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Freudian slip: Embarrassment for ‘united opposition’ at Kolkata rally as Sharad Yadav talks about the Bofors loot

OpIndia Staff
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Freudian slip: Embarrassment for ‘united opposition’ at Kolkata rally as Sharad Yadav talks about the Bofors loot

Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress has organised a massive show of opposition unity at the “United India” rally being held in Kolkata. Several opposition leaders from various political parties have participated in the rally in the hopes to forge an anti-Modi front. Congress, SP, NCP, TMC and several other parties were present.

At the rally, which was like a comical consortium of contradictions where the most corrupt and tainted leaders were talking about saving democracy, a Freudian slip had everyone in splits, including Mamata Banerjee.

Sharad Yadav of the JD(U) started delivering a speech in the hope to further the same trope that Congress has been harping on for several months. That of the fictitious “scam” in the Rafale deal. However, as is the nature of Freudian slips, the truth could not be hidden for long.

Yadav took to stage and started talking about the Bofors scandal where a money trail had been established and corruption was proved beyond doubt, leading straight up to Rajiv Gandhi himself.


Sharad Yadav said that Bofors was daylight robbery and that while our soldiers laid their lives down at the border, the ruling dispensation had robbed and stole in the Bofors case.

Funnily, while Sharad Yadav thundered away, Derek O’ Brien, the MP from TMC and former quizmaster walked up to Sharad Yadav and whispered the correction in his years, presumably telling Yadav that he was meant to mention Rafale and not Bofors.


Thereafter, clumsily, Yadav blurted out the word “Rafale”.

Later, Mamata Banerjee, the TMC supremo spoke into her mic with a giggle, asserting that what Yadav did was not entirely wrong. Sometimes, we tend to mention “old things”. What he meant was Rafale, Banerjee said.

This Freudian faux pass left Twitter in splits. Several people commented on the hilarity of Sharad Yadav condemning Congress for the Bofors loot while trying to forge an anti-Modi alliance.


With the interesting mix of comical characters, the rainbow coalition is bound to inject such much needed comic relief in the Indian political scene in the run up to 2019 General Elections.

D-Company and Pak’s ISI planned conspiracy to murder RSS leaders, Delhi Police burst module

OpIndia Staff
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D-Company and Pak’s ISI planned conspiracy to murder RSS leaders, Delhi Police burst module

Striking revelations of D-Company and Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency ISI being in cahoots with each other to assassinate RSS leaders in India and spread terror across the country have been disclosed by a terror module busted by Delhi police. The police have made three arrests from Delhi and Kerala.

According to the special cell of Delhi police, one of the three suspects arrested is an Afghan national and was a part of ISI terror module whose aim was to kill senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders in Karnataka’s Mangaluru and provoke a country-wide riot. Apart from this, the terror module also had several bigwigs from Delhi on their list.

The police suspect involvement of the gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company in the planning and plotting to kill the political leaders since one of the suspects arrested allegedly worked for a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim- Ghulam Rasool Patty. The three arrested suspects have been identified as Wali Mohammad (Afghan national), Sheikh Riyajuddin (Delhi-resident) and Muhthasim CM (from Kasargod, Kerala).

Sources close to police also claim that the plot to kill RSS leaders might be funded by the underworld gang D-Company, headed by the gangster Dawood Ibrahim, who is allegedly hiding in Pakistan under ISI’s tutelage.

One of the arrested suspects is presumed to be the mastermind behind this terror plot. The suspect had fled after the Gujarat riots and is the same one who is accused of having an involvement in BJP leader Haren Pandya’s assassination.

The police caught the wind of the plot to kill RSS leaders in different places about four months ago when the Indian agencies intercepted the suspects’ phone calls, which revealed the plans for the killings. Since then the police has tracked the suspect and following this, two of his accomplices were arrested, one from Delhi, while the other one was arrested in Kerala.

‘United India’ rally: A heady mix of comical contradictions

K Bhattacharjee
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‘United India’ rally: A heady mix of comical contradictions

On Saturday, Kolkata was witness to the ‘United India’ rally by Opposition parties at Kolkata organized by the Trinamool Congress. In a bitter sense of irony, the ‘United India’ rally was organized by the same party whose members are accused of committing rampant political murders of opposition party leaders in West Bengal.


