not be able to file his nomination before the last date.
Patel had applied for a stay on his conviction in the rioting case earlier this month. He had led the Patidar agitation in Gujarat in 2015 bringing the State to a standstill to demand reservation for Patidars. Around 9 people had lost their lives in the ensuing violence and the Army had to be deployed to take control of the situation.
Last year, a Sessions Court in Visnagar had found Patel guilty of causing a riot in Mehasana and sentenced him to 2 years in prison. He was convicted of offences of arson and creating ruckus at the office of BJP MLA Rushikesh Patel. Out of 17 accused, only three were found guilty by the court including Hardik Patel. Apart from the jail term, they were also fined Rs 50,000 each. But the court had granted them bail against bonds of Rs 15,000.
Other than the riot case where he has been convicted, Hardik Patel is also facing a sedition case in Gujarat which carries the maximum punishment of life imprisonment. The case was filed after he had called for ‘killing cops’ in 2015. A case of insulting the national flag was also leveled against him, which was later withdrawn.
Soon after the dates for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections were announced, Patel had joined the Congress Party to “serve 125 crore, people of the country”, as claimed by him.
After Congress part decided to field Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad in Kerala, there have been lots of talks about how the party considers that a seat with Muslims and Christians as the majority is a safe seat for the party president, who is staring at a possible defeat at Amethi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reminded how the Congress party had coined the term “Hindu Terror”.
कांग्रेस के नेता कान खोलकर सुन लें – हिन्दू कभी आतंकवादी नहीं हो सकता।
हिन्दू आतंकवाद का झूठ फैलाने का पाप कांग्रेस ने किया है और अब इतना डर लगने लगा है कि सीट बदलनी पड़ी है….
— Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 1, 2019
He said that Hindus can never be terrorists, and when Congress labelled Hindus as terrorists, they had insulted the crores of Hindus, he had said. Congress committed a sin by calling Hindus terrorists, now they are forced to contest from a seat where Hindus are not in majority, the PM had added.
It is not a secret that although the Congress party indulges in soft Hindutva during elections, like visiting temples and wearing a janeu, the party considers non-Hindus as their main vote bank. This mentality of the Congress leadership had come out in open before the last Lok Sabha elections, when then party president Sonia Gandhi had appealed the Muslim community to help in defeating Narendra Modi.
Sonia Gandhi had made this appeal during a meeting with Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, who is an influential Muslim leader. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders had met several Muslim leaders in a desperate attempt to mobilise Muslim votes for the party. The party had appealed to influential Muslim leaders to ensure that Muslim votes are not split, so that BJP can be defeated in the elections.
Not just that, Sonia Gandhi had also issued a direct appeal to Muslims in a video message, asking the community as a whole to vote for Congress. She had said that if the Hindu nationalist party BJP wins the elections, India’s core values will be ruined. The video appeal of Sonia Gandhi was played in Hindi TV channels during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
With Rahul Gandhi running away from Amethi to Wayanad, the Congress party seems to have gone back to depending on Muslims to defeat Narendra Modi,
The Congress party, with much fanfare released its election manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, 2nd April 2019. Among several lacklustre promises like NYAY, which in itself is questionable and would end up crippling the economy, Rahul Gandhi’s vision with respect to Jammu and Kashmir is perhaps most unsettling considering they have decided to toe to separatist line to a large extent.
Following is a portion of the manifesto that talks about their Kashmir vision.
Congress’ Kashmir vision in their 2019 Lok Sabha manifesto
Among all the fluff of fancy words, the Congress party makes some dangerous promises in their manifesto as far as Kashmir is concerned.
Dialogue with all ‘stakeholders’ in Kashmir
In the manifesto, Congress says that it believes only dialogue is the way forward and that it promises to appoint 3 interlocutors to facilitate unconditional talks with all “stakeholders”. It has nowhere in their manifesto clarified that these proposed talks will not be held with separatists of Hurriyat who are currently under investigation or even separatists like Yasin Malik etc.
With Congress including that the talks are going to be without any “preconditions” is all the more worrying. It appears like Congress is willing to indulge in talks even with elements who indulge in fuelling terrorism in the valley.
Review deployment of forces in the valley
The Congress party has promised to review the deployment of forces in the valley. Essentially, the Congress has said that they don’t believe in “vascular approach” and they will reduce the deployment of armed forces in the valley and move them towards the borders.
