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Reports claim exodus of Hindu families in Agra, Police deny claims

OpIndia Staff
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Reports claim exodus of Hindu families in Agra, Police deny claims

Hindu families living in Shastri Nagar colony of Agra’s Shamshabad road in Uttar Pradesh, are preparing for an exodus owing to the harassment meted out to them by the members of a “particular community”, as reported by One India.

The Hindu families have alleged that members belonging to a “particular community” use nefarious elements to create conflict and abuse them. It has also been alleged that these elements harass Hindu girls. Owing to this, they claim their life has become a living hell. Irked by this, the Hindu families have decided to sell their houses and go elsewhere.

As per a Patrika report, it has been alleged that a land in the Shastri Nagar colony has been illegally captured by two families. After this Hindus are being threatened to leave the area after selling their houses, otherwise those too would be illegally captured.

It is being claimed that many members of these Hindu families serve in the army. Despite this, they allege the women aren’t being able to leave their houses, and girls too are not finding it possible to go to school. Hence they claim, they decided to sell their houses and settle elsewhere.

The Hindu families allege that they have implored the administration to take action, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

A Dainik Jagran report has claimed that the conflict stems from a land dispute and took a communal colour on Thursday. The report claims that two “minority families” reside in this colony where there’s an empty plot of land near their place of worship.

They had sought permission from the administration to host a religious ceremony there on Friday but were turned down. They then rushed to the District Magistrate threatening exodus, who then allowed them to carry out Ibadat (worship) without any use of a loudspeaker.

The next day Hindu families put up “house on sale” posters on their homes and threatened exodus, after alleging the harassment their women face at the hands of the “minority community”, for which no action was being taken.

Following this, police and administrative officials rushed to the spot and detained 30 individuals from both the communities. The Ibadat later took place in the evening under police protection.

The report claims that this dispute goes back to eight months when the residents of the colony were prevented from storing materials on the empty plot for some occasion, by the “minority community”.

With regards to the current situation, SDM (City) KP Singh has claimed that there’s no exodus like situation and that the problem stems from a land dispute.

Update: Following our report, Agra police issued a tweet in response to one of our readers that the matter didn’t pertain to any form of exodus. They claimed that the problem stemmed from a land dispute, which was being contested in the court. The headline has been changed the reflect the same. 

As Karnataka votes, pollster 5Forty3 predicts the results based on his Micro Analytics Projections

Jhankar Mohta
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As Karnataka votes, pollster 5Forty3 predicts the results based on his Micro Analytics Projections

5Forty3 Datalabs has developed a specialized tool known as MAPi – Micro Analytics Projections (INTELLIGENCE) – which measures socio-political and socio-economic changes of India’s mass markets through various data metrics. The CEO and founder of 5Forty3 Datalabs, Dr Praveen Patil has predicted how the Karnataka assembly elections may pan out.


As a part of this exercise, they have created a new platform, ChunavpediA which aims at a bottom-up disruption of Indian elections by simply projecting each assembly seat by engaging in predictive algorithms of each constituency. The analysis has been divided into three parts – North Karnataka, Madhya Karnataka and South Karnataka.

5Forty3 Data labs made the following predictions on 5th May 2018, right before the last leg of campaigning.

North Karnataka: 

Since last three months, the Congress party was involved in a rippleless barnstorm. The Congress managed to convert the state election into a fight between Siddaramaiah as the local bigwig versus a mainly “north-Indian party like BJP”. In fact, BJP campaign was completely inorganic without any exhilaration among RSS-BJP workers. Until late March, it almost seemed as if Congress may pull off a clean sweep in Karnataka. Then, in April, the Congress party committed three major blunders which turned the table in favour of BJP.

  • Firstly, Rahul Gandhi simply lacked the moral authority or the political courage to convince Siddaramaiah not to give up on his safe seat, Varuna. The message this move conveyed to the ordinary party workers was quite negative.
  • The messy ticket distribution has gone against the party. Congress simply did not replace any of its leaders despite many of them being extremely unpopular in their constituencies. This has not only left more than 30 rebels in the fray but also has led to many key leaders abandoning their posts in the electoral battle.
  • Congress party unnecessarily opened another flank against JDS leaving its main battlefield with BJP in deeply vulnerable position. As a result, in more than three dozen seats, BJP and JDS seem to have made defeating Congress a common cause.

If on one hand, the Congress party has made three big bloopers, there are four factors that are working in favour of the BJP.