There were numerous other comical incidents at the rally as well. Jignesh Mevani, the MLA from Gujarat who was allegedly caught on camera inciting caste violence, ended his speech at the rally with the words ‘Inquilab Zindabad’. In recent times, the slogan has become largely disassociated with legendary freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and come to be associated with communist parties, the same political faction which has been Mamata Banerjee’s most bitter enemy throughout her political career.


Mevani also spoke out in support of the arrested ‘Urban Naxals’ who are accused of involvement in the violence at Bhima Koregaon and an alleged assassination plot against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mevani also spoke about the welfare of farmers, in front of Abhishek Manu Singhvi of the Congress whose party has made a mockery of farm loan waivers in the states it has won in the recently held Assembly elections. And while farmers continue to die in Congress-ruled states, the ‘pliant media’ dutifully turns a blind eye.

Another political leader of the same mould as Mevani, Hardik Patel, was also present at the rally. He raised the slogan, “Subhash Babu (Netaji Bose) ladhey the gauro se, hum ladhengey choro se! (Subhash Babu fought against the Brits, we will fight against thieves!)”. Amusingly enough, the resolve to fight against thieves was taken at an event where Tejashvi Yadav, son of Lalu Prasad Yadav who was convicted in the Fodder Scam, was one of the attendees. Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav was also one of the attendees who is himself being investigated currently for his alleged involvement in the mining scam in Uttar Pradesh.


The rally whose agenda the organizers and attendees claim is to safeguard democracy and secularism in the country was also attended by AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal, the same politician who recently threatened to physically attack a journalist and abused him in the vilest of ways.

We should take a moment to take a look at the parties which gathered in Kolkata to defend ‘secularism’, ‘democracy’ and fight ‘thieves’. The Congress party which worked overtime to create the narrative of ‘Saffron Terror‘ during the UPA regime and was responsible for the most brutal suppression of political opposition during the Emergency. Its track record of corruption is unparalleled in the history of Independent India.

Then, we have the RJD whose Patriarch was convicted in several cases pertaining to the Fodder Scam. The era of ‘Jungle Raj‘ in Bihar during Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rule has not been forgotten by anyone. His son, Tejaswhi Yadav, now claims he was sent to jail due to his ‘principles’ and his political opposition to Narendra Modi, thus, undermining the independence of the Judiciary.

The ‘United India’ rally was also attended by Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal whose party is known to have been allegedly hobnobbing with Khalistanis prior to the Punjab Assembly elections. In attendance were also Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah whose sympathies for Kashmiri Separatists is quite well known.

The main objective of the rally was to showcase opposition unity against the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections later this year. Funnily, it was also attended by Chief Minister of Karnataka, HD Kumaraswamy, who has been ranting and whining about the domineering attitude of his alliance partner, the Congress, and complaining that he is being made to work as a clerk.

To top all the inherent contradictions, there was Arun Shourie in attendance as well. A man who called B.R. Ambedkar a British stooge was sitting on the same stage as a casteist politician like Mevani who idolizes Ambedkar.

As we have described above, there appear to be great contradictions between the agenda of the ‘United India’ rally and those in attendance. It’s akin to Kauravas going to war against the Pandavas after accusing the latter to insulting the dignity of women. It’s akin to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan lecturing India on how to treat minorities. It’s akin to people from Bollywood and mainstream media, the corridors of which are teeming with sexual predators, lecturing others on women empowerment.

Even more hilariously, parties which have flirted with linguistic chauvinism and ranted about ‘Hindi imposition’ had no problem with everyone speaking in Hindi at a rally where the overwhelming majority of the audience was Bengali.

The ‘United India’ rally was a heady mixture of contradictions and malice. The rally witnessed a conglomeration of political parties which represent everything that is wrong with the Indian political system. The most corrupt, the most communal and the most fascistic parties have gathered to fight for democracy, secularism and corruption. If it weren’t so dangerous, it would have been quite comical.

How Mr X turned from being a die-hard Modi fan to a thorough Modi hater overnight

Anant Chetan
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How Mr X turned from being a die-hard Modi fan to a thorough Modi hater overnight

Around a month ago, I came across a question on Quora: “Why did some die-hard Modi fans become Modi haters overnight?” While I was reading the answers, an intriguing question popped up in my mind. Although, numerous people had jotted down numerous reasons as to why somebody might have turned to a Modi hater from being a die-hard Modi fan, never was a specific person mentioned. I read some more answers, but none of the people mentioned anybody who went through this kind of transformation.

