The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing Antilia bomb scare and Mansukh Hiran murder case, has claimed that the mystery woman spotted with Sachin Vaze in CCTV footage is a 36-years-old single mother who has been in regular touch with him from 2011. The ‘mystery woman’ was seen in the CCTV camera along with the dismissed cop of Mumbai police at a five-star hotel in South Mumbai.
The woman has revealed to the NIA that she was working as an escort when Vaze met him as a client through a broker at a five-star hotel. She said that she doesn’t exactly remember whether Vaze had introduced himself as ‘Sanjay’ or ‘Sunil’ adding that after a few meetings he had revealed his name but not the profession. He introduced himself as a businessman. She further stated that she also used whitewash black money of Vaze.
Mother of a 13-year old son, she became an escort in 2008 as her unemployed and abusive husband forced her to pick this profession. In 2013 she got separated from him.
During the investigation, the investigative agency had spotted her entering Oberoi hotel on February 18 and leaving the hotel the next day. She disclosed that she had stayed with Sachin Vaze at the hotel on two occasions in February as Vaze had given her cash of Rs 40 and Rs 36 lakh to count and sort. The first consignment of Rs 40 lakh cash she had received from Vaze was on the 4th floor of the office of police commissioner in Mumbai either on February 15 or the next day. She took the currency notes to her Mira road residence in a local train. Vaze directed her to remove old soiled notes and segregate notes having “786” as serial numbers.
The woman said that when she left the hotel on February 19, Sachin Vaze again gave him a bag containing Rs 36 lakh which she returned to Vaze on February 20 after sorting.
She told the NIA that she had a bank locker which she jointly used along with Vaze. Few days after Vaze was arrested, she had removed Rs 5 lakh from the locker. She gave this money to her brother to hire a good lawyer in case her name surfaces in the NIA investigation. She also left for her hometown with her son on March 31. But she returned after her brother informed her that the NIA was looking for her.
The NIA has also detected Rs 1.5 crore cash in the account of a company Mayank Automation. The woman is mentioned as proprietor of the said company.
Sachin Vaze who remained suspended for 16 years was reinstated in June 2020 after which he asked the woman to stop working as an escort. Soon after that, he had started paying Rs 50,000 monthly to her from August 2020 onward so that she meets her expenses and they regularly used to meet in hotels in South Mumbai.
The NIA on September 3 submitted a charge sheet against Sachin Vaze as the key accused in the Antilia bomb scare case and the other related cases running over into 10000 pages has also recorded the statement of that mystery woman.
On the morning of February 25, 2021, a Scorpio car laden along with 12 gelatin sticks and a threat letter was found parked on Carmichael Road outside Antilia, the house of industrialist Mukesh Ambani. Later on the owner of the car, Mansukh Hiran was found dead. After that, the NIA took over the investigation and arrested Vaze as a key conspirator.
US President Joe Biden early morning on Friday (IST) announced a series of mandates to fight the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. The US President announced vaccine mandates that would impact as many as 100 million Americans. Joe Biden also admonished Americans who have not yet taken the vaccine and blamed them for the Covid-19 crisis still rampaging through the United States.
In addition to that, Joe Biden made another comment that has sparked huge criticism on social media. He said that if Governors do not help him ‘beat the pandemic’, then he will use his presidential powers to get them ‘out of the way’. It is not clear what Biden meant by that, like many other statements he has been making in recent times, and the comment expectedly has sparked outrage from Republican circles.
Citizens are calling Biden a ‘dictator’ and a ‘tyrant’ for what they interpreted as a threat to remove democratically elected Governors.
Good thing we got rid of the dictator and replaced him with the caring guy who will crush governors of states and their rights. https://t.co/4X716BpIDr
People also said that what Joe Biden proposed do was unconstitutional.