  • The deep adherence for PM Modi because of which a large chunk of voters are voting purely for Modi, irrespective of who the candidate is.
  • The shift of four extremely backward communities towards BJP over the last few weeks has given a lethal sting to LIBRA – Lingayat + Brahmin – a coalition of voters. Very much under the radar, Valmikis, Idigas, Madigas and other non-right SC votes could be the defining feature of Karnataka elections in 2018 thereby reinforcing the USHV (United Spectrum of Hindu Votes) in Karnataka.
  • The massively skewed vote-share of BJP wherein its votes are concentrated in northern and central parts while it is virtually non-existent in Old-Mysore and surrounding regions gives the party a much better seat conversion ratio.
  • In North Karnataka, the trends are in aids of BJP in a big way. Such trending data usually produce landslide results.

There are a total of 224 seats in Karnataka, the ChunavpediA had tracked down 81 seats present in North Karnataka, and as the trend suggests BJP was ahead in 45 while Congress was ahead in 24. The JDS and others were leading in 1 seat each while there were 10 undecided seats. Even if the swing seats break out at 50% in favour of the top-seeded party, the BJP in the following days had the potential to win about 62% of the seats.

Madhya Karnataka:

According to 5Forty3 history seems to be repeating itself for the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Way back in 1977-78, Shehzaada’s grandmother Indira Gandhi found herself politically incapacitated and had to fall back on a ‘Backward Caste’ CM, today her grandson finds himself powerless in front of CM Siddaramiah and is depending on this ‘Backward Caste’ CM to keep the Congress party away from drowning.

5Forty3’s Micro Analytical Projections (INTELLIGENCE) – predicted that prior to last mile campaigning, BJP was not exactly sweeping the coastal-Malnad belt (home to Chikmagalur) which consists of 31 seats spread across the 5 districts of Shimoga, Udupi, Chikmagalur, Uttara Kannada, and Dakshina Kannada. Before the last mile of campaigning, BJP was leading in about 14 of those seats while Congress also was in pole position in 11 seats. This is also the belt with maximum Veerashaiva-Lingayat and Valmiki population which is giving the saffron party a big boost. In the 9 seats of Bellary district, BJP was ahead in 6 and Congress was leading in just two.

According to them, there was only one man who can bring about imperative changes in the scenario in this region, Narendra Modi himself. It is believed that what Modi does is basically turn the agenda and the opposition then starts chasing the narrative instead of setting one. Modi rallies have the power to turn electoral equations to his favour and the last 5 years electoral history says that whenever Modi becomes the central theme, opposition suffers.

South Karnataka:

According to 5Forty3, as BJP moved towards the south of Karnataka, it was witnessing resistance and the Modi wave blowing in the north of Karnataka was getting squandered.

In so many years the saffron party has made its dominance felt all across India, but it lacks elementary command in the Old Mysore region. The party was virtually non-existent in the Mandya-Hassan belt and had very few scattered pockets of influence in the Mysore-Chamrajanagar belt. Even in 2008, BJP had a much better presence in this region but things have only deteriorated since then.

It seems BJP too was aware of its limitations. This was the reason why the party was concentrating on the North and Central regions along with Bangalore which was also reflected in the choice of venues for the Modi carpet bombing. The party was in full flow, leaving the Congress clueless as to how to counter the saffron outpour.

According to Dr Patil, the Prime Minister has already made a big difference to BJP’s fortunes in the state, but he had the potential capacity to provide more disruption. The trend was already in BJP’s favour even before the last leg of campaigning, and if Modi just gave that one last push (which he eventually did), BJP may well hit the landslide territory. In order to measure BJP’s chances of going beyond a simple victory, 3 districts need to be crucially monitored:

  1. Bangalore urban district’s seats, especially swing seats like K.R. Pura, Shivajinagar Rajrajeshwarinagar, Govindrajnagar etc. that have smaller Congress leads and are vulnerable to a BJP onslaught.
  2. Uttara Kannada district in the coastal belt where BJP was struggling because Congress has some very strong candidates
  3. Belgaum district where Congress has deep pockets of influence in more than half a dozen seats.

Today, 5forty3 Datalabs came up with another analysis based on the last leg of campaigning which saw several BJP bigwigs including the PM Modi descend in Karnataka for the last mile push and concluded that Karnataka might turn saffron.

Karnataka goes in for elections today. A day before, all the three bigwigs, Amit Shah, Chief Ministerial candidate, B.S. Yeddyurappa and the extremely popular B. Sriramulu all camped in the distant Badami on Thursday, which has always been the safe zone for the Congress. After all the blitzkrieg, the electoral trend has seen remarkable changes in the last one week in Badami. Siddaramaiah no longer has the same confidence of the people.