As a matter of fact, I have a friend who turned Modi hater from a die-hard Modi fan overnight. This is a true story, based on the events of my own life. I don’t want to name my friend but let’s say he is Mr X.

I moved to Germany in March of 2015 to pursue Masters in Embedded Systems Design. The very next day while returning from the university admission office, I saw someone who looked Indian. I walked up to him and asked: “You from India?“, even though I was pretty sure he was. As expected he nodded yes. A formal introduction followed: “Hi! I am Anant and you? Mr X; Hindi? Yes!

He added me to a WhatsApp group for Indian students in Bremerhaven. We became friends. In a week we found two more North Indian students and several South Indian students. All four of us ended up in the same “studentenwohnheim” or “one room student apartments in a building”. I and Mr X are of the same age and the other two were younger.

The very same year PM Modi visited Hanover. I wanted to see both Hanover and PM Modi. It takes around 2 hours and 30 minutes to reach Hanover from Bremerhaven. I asked my friends if they would join me. One of my friends went with me but Mr X said he could not wake up early and so, he would be joining us a couple of hours later. Along with another friend of mine, I went, watched the Prime Minister with great enthusiasm, toured the city and came back.

The same year Akhlaq case happened in Dadri. Mr X was furious about PM Modi’s silence on that incident. He wanted PM Modi to say something. Even though there were fifteen arrests in that case but it did not make any impact on Mr X. During one of our worthless discussions, I tried to reason with him: “Somebody is trying to paint a picture in communal colours. It is a law & order issue and nothing more than that“. Never the less he kept on calling BJP communal, according to him, he was a BJP loyalist till then, but that incident shook him. It was the first time when Mr X turned into Modi hater overnight. 

Time passed by and then came November 2016; 500 and 1000 rupee bills became invalid. I for one did not understand the gravity of this action. I never had to deal with cash on a large scale barring monthly rent and groceries. Same holds true for Mr X as well. But to my surprise, he was furious again. Why? I don’t know. We were not even in India at that time, the step did not impact us what so ever. Not even a bit. Moreover, he has a fetish for debit cards. He used them way more than I did. Once again we had a long heated debate over it. We even tweeted our views (as if it mattered at all, he has some 120 followers and I had 3). According to him, BJP was apparently a clean party before this, however, this decision had changed that. It was the second time Mr X turned into a Modi hater overnight.

Time passed by, BJP won the UP elections. I thought this was just the right time and opportunity to rub it in his face. I waited till it was confirmed that BJP has won, and then I with a smile wider than Grand Canyon whisked straight to his room. “Knock Knock, now do you believe that people liked Demo?” In contrast to what I was expecting him to say, he said: “I never said Demo was a bad idea, I only said that it was not implemented properly, further added his stand is always party neutral and it should be seen as a healthy-constructive criticism.”. I was completely blank! And confused, I thought I would prove him wrong by showing him his old tweets. Clever Mr X had removed both his tweets and Facebook posts targeting demonetization. I guess Twitter and Facebook should introduce a feature where people can’t remove/delete anything 24 hours after posting.

Anyway, time passed by and GST happened. We again had our long discussion. Why was he furious with GST? Only God knows. We don’t have a manufacturing or supplier business, how does it affect people like us? According to him, he had endorsed in some way all the previous decisions made by PM Modi but this one. It was the nth time when Mr X turned into a Modi hater overnight.

Every time PM Modi and his party would do something Mr X would oppose it but will pretend as if he supported the last action. People like him even found a way to justify themselves “the idea was good but was not implemented properly”. What is the definition of ‘properly’? Nobody knows or have an idea of what ‘properly’ is. What are the other instances where Demonetization was conducted on 500/1000 Rs bills in India? Or when was GST applied in India before this time? Or when was NRC conducted other than this one? Better in “Implementation could have been better” refers to the comparison? Comparison with what? These are isolated cases, there is no ‘better’ in these cases.

The fact is Mr X had never voted for BJP. Whatever may be the reason, he had a liking for some other party or person, otherwise, he would have had no issues going to Hannover with us that day. It is but obvious that different people would like different parties when there are several political parties in a vibrant democracy like India. But why hide their allegiances? I wanted to know why he would not accept that he did not like BJP or PM Modi and had a preference for Congress or any other party for that matter.