It is no secret that Kashmir valley is distraught with terrorism and the Army’s aggression operation clean out helped curb terrorism in the valley. With this step, the Congress party ensures that the progress made as far as weeding out terrorists, Burhan Wani and Ahmed Dar for example, is curbed and the terrorists get enough time to regroup and attack with renewed energy.
Amend Armed Forces Special Powers Act
The Congress has also promised to amend the Armed Forces Special Powers Act that is application in disturbed areas like Kashmir. It says that it will change the law to ensure that security and human rights are balanced. By this point itself the Congress has conveniently cast aspersions on the army insinuating that they army indulges in human rights violation. Reducing the power and reach of AFSPA can also be an unmitigated disaster for the valley as in dealing with extraordinary circumstances such as in the valley, the Army needs extraordinary powers. Congress Kashmir centric manifesto seems to be one that would only re-energize and re-fuel insurgency and terrorism in the Valley.
Congress blamed the Indian armed forces of sexual violence
If the promise about amending AFSPA left a little to the imagination when Congress was talking about Kashmir, in the later portion of the manifesto, Congress toes an all out separatist line of accusing the Indian Army of heinous crimes like sexual violence in the Valley owing to AFSPA.
The Congress manifesto says that the AFSPA would be amended to strike a balance between security and human rights. It then goes on to say that it would “remove immunity for enforced disappearances, sexual violence and torture”.
The Congress thus implies that the Indian Army indulges in torture of the innocent, enforced disappearances of the innocent and rape of women in the Kashmir valley.
Incidentally, this is the exact propaganda that is spread by Pakistan to ensure disenchantment in the Kashmiri population towards India and is also the same line toed by Kashmiri terrorists and separatists to justify terrorism.
Reiterates the lie about Kashmiris being ill-treated in the rest of India
After the Pulwama attack, the left-liberal cabal had tried its best to shift the narrative and peddle a lie that Kashmiris were being attacked by the rest of India. Several such lies were debunked by not only the police but also citizens. This narrative was peddled almost to give covering fire to the terrorist who had carried out the suicide attack killing 40 CRPF soldiers. In his video, Ahmed Dar had vowed to kill “cow-piss drinkers”, which basically means he wanted to annihilate Hindus. This narrative of ensuring that the murder of 40 CRPF soldiers were over-shadowed by the “Kashmiris are the victims” is furthered by Congress as a mention in their manifesto.
No mention of Kashmiri Pandits
The entire manifesto makes no mention of Congress working towards ensuring that the Kashmiri Hindus can return to the valley. In 1990, Islamists had raped, murdered and chased Hindus away from the valley. That the Congress has chosen to demonise the Army but not talk about righting a historic wrong where Muslim extremists of the Valley carried out a genocide against the Hindus, is an indication in itself of Congress’ intentions with Kashmir.
A day after OpIndia revealed that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is seeking donations from Middle-Eastern countries by running Facebook ads in those specific countries, AAP has ‘expanded’ the scope of countries from which they are now seeking donations.
As per the new schedule, AAP is seeking donations from 62 countries including India and the four Middle-Eastern countries we reported earlier, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
AAP donation list part 1AAP donation list par 2AAP donation list 3
Curiously, the first country on the list is Åland Islands, which has a total population of fewer than 30,000 people as per 2017 estimates and has about 38 Indian immigrants on the cluster of islands. Similarly, another country on the list is Guernsey. With an estimated total population of 63,000 people (2016 estimates), Guernsey is a tax haven. Similarly, Andorra, where AAP is running its ad seeking donation, also enjoys a partial tax-haven status. Other countries where AAP is running its ad seeking donations, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo are also tax-havens.
Other obscure countries AAP is running its donation ads are Montenegro, Moldova, Liechtenstein among others. Moldova is quite popularly known as ‘Europe’s forgotten corruption heaven’. Quite a few rich people have reportedly applied to Moldova for citizenship for money.
Amusingly, the last country where AAP is Vatican City. With a population of 1,000 people, it is an independent city-state in Rome, Italy.
AAP has had a turbulent and shady relationship with donations.
In May 2017 it was alleged that AAP allegedly received crores of funding from shell companies through hawala transactions. Prior to that, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare had written a letter to AAP chief to come clean on the donations received by the party.