Micro Analytical Projections (INTELLIGENCE) – Election Tracker has also begun to pick this trend as Siddaramaiah’s lead first reduced from 8 percentage points to 3 percentage points and now stands at a mere 1 percentage point.

Badami is just the trailer, Karnataka, on the whole, will turn saffron today even as a mini-wave is building up, according to Dr Patil. Powerful BJP strategists who were worried that the party had stagnated at around 75-80 seat range until a fortnight ago are now extremely confident about BJP coming to power. Even MAPi Election Tracker is now beginning to show that BJP has already touched the 100-seat mark, while Congress is stuck at around 60 seats. All BJP has to now do is convert about a dozen close contests and the party would be through to a clear majority.

As per the trends, BJP is ahead in 97 assembly segments whereas Congress has leads in 63 seats. JDS has also shown remarkable resilience by taking pole position in 32 seats. There are 32 swing seats as of now, of which 5 are swinging towards smaller parties and independents. Essentially, these remaining 26 swing seats will decide whether BJP gets a full majority on its own or whether it would still need the support of JDS. If the current trend towards BJP continues, it is quite likely that Congress may even have to fight hard to retain the position of the main opposition party.

If the final results are according to the projections, and if the Nation’s so-called ‘shehzaada’ fails to deliver, it will truly be a big blow to every congressman and definitely a feather on PM Modi’s cap who has a reputation of playing the last slogging over with extreme dynamism and sweeping the match away.

‘A political party is conspiring to kill me’ : Mamata Banerjee claims in an interview

OpIndia Staff
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‘A political party is conspiring to kill me’ : Mamata Banerjee claims in an interview

In an interview given to ZEE- 28 ঘণ্টা, a regional Bengali news channel, The Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee stated that there is plot to assassinate her and she believes that a contract has been given to hitmen to get the job done. She furthered that she has reports that suggest that even an advance amount has been paid to the hitmen and they have already visited her house to understand the layout of her residence and its surrounding.

This comes in the wake of unprecedented violence in the run-up to Panchayat elections in Bengal, where Trinamool Congress has been accused of committing nomination fraudulence and physical intimidation.

“I have received reports which indicate a political party is conspiring to kill me, they have hired hitmen ”

This is not the first time Banerjee felt that there is a conspiracy to assassinate her. In 2016 over a delayed landing in Kolkata airport, her party took the same line accusing that there is a conspiracy and the chief minister’s life is in danger.

This constant state of paranoia is not restricted to Bannerjee, time and time again such paranoia has been shown by different opposition political party leaders across India.

Even the president of the National Congress, Rahul Gandhi, has talked about conspiracies plotted against him. Toeing Mamata Banerjee’s line he too claimed that there is more than what meets the eye about the incident where the private jet which carried him from New Delhi to Hubbali had suffered unexplained difficulties, even though his theories had gaping loopholes.

The complaint filed with the Karnataka police stated: “suspicious and faulty performance of the aircraft” meant that “serious questions relating to intentional tampering” needed to be investigated. After again adding the angle of “intentional tampering”, the complaint raised serious questions over aviation safety.

However, it was later reported that an enquiry had contradicted Congress’ conspiracy theories and rejected any sabotage.

Mamata Banerjee hasn’t yet revealed any further details of this alleged assassination plot or mentioned which political party is allegedly conspiring to assassinate her.

Just over an hour into polling, Congress floats its first conspiracy theory

Sanghamitra
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Just over an hour into polling, Congress floats its first conspiracy theory

Karnataka is voting today. The months of endless campaigns, slogans, blames and political mudslinging will culminate today when the voters of the state will decide the fates of 222 constituencies for the assembly. But like most elections post-2014 Lok Sabha, the cries of conspiracy has already started.

Congress leader Brijesh Kalappa who is a Supreme Court lawyer and Congress media coordinator for the assembly elections has tweeted alleging an EVM hacking conspiracy.


The Congress leader has alleged that in a booth opposite his parent’s house any button pressed registers a vote only for Lotus. He, of course, has not bothered to explain that when only one vote is allowed near the voting machine at a time, how did people decide that ‘any button pressed goes to Lotus’ because if we pause and think, for a number of people to agree on a matter like that, they must have experimented and discussed by voting again and again. Even if people discuss their electoral choices after they voted, why is the fact that people might have actually voted for BJP so unacceptable to Mr Kalappa? Afterall, democracy is about giving the citizen the power to choose their leaders.

As far as there being 5 booths at a single location opposite a residential apartment complex is concerned, that seems a whole different kind of problem.