Every time I would ask him, if I don’t vote for BJP, then who do I vote for, he would come up with a clever but partial answer; ‘NOTA’. I called it ‘partial’ because my follow up questions have never been answered. Who might be the prime minister of India in case my vote ended up making a difference? ‘NOTA’? “The world’s largest functional democracy elected ‘NOTA’ as it’s prime minister”, how much sense would that make? Which party did the ‘NOTA’ prime minister come from? Congress? JDS? NCP? SP? BSP?

Mr X and other people like him have no arguments to defend their beloved party whichever it is. Therefore it is way easy for them to concoct flaws in the only party that stands in between. An attack is the best form of defence. In addition to this, when a person pretends to start from a neutral stand, he gets a bigger room to attack.

Vibrant Gujarat Summit: Investments worth lakhs of crores announced by Indian and foreign companies

OpIndia Staff
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Vibrant Gujarat Summit: Investments worth lakhs of crores announced by Indian and foreign companies

The inaugural day of the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Summit at Gandhinagar witnessed a range of leaders and corporates, from across the world announcing huge investments for the state. The event was also marked by the presence of the Prime Minister and former Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. So far, the investors have announced investments worth more than 4 lakh crore for the state.


 

The first day of the biennial investment summit was attended by big corporates of India and the world. Corporates like Reliance Industries, Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, Suzuki Motor Corporation announced investments for the state, and also praised efforts undertaken by PM Modi in during his tenure.

Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani announced investments worth Rs 3 lakh crore for the state, to be rolled in the next ten years.

“Gujarat is Reliance’s Janmabhoomi as well as Karmabhoomi. We have so far invested Rs 3 lakh crores in Gujarat and created and catalysed over one million livelihood opportunities. Reliance will double this investment and employment numbers over the next ten years” Mukesh Ambani announced. He also said that he has been attending the summit since its inception, and said that it is very satisfying that every other state is following the Gujarat model of investments. He also lauded PM Modi for his leadership and making the country the fastest growing economy in the world. Though he did not elaborate on the investment plans, he said that most of it will be in the telecom and digital technologies space.

In addition to this, Rs 55,000 crore investments were announced by Gautam Adani, chairman of Aditya Group. He said that a major chunk of the investments done by the group will be directed towards the installation of the world’s largest Solar Hybrid Park in Khavda. He also announced 1 GW data centre park in Mundra, copper smelting project, cement manufacturing plant in Lakhat and an integrated Lithium battery complex for the state. Adani, too, praised efforts undertaken by PM Modi for the upliftment of people of India, in the last five years.

Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla announced investments worth Rs 15,000 crore for the state. Out of which Rs 7,500 crore investment will be done for Grasim viscose staple fibre plant at Vilayat and Indian Rayon viscose filament yarn plant at Veraval. He also added that Rs 1000 crore investment will be done in filed of Chemical industries.

“Gujarat has seen exponential growth without compromising on macroeconomic stability. It’s on the back of the remarkable business-friendly environment that Aditya Birla Group has rapidly increased investments in the state,” Birla was quoted by reports.

Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran announced that his group will invest majorly in the field of Lithium-ion batteries manufacturing unit in the state. He also added that investments will be undertaken to expand the capacity of sodium ash production for the state.

In addition to Indian corporates, several international corporates also announced investments for the state. Corporates like Russian based Rosneft announced  $850 million investments for the refinery plant in the state.

“Nayara Energy will sign MoU with the Gujarat government for investing 850 million dollars for phase 1 expansion plan which will see the establishment of a new refinery and petrochemical units,” Rosneft Didier Casimiro, global head of Rosneft announced.

The leaders of five countries—Uzbekistan, Rwanda, Denmark, Czech Republic and Malta were part of delegation present at the summit.

PM Modi, while addressing the delegates said that India is set to be amongst Top 50 countries in ease of doing the business index.

“India is now ready for business. In the last four years, we have jumped 65 places of global ranking of ease of doing business. I have asked my team to work harder to ensure India is on the top 50 next years,” PM Modi said at the summit.