It was even alleged that before the 2014 general elections, Kejriwal had received money through dubious channels. AAP rebel leader Kapil Mishra had alleged that one Hem Prakash Sharma, was the key to Kejriwal’s demonetisation drama. Mishra had alleged that on 5th Apil, 2014, a week before Kejriwal filed his nomination for 2014 General Elections from Varanasi, Rs 2 crore had been deposited in AAP’s account from four shell companies. Of these 4 companies, Hem Prakash Sharma is a director in 3. During an ED raid after demonetisation, carried out in GK in Delhi, Rs 13 crore worth currency was found. One of the directors of this company is also one Hem Prakash Sharma.
He further said that Hem Prakash Sharma is a fake director, who probably does not even exist. He went on to add that the only reason Kejriwal was on a back foot about contesting elections is the demonetisation, which has hurt him the most. This was bewildering for someone like Kejriwal, who hailed himself as an anti-corruption crusader and formed the political outfit on the plank of fighting corruption.
When OpIndia investigated into the mysterious Hem Prakash Sharma, we found that according to this report, the official records show that the four companies that had donated to AAP in April 2014, have no revenue to show. These companies have three common directors, Hem Prakash Sharma, Dharmender Kumar and Mukesh Kumar. The addresses listed in the registrar house a post office, a grocery store with shutters down and a small sewing factory. From the details, it would seem like these were shell companies.
Moreover, DNA was able to track down one of these directors, Mukesh Kumar, who denied donating anything to AAP, ever. He admitted to owning these companies, which exist only on paper, but denied donating to AAP. As per DNA, when they visited the address of Hem Prakash Sharma as mentioned in the official records, they found the two-storey house. There resided a lady in her 60s and a woman named Deepika Sharma, who was living with her family. She denied knowing Hem Prakash Sharma.
So who are these mysterious men? Are they fictitious? If so, who is funding these operations? Is there something the ‘anti-corruption crusader’, Arvind Kejriwal, hiding from us?
When the Aam Aadmi Party stormed into Indian political scenario, it arrived with a promise of changing the way political parties operate in India. It promised complete honesty and transparency in its operations, and most people believed in it. One the innovative thing the party did was to publish a list of donations it receives on its website, as proof of the transparent nature of its financial activities.
Towards the year 2016, the party removed the donation list for its website. During that time, the webpage for the list was still there, but it showed a message “under construction. New Version coming soon..”. But that new version never came.
It was reported that the page listed many donations above ₹ 20,000, but those were not reported to the Election Commission as per rules, and thus the party removed the list itself from the public domain.
This removal of the donation list was questioned by many people, including Yogendra Yadav and Anna Hazare. Former party member Yadav had alleged that the party was collecting cash donations which were not recorded.
They have relaunched their donation page on their website, but with a significant change. They have changed the web address for the page, it was donate.aamaadmiparty.org earlier, but now it is donations.aamaadmiparty.org. Along with standalone donations, the party now have provided the option of monthly donations also.
Meanwhile, the fact that AAP is running donation ads in the Middle Eastern countries also raises eyebrows. In November last year, as Delhi grappled with toxic pollution, Kejriwal was found taking a private trip to Dubai. It was also reported that Delhi’s health minister Satyendra Jain had also taken a week-long trip to Dubai just a week prior. Earlier too, Kejriwal has made trips to Dubai including that on a business class, drawing criticism.
It was also reported that the Indian-community based in Saudi Arabia is one of the major supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party. In February 2015 it was reported that they celebrated when AAP beat BJP in Delhi state assembly elections. In fact, a year later, they even celebrated one-year completion of AAP government in Delhi.
While there is nothing prima facie illegal or wrong in running Facebook ads in countries which are considered tax havens or where the rich and the criminals apply for citizenship in lieu of money, it does come as a surprise that AAP would seek a donation from these countries. Especially the one where the total population is less than the number of people who voted for Kejriwal in 2014 elections in Varanasi.
Over a hundred little-known filmmakers, only a few days earlier, had issued a joint statement urging people to ‘Save Democracy’ and vote Prime Minister Modi out of power. Now, it appears, over 200 writers have come forward with a statement of their own against the incumbent government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The list features names which would be quite familiar to our readers due to their left-leaning divisive politics. Here, we take a look at some of them.
1. Anand Teltumbde
Teltumbde is the same alleged Urban Naxal who was arrested by Pune Police in connection with the violence at Bhima Koregaon. Special Judge KD Vadane, while rejecting his anticipatory bail plea, had remarked that there was sufficient evidence collected by the investigating officers to show his involvement in the alleged offence.