Under the Constitutional provision that says "if the states don't do what I want, I can just force them to do so regardless of my enumerated powers" https://t.co/5kKbyuQb80
Aside from how cartoonish and irresponsible this language is, I'm genuinely baffled by the power Biden thinks he has — but absolutely doesn't have. https://t.co/0h9cUCF6XP
Some accused Joe Biden of attempting to incite a second civil war.
So a sitting president just said he will miss use his power to remove elected Governors. He is literally proposing a second civil war https://t.co/kJNFmHazjd
A lot of people also drew attention to the fact that Donald Trump was labeled a dictator and yet, he had never threatened to remove elected governors like Joe Biden has.
If Trump did this Democrats would have filed articles of impeachment in 5 minutes. https://t.co/t2YOSgLyMa
It cannot be said for certain what Joe Biden precisely meant by his declaration to get Governors ‘out of the way’. He has been making bizarre comments in recent times, leading people to question his mental health and his psychological fitness to lead the country.
Uttar Pradesh BJP leader and former state minister Atmaram Tomar has been found dead at his residence in Bhagpat under mysterious circumstances on the late night of Friday, September 9. He was allegedly strangled to death.
According to sources, Atmaram Tomar’s driver, Vijay, had reached his residence in Bijraul Road, Baghpat in the morning where he found the door to his room closed. BJP leader Atmaram Tomar lived alone at his Bhagpat residence. Despite repeated knocking, when he did not get any response from the other side, the driver broke open the door, only to find the former minister lying dead on his bed with a towel around his neck.
Vijay immediately informed the police. There were no other family members in the house at the time.
The driver also told the police that the BJP leader’s car- a Scorpio, had also gone missing from his residence.
According to the police, the CCTV installed in the former minister’s residence captured two people entering the house and driving away Tomar’s car. The authorities are currently attempting to identify these two individuals.
Suspecting foul play, the Uttar Pradesh police have registered a case of murder under IPC section 302 and has initiated an investigation into the matter.
The BJP leader’s family has been informed and his body has been sent for postmortem. Atmaram Tomar contested for the Chhaprauli assembly in the 1993 elections on a BJP ticket. Ram was given the rank of Minister of State when the BJP entered the government in 1997 under the leadership of Kalyan Singh.
Two weeks after the United States evacuated 124,000 people from Afghanistan, a leaked internal document has revealed that several old Afghan refugees have been entering the country with brides as young as 12 years old, reportedYahoo News.
The document, dated September 5, was produced by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis of the Department of Homeland Security. Yahoo News reported that the trafficking of child bridges into the United States has been a major challenge for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban. CBP has sought ‘urgent guidance’ from other US government Departments in tackling the crisis.
“U.S. officials at intake centres in the United Arab Emirates and in Wisconsin have found many incidents in which Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as the wives of much older men…Forced or coerced ‘marriages’ are indicative of the level of desperation Afghan families are willing to consider helping loved ones escape the Taliban and qualify for evacuation to Western countries,” the leaked document emphasised.
US official, familiar with the leaked document, sheds light on the grim situation
As per a US government official, the primary concern has been the vetting process to identify potential cases of child marriages. “The concern is, we’re seeing a lot of family units with very young girls. These girls are brought into the U.S. as wives. It’s not a small number…The reality is, overseas the vetting process sucks — there’s minimal vetting. So now we have a 60-year-old guy with a 12-year-old girl saying, ‘That’s my wife’,” the official conceded.
He pointed out that marriages are not ‘legitimate’ in the eyes of the government. The official informed the administration is clueless about whether the minor girls were brought to the States as part of a rescue mission or nefarious intent. Prior to the Taliban rule, the legal age of marriage for girls under the US-backed government in Afghanistan was 16 years. However, in rural areas, incidents of child marriages below the legal age of 16 were frequent.
White House, Homeland Security defends evacuation and vetting process
According to a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, the US government supposedly had a ‘robust and multi-layered screening and vetting process for evacuation of vulnerable Afghans. “We take allegations of forced marriage seriously. We are coordinating across the U.S. government and with domestic and international partners to detect potential cases of forced marriage or other forms of abuse, including human trafficking, among vulnerable Afghans at relocation sites and to protect any victims identified,” the spokesperson alleged.