Listing out the measures the Central Government has taken since last four-and-a-half years to boost the economy, PM Modi said, “In the last 2 years, we have moved toward a low-tax regime on the Corporate side. We have lowered the tax from 30% to 25% for new investments as well as small and medium ventures.” He added that the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) worth USD 260 billion was received, which is about 45% of the FDI received in the last 18 years.

The Vibrant Gujarat Summit had started during the tenure of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Summit was established, so as to attract investments in the state, which had suffered a major earthquake in 2001 and was jolted by communal riots in 2002.

Arvind Kejriwal govt delays in giving sanction to prosecute ‘tukde tukde gang’, Court rejects chargesheet till approval given

OpIndia Staff
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Arvind Kejriwal govt delays in giving sanction to prosecute ‘tukde tukde gang’, Court rejects chargesheet till approval given

Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and their comrades had been chargesheeted for sedition recently, 3 years after JNU reverberated with chants of ‘Bharat tere tukde honge, inshallah inshallah’, ‘Afzal hum sharminda hai, tere qaatil zinda hai’ and other seditious slogans. The 1200 page chargesheet that named Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and others, has now faced a roadblock because the Arvind Kejriwal government is delaying in granting permission to prosecute the ‘tukde tukde gang’.

It was reported on Monday by The Telegraph, that before that chargesheet is taken up by the court today, on 19th January 2018, the Delhi government headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had to give his permission to prosecute the accused in the chargesheet, without which, the case would not move ahead.

News has emerged now that the court has refused to accept the 1200 page chargesheet by the Delhi Police stating that they first had to get sanction to prosecute from the Arvind Kejriwal government.


The court has reportedly questioned the Delhi police as to why the chargesheet was filed without proper sanction from the Delhi government and the police told Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat they will procure the required sanctions within 10 days. The hearing is set to resume soon.

The hearing on the chargesheet was adjourned to Saturday earlier, because of the absence of the chief metropolitan magistrate Deepak Sehrawat. Only when a court takes cognisance of a chargesheet does a trial begin, and today too, the chargesheet has been rejected because of lack of permission to prosecute from the Kejriwal government.

According to The Telegraph, a senior home department official said: “We had received a request for prosecution sanction in the case in 2016 itself.” The police gave another request for sanction with the full list of defendants on Monday. The official added: “The government of Delhi has no precedent of a sedition case in the recent past. We have to examine the request on its merits, based on the IPC. The sanction has not yet been granted by this department.”

The law states that in sections like sedition, where the crime pertains to crimes against the state, the chargesheet and the trial cannot proceed without the consent of the central or state government.

According to Times of India, there was a lack of clarity whether the LG or the Kejriwal government’s home department was to take a call on the chargesheet. Times of India reported that an official of the Kejriwal government had reportedly said that since the government had not given such sanction in recent times, the law department is being involved to ensure that the charges in the chargesheet are substantiated.

According to the TOI report, the police had applied for a sanction in 2016 as well and this was the second request. The police were likely to approach the LG’s office or even the ministry of home affairs if the sanction is further delayed.

“In this matter, the final call will anyway be taken by the LG after the home department gives or denies sanction. So, the police will get the sanction sooner or later,” said a top official, as reported by TOI.

Since the request for sanction was given in 2016 and then recently on Monday, one wonders what is taking the Arvind Kejriwal led Delhi government to give permission for prosecution and whether the police is set to approach the LG of Delhi or even the central government is the Delhi government delays further.

‘Felt like chopping Ram Kripal Yadav’s hands off when he joined BJP,’ says Misa Bharti

OpIndia Staff
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‘Felt like chopping Ram Kripal Yadav’s hands off when he joined BJP,’ says Misa Bharti

Daughter of convict Lalu Prasad Yadav, Misa Bharti, has sparked a controversy with her recent statement on Ram Kripal Yadav who snubbed the RJD to join the BJP in 2014. He is now a Union Minister.

Bharti stated that she felt like chopping his hands off when she heard the news of him joining BJP. She said while addressing a gathering at Patna, “He (Ram Kripal Yadav) used to cut the chaff. We had huge respect for him. However, we stopped respecting him when he went on to join hands with Sushil Kumar Modi. At that time I felt like cutting his hands from the same chaff cutting machine.”

Yadav had resigned from the RJD to join the BJP in 2014. In the Lok Sabha Elections, he defeated Bharti to win the Patliputra Lok Sabha seat. Bharti said at the event that she was confident of winning the seat in 2019 as she did not have enough time to prepare for it last time around.