Public prosecutor Ujjwala Panwar had argued in court that the police have sufficient evidence to prove Teltumbde’s involvement in insurgent activities to destabilise the government through banned Maoist organisations. His name had surfaced during the course of the crackdown on alleged ‘Urban Naxals’ by the Pune Police last year.
2. Mrinal Pande
Mrinal Pande is the group editorial advisor of National Herald, the Congress mouthpiece, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2006 and the chair of Prasar Bharti in 2010 by the UPA government.
She is known to make bigoted remarks against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and recently, she made transphobic remarks against Prime Minister Modi as well.
3. Harsh Mander
Mander was earlier appointed a member of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Committee. He has advocated for evangelical conversion in the past and ridiculed laws that prevent conversion. Mander is also a known Ishrat apologist, the female LeT operative who was killed in an encounter along with three others by Crime Branch Officials in Gujarat.
In an article that was shared by the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, Mander writes, “Muslims are today’s castaways, political orphans with no home, for virtually every political party. This despite India being home to a tenth of the world’s Muslims, around 180 million people, making it the largest Muslim country after Indonesia and Pakistan. There has never been a harder time to be a Muslim in India, not since the stormy months that followed India’s Partition.” He was also a member of the group that drafted the anti-Hindu Communal Violence Bill.
As per DeshGujarat, Mander’s NGO, Center for Equity Studies (CES), has received significant amount of financial contribution from foreign organizations over the years. Interestingly, another member of the Governing Board of CES features in the list of the 200 writers, Zoya Hasan.
4. Romila Thapar
The ‘Eminent Historian’ had filed a review petition in the Supreme Court in the case of the arrests of five ‘Urban Naxals’ for their alleged role in the Bhima Koregaon violence. She had filed a review petition seeking a review of the Supreme Court order of rejecting a SIT probe into the arrests of Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferriera, Sudha Bhardwaj, and Gautam Navlakha. The court rejected the plea and further permitted the Maharashtra Police to continue with the investigation.
Historian and Archaeologist, Ramachandran Nagaswamy, a Padma Bhushan awardee, had said about the alleged Historian, “Historians like Romila Thapar hold a view that Asoka expounded an idea new to Indian political and social theory, that Asoka did not see dharma resulting from the good deeds that were inspired by formal religious beliefs but as conformity to social ethics. According to these historians, Asoka’s dharma is not Buddhist in nature but it was a new and original idea to which he gave a definition. It is a distorted idea as Asoka himself repeatedly says (in his edicts) that what he thought was not his own, but the ancient paurani prakriti.”
Thapar is known to peddle anti-Hindu propaganda in her writings and has been accused of distorting authentic Hindu history.
5. Arundhati Roy
The writer once famously, or rather infamously, opined that Maoists who are responsible for the deaths of so many civilians and soldiers are ‘Gandhians with Guns’.
While speaking at an event at Northwestern Law School in Chicago in 2013, she described the event of Godhra train burning case as: “A train full of pilgrims coming back from the destruction of this Ayodhya mosque which was disputed. The train caught fire; nobody knows who set fire to the train and 57 pilgrims were burnt…”. The demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Godhra massacre happened 10 years apart.
Arundhati Roy had infamously said that Kashmir was never an integral part of India and claimed that India had become a colonizing power as soon as it won its independence from the British. “Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact. Even the Indian government has accepted this,” Roy had claimed. She had said it in the same event where Gautam Navlakha, one of the arrested ‘Urban Naxals’, made contentious remarks which would be regarded by many as seditious and inflammatory.
The above-mentioned statement was made at an event organized by the JKCCS, the same organization which had published the report demonizing Amarnath Yatra in collaboration with a foreign-funded organisation that received grants from Christian organisations abroad.
It is also pertinent to mention that the JKCCS is affiliated to the CDRO, an umbrella organization that has intricate links to alleged ‘Urban Naxals’ and has an organization from Manipur with separatist inclinations coordinating under its banner as well.
6. Other Notable Mentions
T.M. Krishna, a musician whose show was cancelled by organizers for ‘exigencies of work’ after protests accusing him of ‘bigotry and Hinduphobia’, is a signatory to the statement as well. He had also admitted once that he feels no empathy when RSS workers are killed by communists or Islamists.