Although the White House refused to speak about the allegations of child exploitation and trafficking, an official spokesperson was quick to defend the vetting process.“Intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals are conducting screening and security vetting for all SIV applicants and other vulnerable Afghans. This includes reviews of both biographic and biometric data before they are admitted into the United States.”
At this point, it remains unclear as to how many Afghan children have been subjected to rape and marriages. Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, has blamed the hasty evacuation process and lack of proper screening for aggravating the situation of trafficking of minor Afghan girls.
Joe Biden admin under the scanner over human trafficking concerns
Earlier, the Associated Press had reported that there were numerous incidents where Afghan girls were presented to authorities in US as the “child brides” of old Afghan men. According to one other internal document seen by the AP, Afghan girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi had claimed that they were forced to marry older men to escape Afghanistan who in turn raped them.
“Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families. Department of State has requested urgent guidance,” said the document that was seen by AP. Accusing the Joe Biden administration of importing an “acute human rights crisis” into the USA, Senator Ted Cruz said, “There have been multiple cases of child brides and polygamous families from Afghanistan arriving at military bases here in America as part of their botched evacuation.”
The Uttar Pradesh government has taken over the possession of most of the land where Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan’s Jauhar University has been built. As per reports, the Rampur revenue officials arrived at the University on Thursday and formally took possession of the entire land. Azam Khan’s Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, which had claimed the ownership of the land has been evicted.
As per reports, the Trust owns and manages the University. The Trust is headed by Azam Khan himself, while his wife, Rampur MLA Tanzeen Fatima is the secretary.
Rampur district administration took back more than 70 hectares of land from Jauhar University yesterday
“The high court had rejected an appeal against the eviction process. Today, we have come here to take possession,” said Tehsildar (Sadar) Pramod Kumar pic.twitter.com/wMEXNLTtd2
Tehsildar Pramod Kumar had arrived on the afternoon of Thursday at the University to complete the proceedings. As per a report in Jagran, when the Tehsildar arrived at the University, the VC Sultan Muhammad Khan refused to sign the documents of handover of control stating that he is just an employee of the Trust. The Tehsildar then initiated the proceedings of removal of encroachment in the presence of local witnesses. Over 173 acres of land was taken under the control of the district administration.
On September 6, the Allahabad High Court had dismissed a petition filed by Azam Khan’s Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust against the state government’s proceedings to take over the land where the University stands.
The Rampur district administration had ordered the taking over of the land in January itself. However, the Trust had approached the High Court against the district administration’s decision.
Jauhar University had violated rules, encorached land, and built a mosque on premises
As per reports, the Jauhar University Trust had obtained over 265 acres of land through various means. The state government in 2005 had permitted the minority organisation to obtain more than its initial 12.5 acres, following which, MP Azam Khan had reportedly forcibly taken away lands of local SC/ST farmers, making them sign bonds under threat. Several aggrieved farmers had filed FIRs against the MP. After the government’s action, only the initial 12.5 acres are left in the Jauhar Trust’s control.
The High Court observed that Azam Khan’s Trust had violated many conditions while occupying the land and constructing the University. The Trust had obtained govt’s permission to acquire land claiming that it is a charitable organisation that will teach poor students free of cost. In violation of the state’s condition, a mosque was constructed on the land. Additionally, land belonging to tenure holders and Gram Sabha was encroached upon, violating the laid down conditions. Additionally, the Trust had failed to submit annual reports at the office of the district administration.
Following the encroachment removal, the Trust is now left with only 12.5 acres of land. As per reports, the UP government might soon take control of the University too as under govt rules a University needs 50 acres of land to retain its status.