Leaders of the proposed Mahagathbandhan have a history of making such statements. Recently, BSP leader Vijay Yadav asked his party workers to publically thrash BJP workers after winning the Lok Sabha elections.

In December last year, Congress candidate from Indore-III constituency, Ashwin Joshi, while addressing party workers at party’s city office, said that he would beat the BJP workers who ‘planned his defeat by deploying unfair means and practices’. Joshi had lost the Indore-III seat to BJP veteran leader Kailash Vijayvargiya’s son Akash by more than 5000 votes.

Fake names, male pilgrims, false age: Kerala government pulled all forgery tricks to make list of ’51 women under 50′

OpIndia Staff
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Fake names, male pilgrims, false age: Kerala government pulled all forgery tricks to make list of ’51 women under 50′

A day after the Kerala government submitted in the Supreme Court that 51 women under the restricted age group have entered the shrine at Sabarimala Temple so far. Reports of discrepancies and allegations of fake details have surfaced.

Yesterday, Pratheesh Vishwanath, VHP leader and lawyer who has been in the forefront of the protests by the devotees, had Tweeted that the claim by the Kerala government that 51 women under 50 have visited the temple is based on falsified data. Vishwanath had alleged that the Communist government is plotting to sabotage the review petitions filed in the apex court against the order.


Vishwanath had alleged that many women in the list are actually over 50 and even that the government has faked age and details of many others to make that list of 51 women.

Many reports have now surfaced where the names and details of the ‘women’ listed are found to be a hoax.


A number listed under ‘Kalavathi’ registered in the list was found to be of a driver who has ferried many people to Sabarimala. When contacted by Times Now, the man confirmed that there is no woman named Kalavathi and his number has been wrongly listed.

Similarly, another name Deivasigamani, listed as a 42-year-old female was found to be that of a male and the number belonged to his friend. The journalist has informed that he dialled 5 random numbers listed as that of women under 50 who have entered the temple and all 5 were found to be fake.

As per reports, many names in the list have also recorded wrong age details. Women in their sixties have been listed as women under 50.

Kerala government, in its affidavit filed yesterday, had claimed that the list is obtained from the Digital Queue management System maintained by the Kerala Police. They had claimed that over 16 lakh people have applied to visit the shrine this year and over 7500 of them are women. they had claimed that more than 8.2 lakh pilgrims have visited so far and 51 among them were women under 50.

The Kerala police were also slammed by a High Court monitored panel that questioned the special measures taken to escort two CPIM activists, Bindu and Kanakadurga, inside the shrine. The two women were allegedly smuggled by the Kerala police into the shrine through a special gate reserved only for temple staff and VIPs. Pilgrims are not allowed through that gate.

Opposition parties in Kerala and the Sabarimala Karma Samiti has threatened protests over the ‘fake’ list. They have claimed that the government is only doing it to insult the Hindus and belittle the review petitions. State BJP President PS Sreedharan Pillai has stated the list is “the biggest lie of the century”. Congress stated that the communist government has become “a laughing stock”.

The excesses by the communist government and the atrocities unleashed on peaceful devotees who were protesting against the SC order has unleashed widespread unrest and discontent in the state. The government has lodged thousands of police cases on protestors and many instances of violence have been reported in the state. PM Modi in his recent address in Kollam had stated that the communist government’s actions in Sabarimala will go down in the history as one of the most sinful behaviours by a government.

Congress popularity wanes, attracts a mere 20% of BJP’s receipts in 2017-18

OpIndia Staff
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Congress popularity wanes, attracts a mere 20% of BJP’s receipts in 2017-18

The popularity of the Grand Old Party, Congress has been on the downswing since 2013 with the BJP coming to power in 2014 backed by a thumping majority. The waining popularity of the Congress party, despite the several Rahul Gandhi ‘coming of age’ articles written by its friendly media, is evident from the fact that their income has plummeted massively in 2017-18 as compared to 2016-17, as reported by Bharti Jain of Times of India.

Times of India reported that Congress’ income fell to Rs 199 crores in 2017-18 as compared to Rs. 225 crores in 2016-17. The BJP, however, disclosed a receipt of Rs. 1027 crores in 2017-18 according to the Annual Returns filed to the Election Commission.