Whatever be the allegations, people in social media are having a great time over it.


Bengaluru is India’s silicon valley, so it is totally expected that EVM hacking techniques there will not involve last decade technologies like Bluetooth like the Gujaratis use.


The day has just started, many more innovative theories from Congress leaders are expected. Maybe Bollywood producers should take a break from wedding dramas and start making science fiction movies where EVM machines will develop cognitive abilities and take over humanity. There is no apparent lack of imaginative writers among Congress leadership and media anyway.

Journalist spreads brazen lies about BJP ads in newspapers ahead of Karnataka elections, gets called out

OpIndia Staff
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Journalist spreads brazen lies about BJP ads in newspapers ahead of Karnataka elections, gets called out

Journalism used to be a profession of keeping the public at large informed with hard facts and cold analysis. It is tragic, however, that with each passing day, journalists have morphed into propagandists covertly canvassing for political parties they agree with.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is one such “journalist” who proved yet again that the profession’s landscape is fast changing. A day before the crucial elections to be held in the state of Karnataka, Thakurta decided to spread brazen lies about the advertisements of BJP in various newspapers.

He appeared to have placed various newspapers carefully on the table to illustrate how BJP had summarily excluded BS Yedyurappa from their ads and had only focussed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP Party President Amit Shah.

However, he was soon called out by various people who presented the facts. It turns out, that Thakurta had carefully placed the newspapers in order to hide the bottom half of the advertisement where BS Yedyurappa was prominently visible.


Some even pointed out that the ‘Bombay Mirror’ newspaper displayed by Thakurta indeed had the entire advertisement and that it was unbelievable that a “senior journalist” can spread lies so blatantly.


After the uproar, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta apologised for his lie and said he would be careful next time.


However, it is noteworthy that Thakurta’s apology didn’t follow the tweet in which he had lied brazenly and the tweet where he lied has not been deleted until the time this article was published. Essentially, anyone reading only the previous tweet of Thakurta wouldn’t know it is a lie. Also, one has to wonder why Thakurta would not delete a tweet where he was caught clearly misrepresenting the facts, albeit, deliberately.

This raises an important question. If it was indeed Thakurta himself who laid out the papers to deliberately mislead people or was this photograph forwarded to him by someone else, and Thakurta failed to do the ethical thing by checking facts before tweeting.

Religious body asks voters to vote for Muslim or Congress candidates

OpIndia Staff
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Religious body asks voters to vote for Muslim or Congress candidates

A Muslim religious group in Karnataka has reportedly issued a written order asking Muslims of that area to vote on the basis of religion. As reported media channel Jan Ki Baat, in a recent letter issued by Karnataka Muslim Muttahida Mahaz has appealed to all the Muslims of the Kolar district to vote for either Congress party or Muslim candidates. They have issued diktats to vote for 5 candidates of Congress and one independent candidate contesting from the district. The district has more than 50,000 Muslim voters.


This appeal to people, to vote on religious lines has been declared illegal by the Supreme Court in a recent judgement. The Supreme Court had ruled that “religion, race, caste, community or language would not be allowed to play any role in the electoral process” and that election of a candidate would be declared null and void if an appeal is made to seek votes on these considerations.

Ajit Doval coordinates with ‘strategic partner’ Russia to secure release of Indians kidnapped by Taliban

OpIndia Staff
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Ajit Doval coordinates with ‘strategic partner’ Russia to secure release of Indians kidnapped by Taliban

On Sunday, seven Indian engineers working in Afghanistan were kidnapped allegedly by the Taliban from the northern part of the landlocked country. As reported in Economic Times, in a bid to rescue them India’s NSA Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale visited Moscow to meet their Russian counterparts along with other senior officials from the Russian government.

Russia reportedly has many connections in the Afghan nation and especially the Taliban. Thus, India is also approaching Russia other than the U.S to find a solution to this impending crisis. The Afghan issue will be among the topics to be discussed, it is expected that the issue of Indian import of Russian defence equipment amidst U.S sanctions and the plausible ramifications of U.S pulling out of Iran deal on Indo-Russia interests as well as Chabahar Port and INSTC will also be taken up during this visit.

NSA Ajit Doval has also reportedly spoken to his Afghan counterpart Hanif Atmar on negotiating the release of kidnapped Indian nationals. As reported by ET, a spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry, Raveesh Kumar stated, “We are in touch with different people who are involved in the exercise through the Afghan government.”

Suspected Taliban militants abducted seven Indian workers in the northern province of Baghlan on Sunday. They were snatched from the car along with their Afghan driver and while no one has taken responsibility for the kidnapping yet, it is believed the kidnapping was carried out by the Taliban.