“Nehru’s Niece” Nayantara Sehgal, who returned her Sahitya Akademi award during the Intolerance Drama, was a signatory as well.
Conclusion
Thus, we see that the most prominent signatories to the statement that urges voters to oust Narendra Modi from power are an assorted consortium of foreign funded NGO members, Congress stooges who benefited greatly under Sonia Gandhi’s patronage and those with links to alleged ‘Urban Naxals’ or worse, accused of being one themselves.
The Congress party has been mired with scams for as long as the party has been in existence. Currently, the top echelon of the party is out on bail. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are out on bail in the National Herald case while Robert Vadra is out on bail in the money laundering case. Congress leaders are not too far behind in their tryst with scams and impropriety. P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram have been embroiled in the INX Media scam.
Karti Chidambaram, who is currently out-on-bail has decided to contest on a Congress ticket from Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu. The election affidavit filed by Karti Chidambaram includes a long rap-sheet and crores worth of assets in his and his wife’s name.
In every election affidavit, one is required to disclose the ongoing cases against oneself and Karti Chidambaram’s affidavit does not fail to ‘impress’ on that count.
The charges listed by Karti Chidambaram in the first block of his cases, he has listen 4 cases. Among the cases, are investigations into whether he influenced officials to scuttle a probe and grant of FIPB approval in the INX Media case. In two cases, ED has registered an ECIR which is an enforcement case information report.
There is also a second page that lists additional cases against Karti Chidambaram.
Among his properties, there is one plush property in UK, Cambridge as well.
The affidavit shows that Karti Chidambaram and his wife Srinidhi Chidambaram own liabilities worth Rs 17.75 crore. Over 75% of these loans are in the form of personal loans from family members, including his father, mother-in-law Vasanthi Rangarajan and daughter Aditi. Karti and Srinidhi Chidambaram have taken loans worth Rs 13.81 crore from family members in the five-year period.
India Today report states:
In his statement, the 47-year-old Karti Chidambaram said that he has taken Rs 8 crore loan from his mother-in-law (Rs 1 crore), mother Nalini Chidambaram (Rs 6.45 crore) and Rs 1.47 crore from his daughter. Srinidi Chidambaram has taken Rs 2.03 crore loan from P Chidambaram, Rs 95 lakh loan from Karti Chidambaram , Rs 33.77 lakh from her mother Vasanthi and Rs 1.10 crore from her mother-in-law Nalini.
Assets, as declared in his affidavit, grew to Rs 80.26 crore from Rs 59.35 crore five years ago.
Both P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram are accused in the INX Media scam which involves charges of bribery and lobbying in granting foreign investments worth Rs 300 crores to INX Media. INX Media was later known as NewsX, it was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukherjee of the sensational Sheena Bora murder case. ED had initiated a probe on the basis of the Central Bureau of Investigation’s FIR. Chidambaram is accused of misusing his power as the finance minister to grant INX Media an FIPB clearance.
Karti was arrested by agencies last year in February for allegedly lobbying for the Mukerjees, in order to get FIPB clearance from Finance Ministry, which at the time was under his father. The ED had also attached properties and bank deposits of Karti Chidambaram worth around Rs.54 crores in connection with the case, in October last year.
Meanwhile, the CBI and other agencies are also probing a similar case involving Chidambaram and his son, the Aircel-Maxis scam. The CBI is probing alleged irregularities in grant of FIPB approval in Aircel-Maxis deal, while the ED is probing alleged money-laundering related to the deal.
In an affidavit to the Supreme Court, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati has justified the construction of statues of herself and the party symbol-the elephant in public places claiming that it was the will of the people to install them, reports ANI.
According to the reports, Mayawati on Tuesday filed an affidavit in compliance with the latest order of the Supreme Court, which had stated that prima facie, it seems that BSP Chief Mayawati needs to pay back the money spent on erecting statues of herself and the party symbol, the elephant, in public places in Lucknow and Noida.
She had filed the affidavit in compliance with the last order of the Supreme Court asking her that prima facie, it seems that she needs to pay back the money as she had spent a lot of public money on installation of many statutes of herself and elephants in UP. https://t.co/ipJ8dGGyMM
In her affidavit to the Supreme Court, Mayawati has stated that her statues built across Uttar Pradesh and those of other BSP leaders were built in public interest as a symbol of Dalit women’s struggle. The BSP chief also said there was a proper budgetary allocation to build the statues.