Azam Khan had terrorised people, stolen properties and occupied lands under SP rule
Tainted MP Azam Khan had wielded brute power during the tenure of the Samajwadi Party government in the state. He used to move around with a retinue of over 100 policemen and senior officers were found serving his household, doing menial jobs. An old Muslim institution in UP had alleged that the Azam Khan had stolen hundreds of valuable manuscripts and books from the library. Khan, using his power and hold, had even stolen lands, goats, and cattle from local farmers.
After CM Yogi Adityanath assumed office, his administration decided to bring an end to the reign of terror imposed by Azam Khan and his goons. Dozens of FIRs were registered and his illegal encroachments were demolished. The MP is now in jail.
The fifth and final India vs England Test match will be played as per the scheduled at Old Trafford ground in Manchester as all Indian players have tested negative for Covid 19. The match is set to start at 3.30 PM on Indian time on Friday.
The fate of the Manchester match had become uncertain after junior physiotherapist of Indian team Yogesh Parmar tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday. This was a tense moment for cricket fans and BCCI as there was doubt on the fifth and last test match.
Earlier, the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had asked the BCCI that in case it wants to cancel the fifth and final Test match it will have to forfeit the match.
But that was not acceptable to India captain Virat Kohli and his deputy Rohit Sharma who clearly declined to accept this offer. Both of them are learnt to have clearly conveyed that in no case Indian team will forfeit the match even if that meant playing it under Covid cloud.
In the current test series, so far, four test matches have been played between India and England out of which India won two matches and one was a draw match. Accepting ECB’s proposal would have meant that the series would end up as a 2-2 draw which was not accepted by the Indian team.
To resolve this serious clash of opinion between the two cricket boards, the BCCI delegation also met with the ECB. The Covid 19 had spoiled the sport as well as the mood of the Indian team. The junior physio Parmar was tested positive for COVID-19. The main physio of the team Nitin Patel was already in isolation after Shastri contracted a virus during the Oval test match. The BCCI is learnt to have asked the ECB to spare a physio for the Indian team.
Other than Shastri and Patel the fielding coach R Sridhar and bowling coach Bharath Arun were also in isolation in London. Only the batting coach Vikram Rathour was available for the team when the Indian team had won the fourth test match at the Oval.
This situation had left BCCI president Sourav Ganguly worried and he became unsure whether the fifth and final Test against England, scheduled from Friday can be taken up or not. “We don’t know if a match will happen at the moment. Hopefully, we can get some game,” Ganguly had said on the sidelines of the launch of ‘Mission Domination’ in Kolkata.
The Kerala government has introduced a draft bill that will enable the State police to snoop on anyone without prior approval from competent authorities, reported The Hindu.
In a bid to ‘curb organised crimes’, the Pinarayi Vijayan government has prepared the draft legislation of Kerala Control of Organised Crimes Act. The bill empowers police officers, equal or above the rank of Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) to direct snooping of any communication (wire, oral or electronic) after receiving an application from an investigating officer. Such an application must be submitted within 48 hours of interception of ‘organised crime’ and contain names of the investigating/supervising officers, the identity of the suspects, nature and location where the ‘snooping’ has to be carried out.
One of the criteria to permit such snooping is that the police official (ADGP or above its rank) must ‘reasonably determine’ its need in the face of an emergency situation, threatening the security of the State. However, the interception process will cease immediately if the order for the same is not approved or the application gets rejected. In such a case, the collected information should be destroyed and the interception process would be discontinued.
Final draft bill to be reviewed by panel led by Kerala Chief Secretary
Such an order by the ‘competent authority’ if approved will be reviewed by a panel led by the State Chief Secretary within a period of 10 days. Moreover, the draft bill made it clear that the ‘collected evidence’ would be admissible against the suspect in the particular case of organised crime. “The contents of the intercepted communication shall be, if possible, recorded on tape or wire or other comparable devices. The recording shall be protected from editing or other alterations,” The Hindu quoted the draft legislation. The final draft bill will be reviewed by a panel led by the Kerala Chief Secretary on Friday (September 10).
Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday announced a 100-day reform plan for Indian aviation. Scindia announced that 5 new airports are to be operationalised, along with 50 new routes under the UDAN scheme.
Six new heliports are a part of the reform plan too. New terminals with increased passenger handling capacities were announced for Agartala and Dehradun airports.
Speaking at a press conference by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Scindia announced that the first airport under the 100-day plan will come up at Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar, as a major boost to the Buddhist circuit.
The airport at Kushinagar is to have the facilities for the successful landing of Airbus 321 and Boeing 737 flights.
Of the 50 new routes announced under the UDAN scheme, 30 are to be made operational by October itself, as per the ministry.
“A second airport terminal will be set up at Dehradun airport. Rs 457 crore are being invested in the construction of it. The new terminal building will be able to handle 1,800 passengers compared to 250 passengers currently,” Scindia stated.
A new terminal is to come up at Agartala, Tripura. The new terminal, with estimated costs of Rs 490 crores, is to take up the passenger handling capacity from 1200 per hour, compared to current capacity of 500/hour.
“A major airport will be constructed up at Jewar in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. This is an ambitious project not only for Uttar Pradesh but entire India. The airport at Jewar will be a Rs 30,000 crore worth project”, announced the Civil Aviation Minister.
Apart from Kushinagar, the other new airports are to come up at Keshod (Gujarat), Gondia (Maharashtra), Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), and Deoghar (Jharkhand), as per reports.
Apart from the airports, 6 Heliports are to be developed in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh under UDAN. A new policy on maintenance, repair and overhaul activities has also been announced. The heliports are planned at Sanjoli, Sase, Baddi, and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and Haldwani and Almora in Uttarakhand, the MoCA announced.
After the Taliban took over, Afghanistan saw a mass exodus of minorities communities like Hindus and Sikhs. Now, according to a report, the last Jew of Afghanistan has also left fearing violence by the Islamic regime of the Taliban, which is imposing strict Shariah in the country. Reportedly, his evacuation was organised by an Israeli American man.
Zebulon Simentov, the last man from the Jewish community in Afghanistan, was evacuated by Moti Kahana, who runs a US-based private security firm. 10 days before his departure, the security firm had approached him and asked him to leave Afghanistan fearing violence not only by the Taliban but also by ISIS-K. Simentov had refused to leave at that time, just as he had refused to leave for decades, even during the previous Taliban regime.
According to reports, he is not living in a ‘neighbouring country’ and eventually, wants to go join his family in New York. While leaving Afghanistan, he had asked the security agency if his friends can also accompany him in fleeing the Taliban regime, and thus, he began his journey joined by 22 others.
Over the years, according to the report, all of his relatives left Afghanistan, including his wife and two children, leaving him behind. He had, all these years, kept the legacy of the Jewish community alive. He used to mark the Jewish new year by praying in the last synagogue in Kabul.
“I have resisted. I have made the religion of Moses proud here,” he told AFP during an interview earlier this year.
Hindus and Sikhs fled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
On August 15, 2021, the Taliban terrorists walked into Kabul, facing no resistance from the Afghan armed forces and declaring themselves as Afghanistan’s rulers. Panic and fear had swept across the country after the fall of Kabul, following which a multitude of city residents flocked to the airport, in a desperate attempt to fly out of the country.
With India anticipating a humanitarian crisis emerging in Afghanistan, it had already laid the groundwork for initiating a swift evacuation campaign. Indians were dogged by primarily two concerns. Firstly, it didn’t share a contiguous border with Afghanistan, which meant that the evacuation had to be carried out at a broader level with an all-embracing approach. Secondly, India had no security footprint in Afghanistan.
“Our overriding concern was the security of our officials on the ground. So we prioritised it in our plan to exfiltrate them from Afghanistan should the Taliban gets hold of the country,” TOI quoted a senior official as saying, who wished to remain anonymous because of being unauthorised to speak on the issue.