Of the Rs 199 crores received by Congress, only Rs. 5 crores have come from the election bond route. The Banks had issued election bonds of about Rs. 222 crores in 2017-18. Out of which, BJP has reportedly capitalised on 95% of the election bonds, cashing in Rs. 210 crores.

None of the other parties have reported any income from electoral bonds. CPM’s income stood at Rs 104.8 crore, BSP’s at Rs 51.7 crore, NCP at Rs 8.1 crore, Trinamool Congress at Rs 5.17 crore and CPI at Rs 1.55 crore.

According to the Times of India, Congress’ major share of revenue has come from the issue of coupons totalling Rs. 110 crores.

In the last financial year, Congress clocked an expenditure of Rs. 197 crores, at least on paper.

Fact-check: Was the photo shared by Vinod Kapri that of Nehru after taking holy dip in Kumbh 1954

OpIndia Staff
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Fact-check: Was the photo shared by Vinod Kapri that of Nehru after taking holy dip in Kumbh 1954

This year’s Kumbh Mela which is taking place at Prayagraj is special not only because of the unprecedented enormity of preparations but also because Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself has reviewed the preparations of the largest religious congregation. While this act of the Prime Minister has attracted both praises as well as criticism, there are some who are harping on an altogether different string.

A photo of Jawaharlal Nehru was posted by Vinod Kapri on Twitter, the director of the movie Pihu and the former editor of Zee News and India TV, claiming that Nehru had taken a dip during the 1954 Kumbh Mela.


Responding to his tweet, a Twitter user posted the same photo from Congress leader A. Gopanna’s biography of Nehru – Jawaharlal Nehru: An Illustrated Biography – where the photo is captioned as ‘Jawaharlal Nehru taking a bath after immersion of ashes at Allahabad in 1931’.


This led to a war of words on Twitter with Kapri claiming that the picture cannot be that of immersion of Nehru’s father’s ashes because at that time Nehru’s age was 42 while he looks much older in the picture and therefore the picture is of 1954 Kumbh when Nehru was 65.


A. Gopanna is a Congress leader, and currently the Chairman of Media Department of Tamil Nadu Congress, apart from being a spokesperson. His illustrated biography of the first Prime Minister if India was unveiled by former President of India Pranab Mukherjee in May last year. Therefore, there is very little reason to doubt that Goppana will mislabel the image of Nehru in his book.

Moreover, the photo tweeted by the Twitter user was originally posted by Journalist Vikash Pathak in May last year.


He had also written in the tweet that the photo shows Jawaharlal Nehru immersing his father’s ashes while wearing a janeu.

The photo is also used in an article of India Today wherein it is claimed that the picture is that of immersion of Nehru’s mother’s ashes (1938). Similarly, an article published in Open magazine also captions the photo as that of the immersion of ashes of Nehru’s mother in 1938. What is common in the captions given in the biography, the India Today article and the Open magazine article is that they all caption the photo as being that of Nehru taking a bath after immersion of ashes of either of his parents, restricting the scope of suspicion only to whether it was his father’s or mother’s ashes. None of the above mentioned sources have captioned the photo as being from the 1954 Kumbh.

If we look at another photo of Nehru from the Naini Central Prison taken somewhere between Oct 19, 1930 – Jan 26, 1931, during his fifth imprisonment, Nehru looks quite similar to how he looks in the photo.

Fifth Imprisonment, Jawaharlal Nehru in Naini Central Prison,
courtesy: http://nehruportal.nic.in

Given that a Congress party leader has included that photo in his book saying it shows Jawaharlal Nehru immersing his father’s ashes, and few media houses have labelled it as a photo of Nehru immersing his mother’s ashes, the possibility of the photo being from Kumbh in 1954 becomes very slim.

The 1954 Kumbh is infamous for a tragic stampede that happened on the main bathing day. On 3 February 1954, which was the Mauni Amavasya, around 800 people had lost their lives. The reason for the incident was the failure of crowd management by authorities, compounded by the presence of several political leaders, for which several areas of the Kumbh were blocked for the general public.

This is not the first time that Vinod Kapri has been caught spreading lies. Earlier, Kapri was caught lying about the violence that had broken out it Bulandshehr, Uttar Pradesh. When caught in the lie, he had attacked the police.

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