In an earlier hearing, the Supreme Court had observed that Mayawati should reimburse the public money spent on erecting statues of herself and the party symbol, the elephant, in public places.
“Madam Mayawati, reimburse to the exchequer the public money you have spent on the elephants. We are of the tentative view that you (Mayawati) should pay the public money from your pocket,” a bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said.
The Supreme Court is hearing a 2009 petition against the construction of statues of Mayawati, Kanshi Ram and BSP symbol elephants, which were built at parks in Lucknow and Noida with taxpayers’ money when she was chief minister between 2007 and 2012.
Filed in 2009 by an advocate Ravi Kant, the PIL sought a restraint order against the installations as he had claimed that it was being done at the cost of the state exchequer. He asked for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe and also a directive to remove the statues.
Legal activist and senior BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has reiterated his sensational claims about the Nehru-Gandhi family at the ‘India Ka DNA’ event organised by Zee News.
In his interaction, he says, that he is confident that the BJP will form the government in 2019. Taking on Congress, he said that Congress President Rahul Gandhi along with his mother Sonia Gandhi, Sam Pitroda, Motilal Vohra and Oscar Fernandes will all go to jail once the charges he has levelled against him in the National Herald case are proven.
He reiterated that Rahul Gandhi had failed his M.Phil. exams in Economics and owns four passports. He says that his name is also not Rahul Gandhi but Raul Vinci in his mark sheet. Swamy further alleged that Rahul Gandhi also possesses a passport in the name of Raul Vinci.
He said he does not believe when Rahul Gandhi says he has Dattatrey Kaul Gotra. “He does not even know how to wear a Janeu. He wears it over his clothes,” Swamy mocked Rahul Gandhi. He even said that the Gandhis have a small church inside their house, a chapel, where a Malayali Bishop comes where they take part in ‘confessions’.
When questioned whether it was the BJP leaders like Swamy himself who put ideas into Rahul Gandhi’s head to show his Hindu side, Swamy quipped who is he to put things into Rahul’s head. “I don’t even know if he has a brain,” he said. Adding that the brother-sister duo are not ‘Brahmins’ by ‘guna’, Swamy said, “Firstly, they are not well educated. We don’t know how many exams they’ve failed in. And are not ‘tyagi’ by any stretch of the imagination. They enjoy a lot. They take foreign vacations and enjoy in night clubs. So neither they are ‘gyaani’ nor ‘tyagi’, so I cannot call them Brahmins.”
Elaborating further on the four-passport allegation, Swamy said, he had submitted the details to the Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan and later to the Home Ministry. He further alleged that Rahul Gandhi is also a British national as per documents uploaded on the British government website. He added that the Home Ministry has now forwarded the documents to the PMO for further inquiry.
After Congress President Rahul Gandhi proposed his new freebie scheme Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY), economists around the world have expressed their skepticism over the fiscal prudence of the scheme.
Arvind Panagariya, a noted Economist and former Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog, has viewed that the promise of the Congress party to implement a minimum income guarantee scheme would be “almost impossible”. Panagariya further added that NYAY scheme announced by the Congress president Rahul Gandhi will have a huge fiscal impact as it would cost about 13 percent of the Union Budget, even greater than the defence budget.
“If you are giving Rs 72,000 per annum to 5 crore families then there will be an expense of Rs 3.6 Lakh crore. This is 13 percent of the total budget of the central government. No one has given details of the scheme that how Rs 3.6 Lakh core will be arranged to implement it. It’s more than our defence budget. The fiscal situation is always tight. It’s almost impossible to take out 13 percent of the budget,” news agency ANI quoted Panagariya.
The Congress has promised to provide cash support to the poorest 20 percent households of the country if it is voted to power in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The party promised to target five crore families or 25 crore individuals as beneficiaries of the scheme.
Interestingly, Economist Abhijit Banerjee who is advising the Congress party on the formulation of the scheme had made some startling revelations regarding the rationale behind the scheme. In an interview with Times Now, Banerjee said that the NYAY will have to funded by new taxes. He said that at present India’s fiscal deficit is so large that the scheme is simply not sustainable without raising taxes.
Abhijit Banerjee also said that the implementation of NYAY will mean that lots of current welfare programs will have to be scrapped. He said that many of the current schemes have no purpose, and nobody knows what their purposes are, and they will be replaced by NYAY.