During a press briefing on the 27th of August, the Indian government informed that so far, they have evacuated 550 people from Afghanistan in 6 flights. Out of the 550 people, 260 were Indians.
“We have evacuated over 550 people in 6 separate flights, either from Kabul or Dushanbe. Of these, over 260 were Indians. GoI also facilitated evacuation of Indian nationals through other agencies. We were in touch with various countries, like [the] US, Tajikistan,” said Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs (MEA), news agency ANI reported.
Further, the ministry said that the “vast majority” of Indians who wanted to return from Afghanistan have been evacuated out of the country. However, Bagchi said that he did not have the exact count of people who wanted to remain in the country. “Our overall assessment is that the vast majority of Indians who wish to return have been evacuated. Some more are likely to be in Afghanistan. I do not have the exact number for that,” he said.
Even before PM Modi scripted history in the 2019 general elections, the Congress party and its friendly had pulled out every trick in the book to besmirch the central government. From the Award Wapsi saga to the farce of rising intolerance to the outrageous allegations of corruption, the Congress ecosystem employed elaborate measures to dissuade people away from the Modi government.
However, as the results of the 2019 General Elections indicated, far from discouraging people from voting against the PM Modi-led NDA alliance, the spurious campaign led by the Congress party and its ecosystem of left-liberal intelligentsia proved to be devastatingly counterproductive. Not only did PM Modi stormed back to power, but he did so in an emphatic manner.
For the first time in over three decades, a political party won more than 300 seats on its own. Naturally, such a humiliating defeat for a second time in a row would have sparked introspection, but for its bunch of loyal supporters, Congress is beyond reproach and criticising them is sacrilegious. Therefore, they instead turned their ire against the Modi government and doubled down on their efforts to run them down.
Besides blatantly fear-mongering, peddling lies, disinformation, and hurling unsubstantiated allegations, a key part of their campaign against the Centre entailed denigrating the independent media houses and journalists who refused to toe their line as ‘Godi Media’, a pejorative reference to media channels that insufferable left-leaning “intellectuals” accuse of being prejudiced in favour of the Modi government.
Congress ecosystem launch a concerted campaign to undermine nonconformist media organisations
Congress functionaries, their ground supporters, luminaries of the left ecosystem, and their online supporters worked in tandem to vilify the non-pliant journalists and defame the media organisations and accuse of them working in cahoots with the Modi government.
Congress leader Gaurav Pandhi, a habitual fake news peddler, continuously uploads tweets that are critical of journalists who report positive stories about the work done by the central government. In his efforts to tarnish the reputation of such media houses, Pandhi recently shared an image insinuating that Aaj Tak is a thief and an agent.
Source: Twitter
Similarly, Akash Banerjee, a quintessential left-leaning propagandist, also weighed in to criticise media organisations critical of the Congress party and sermonised them to mend their ways or risk being on the wrong side of history.
Source: Twitter
Congress functionaries also contributed to the party’s cause of deflecting criticism by blaming the media as a sellout. Dharmpal Godara Nohar, a Congress leader, recently gloated over the unbecoming treatment meted out to Aaj Tak journalist Chitra Tripathi at the farmers’ protests where she was heckled and harassed. It is worth noting that Tripathi later even tried to exonerate the hoodlums by normalising the heckling and harassment she faced. But for the Congress party, she was a part of their imaginary construct ‘Godi Media’.
Source: Twitter
Then, there were social media anonymous handles associated with the Congress party, who scramble to divert genuine criticism of their the party and their supreme leader Rahul Gandhi by accusing the critics, either a journalist or a news channel, as biased and a mouthpiece of the BJP. For these deluded folks, who view everyone with the binary prism, those who try to oppose their party narrative, even with solid facts and information, are a fair-game that deserve to be name-called, rubbished and mocked.
One of the social media users, who seemed to align with the Congress ideology, shared a picture likening dogs with media channels for not hating on the Modi government.