Multiple cases filed against Karti Chidambaram and family, stage set for prosecution under Black Money Act

Sanghamitra
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Multiple cases filed against Karti Chidambaram and family, stage set for prosecution under Black Money Act

The Income Tax Department today filed four prosecution complaints against Karti Chidambaram, His mother Nalini and wife Srinidhi in a Chennai court today. According to reports, the cases were filed under the Black Money Act.


Journalist and Editor of The Daily Tribune, J Gopikrishnan has stated that the complainant in the cases is MP and legal activist Subramanian Swamy.


Karti was reportedly issued a summon last month under the Black Money Act regarding his assets in the UK. Karti had challenged the move. Karti was asked to depose before the investigating officers in the case under the section 50 of the Black Money Act (Undisclosed foreign assets and income). The tax department had reportedly stated that they wanted to seek details of a transaction done by Karti for a property located in Cambridge.

On May 3rd, the Madras High court had granted the Income Tax department to proceed against Karti and others under the black money act. The I-T department had sought probe against Karti and the directors of Chess Global Pvt Ltd alleging that they through a UK based company Totus Tennis Ltd and US-based Nano Holdings Ltd have made investments and acquired assets.

Karti is currently on bail in the INX Media case. He is also facing probe in the Aircel Maxis case. His interim protection from arrest was extended till July 10th by the Patiala House court.

Unnao rape accused’s wife asked for 1 crore by conman to get case dropped

Jhankar Mohta
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Unnao rape accused’s wife asked for 1 crore by conman to get case dropped

According to reports, two conmen who posed as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer were arrested after they allegedly demanded Rs 1 crore from the wife of Unnao rape accused Kuldeep Singh Sengar to get the case against him dropped.

Police identified the two as Alok and Vijay, both residents of Lucknow.

Sangeeta Singh, the wife of Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who stays in Indira Nagar, Lucknow, received a phone call on May 5 from an unidentified number. The caller introduced himself as a BJP leader and offered to secure the release of her husband. He demanded Rs 1 crore bribe CBI officials.

When Sangeeta refused to give Rs 1 crore, the caller asked her to arrange Rs 50 lakh instead, police said. The next day, she got a call from another number and the caller introduced himself as CBI officer Rajeev Mishra. He also offered assistance to secure Sengar’s release.

These phone calls got the family suspicious as they informed the Ghazipur police station in Lucknow. On Thursday, police arrested Alok and Vijay after tracking down the phone calls.

On the other hand, Media seems to have jumped on the ‘con’ bandwagon. Earlier today, the media reported that the CBI had confirmed rape charges against Sengar. Later, the CBI released a press note refuting these reports and stating that no such confirmation had been given.

Sengar is also accused of conspiring to kill the victim’s father, who died in police custody after being allegedly thrashed by Sengar’s brother and his aides. At present, he is lodged in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur jail.

Indian journalist remains in Australian jail for attempting to smuggle fake mediapersons into the country

OpIndia Staff
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Indian journalist remains in Australian jail for attempting to smuggle fake mediapersons into the country

An Indian journalist who was arrested in March for trying to smuggle his fellow citizens into Australia, would continue to remain in jail for at least the next six months, owing to the adjournment of his case, Associated Press has reported. The journalist named Rakesh Kumar Sharma, hails from Chandigarh, and used to work for a newspaper.

He was arrested at the tail end of March, when he and eight other Indians formed a “fake media contingent” to try and enter Australia under the pretext of covering the Commonwealth Games. They were questioned by the Australian Border Force after landing at Brisbane, following which they were flagged as non-genuine travellers.

Later a statement was issued by the border police claiming that eight individuals were found to be carrying fake media credentials. They thus alleged that Rakesh, the sole mediaperson whose credentials were found to be genuine, was facilitating the group’s travel. He has also been accused of filling a forged form which would have helped his group to get stay visas in the country.

He was thus charged for “smuggling people” and “having fake documents or information relating to non-citizens”. Following this, he was taken into police custody, and seems be scheduled to remain there for a while. The other eight members of his fake media group, aged between 19 and 37, though escaped arrest and were placed in an immigration detention centre.

Following Sharma’s arrest, Queensland deputy police commissioner had commented that the arrest affirmed the efficiency of the system in place to prevent illegals from arriving into the country by using the Commonwealth games as a pretext.

With his case now being adjourned till 22 June, Sharma would continue to remain in the custody of the Brisbane Magistrates Court. If found guilty, he may face up to 20 years in prison.

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