Source: Twitter
Thus, not being a Modi hater has become the latest touchstone to attract the tag of ‘Godi Media’. Any such channel that emphasises reporting events based on facts or is not “sufficiently” critical of the Modi government is summarily branded as ‘Godi Media’ by the members of the Congress ecosystem. Moreover, when such news organisations broadcast or publish any report that shows the Congress party and their leaders in a bad light, Congress leaders and sympathisers fall over themselves to vigorously defend their party and accuse the media channels or publication houses as paid agents of the BJP.
Congress’ trick of deflecting criticism by calling into question integrity of dissenting voices
This is one of the nefarious stratagems that the footsoldiers of the Congress ecosystem have deployed of late—to deflect criticism directed at the party as motivated by political prejudice—and discredit the media organisations and journalists by accusing them of being paid stooges of the government.
By casting aspersions on the credibility of the news organisations and journalists, the left ecosystem effectively tries to push its agenda that dissenting media organisations are all compromised and therefore, they cannot be trusted for providing an impartial and unbiased view of the events. Instead, the ecosystem goes into overdrive sharing spurious and misleading articles published in portals such as NDTV, Alt News, National Herald etc., which are veritably sympathetic to the Congress party and often act as the party’s mouthpiece, dishing out clean chits on flimsy evidence and unabashedly promoting its propaganda.
With almost halfway through PM Modi’s second tenure, the Congress party and its friendly ecosystem have stepped up its campaign against independent media outlets that defied their mandates and refused to act like their marionettes. Ahead of all-important assembly elections in 2022, which would inevitably set the tone for 2024 general elections, the attack on nonconformist media and journalists by the Congress ecosystem has only increased and has got shriller.
Those media outlets who refuse to give in to their bullying are subjected to assault and abuse, with Congress leaders and “intellectuals” indirectly and sometimes directly justifying the harassment and vilification of such entities and individuals. The political discourse is vitiated to such an extent that abuse, assault and name-calling of media houses have become par for course.
In their desperation to topple the Modi government, the Congress ecosystem has now relinquished their last vestiges of human decency. Attacks against opposition leaders, dissenting journalists and non-pliant media houses are rationalised. In fact, there is a staggering normalisation of an abusive culture where naysayers are abused and maligned, just because they refuse to share their irrational antagonism towards PM Modi.
For years now, Congress had relied on its ecosystem and its network of grassroots workers to promote a narrative that favoured the party and establish its electoral supremacy. But that hegemony has not only been challenged but utterly destroyed by the BJP after PM Modi came to power in 2014. However, Congress still haplessly tried to employ its earlier strategy of beguiling people with its propaganda. But they did not yield the desired results as the new age of social media had equipped people with greater agency to counter propaganda and outright lies.
The lack of credible leadership has also added to the miseries of the Congress party. Rahul Gandhi is regarded as one of the most senior leaders of the party, but there is a faction within the Congress party that wants to extricate the organisation from the clutches of the Gandhis. This fratricidal quagmire is largely responsible for the party’s rudderless approach in the months since the 2019 General elections.
Nevertheless, for the anti-Modi lobby, Rahul Gandhi continues to be the most consequential politician, even though his actions have betrayed that he is yet to “come of age” to be granted serious political consideration. But this fact hasn’t stopped the slavish Congress leaders and their lickspittles from deluding themselves into believing that their supreme leader is destined to be the country’s next prime minister.
With numerous defeats in their kitty, some of them being profoundly discouraging and dispiriting, the ecosystem and its adherents seemed to have resigned to the fact that there isn’t an honourable way to mount a campaign against PM Modi. Weighed down by these realisations, the Congress ecosystem has no scruples about resorting to unscrupulous measures in their attempt to turn their delusion into reality. Their ultimate goal is to install Congress back to power. If that entails dehumanising ‘Godi Media’ and egg on assault, abuse against them, so be it.
