The Anti-CAA rioters who indulged in arson and destruction of public properties during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act have got a temporary breather. The process to recover damages to the tunes of 1.41 crores has been put on hold due to Wuhan coronavirus lockdown.
As per a Times Now report, Lucknow District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash stated, “The process to recover damages and of attaching properties of those involved in the state capital is on hold as only essential activities are going on. Once, the lockdown is over, action will certainly be taken.”
The Lucknow administration had served notices to 53 vandals on the basis of FIRs. The deadline to pay the amount was the first week of April, after that, the process of attachment of the properties had to commence. Due to coronavirus pandemic, a nationwide lockdown was announced on March 25 that was later extended till May 3.
As per reports, in the Khadra area, some 13 protesters were identified and a loss of property was estimated at Rs 21,76,000. In Parivartan Chowk, 24 persons were identified and loss was estimated at Rs 69,65,000. In the Thakurganj area, 10 persons were identified and the loss was Rs 47,85,800, and in Kaiserbagh six protesters were identified and the loss there was Rs 1,75,000.
53 people were served recovery notices by the administration and were told to pay the recovery amount failing which the authorities were to start auctioning off their properties. The Yogi Adityanath government had also put up hoardings carrying names, addresses, and photographs of anti-CAA rioters, who were accused of damaging public property.
However, the Allahabad High Court had ordered the UP government to remove the hoardings, saying that there is no law backing the action of the government. The High Court has said that the posters were unwarranted interference in the privacy of people. But the Yogi government had filed a plea at the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order, saying that those vandalizing public and private property have no right of privacy. The apex court had referred the case to a larger bench.
Later, the UP government introduced an ordinance named the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damage to Public Properties Ordinance, 2020, thereby providing the authorization to the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh to confiscate properties of individuals involved in damaging property during riots in the state, including the recent anti-CAA riots.
Further relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the union home ministry today allowed the states to facilitate the movement of people stranded in various states, including migrant labours. This move will allow students, migrant workers, tourists etc to go to their homes from their current locations.
The order issued by the home ministry has issued guidelines for movement of migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students who are stranded at different places due to the lockdown. The centre has asked the states and union territories to designate nodal authorities and develop standard protocols for sending and receiving such persons. The movement of people will happen only by road.
GoI issues order to State/UTs to facilitate Inter-State mvmt of stranded people inc. #MigrantLabourers, in the country. All persons to be medically screened at source & destination; & kept in home/institutional quarantine on arrival, as per @MoHFW_INDIA guidelines.#COVID19pic.twitter.com/4zfztwB2NA
— Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs (@PIBHomeAffairs) April 29, 2020
Persons willing to move will be screened and only those having no symptoms will be allowed to move. Both the sending and receiving states will have to coordinate on the movement, and the states that fall in the route will allow the transit of such buses. On arrival at the destination, the persons will be again screened and they will be kept in home quarantine if found asymptomatic. They may also be kept in institutional quarantine, if that is felt necessary after health checkup.
This move will bring a huge relief for lakhs of people who are stranded in different states due to the lockdown. As migrant workers have no work, and students have no classes to attend, all of them want to go home to be with families. Several incidents of migrants violating lockdown and coming out in large numbers demanding to be sent back to their home states have also happened in various states lie Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi etc. Earlier some states had evacuated small number of people stranded outside their states. But now after the MHA order, large scale evacuation of people to their home states will be possible.
The nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of Coronavirus was imposed from 25th March, which was to expire on 14th April. But the lockdown was extended and now it is scheduled to end on 3rd March.
Today’s decision just four days ahead of the lockdown ends gives a hint that the lockdown will not be lifted completely after 3rd May. Even if limited relaxations are granted in green zones, at least train, flight and inter-state bus transit will most probably remain prohibited.
There have been countless occasions when Bollywood actors have made a fool of themselves by weighing in on topics completely out of their intellectual grasp. Recently, actor Richa Chadha enlisted herself in the list of Bollywood celebrities who have displayed shocking disregard and brazen antipathy for logic and rationality. As the country reels under the economic shadow of coronavirus lockdown, Ms Chadha today asked the Premier Bank of the country, RBI, why it can’t “write-off” everyone’s EMI.
Taking to Twitter, Ms Chadha asked, “Why can’t the RBI also write off everyone’s EMIs?” The tweet by the Fukrey actor was in reference to the RBI list of top 50 wilful defaulters who are accused of cheating Indian banks. However, the Masaan actress seemed to have conflated the two disparate concepts of “waive off” and “write off” to wonder why the RBI cannot write off everyone’s EMIs.
It is also pertinent to note here that the Reserve Bank of India doesn’t write off loans. It is the banks that write off the loans that are granted by them. In this case, the apex bank of the country had simply provided with the list of top 50 defaulters to an RTI query. Therefore, Ms Chadha’s demand that the RBI should write off everyone’s EMIs is patently wrong and impossible to be fulfilled.
Difference between a Waive off and Write off
‘Write-off’ is a process of balance sheet cleaning up exercise undertaken by concerned banks to depict the real status of the bank’s assets and liabilities. The write-offs are not loan waivers as implied by Ms Chadha in her above tweet.
The banks usually write off loans (an asset to the bank) given to borrowers, which have now shown signs of weakness. The borrower is still liable for repayment. If banks fail to write-off these loans, it is reflected as a high-quality asset and the returns-on-assets should be classified as an income to the bank. However, the quality of a defaulted loan has deteriorated for some time now, which results in giving the wrong picture of the true assets of the bank. It is just a normal practise to clean balance sheets and achieve tax efficiency.
Write-offs are a purely technical, accounting entry. Loans, which may not be repaid by the borrower in the normal course of business are written off. Even when these loans are written off, various recovery procedures like recovery suits filed before the Debt Recovery Tribunal and action initiated under SARFAESI Act continue. Hence, the writing-off a loan is not simply a ‘waive-off’.
Waive off, on the other hand, means that the banks have no means for recovery. For example, loans of farmers who face crop failures are waived off which means they don’t have to repay the loans.
India’s FM Nirmala Sitharaman slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over misinformation
Earlier yesterday, the Reserve Bank of India had released the list of top 50 loan defaulters which included names of Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi among others. The former Congress President lapped on to the list to mount an attack against the government, accusing them of waiving off their loans. However, the Finance Minister of the country, Nirmala Sitharaman rubbished the unfounded claims made by the Gandhi scion, stating that the Wayanad MP is spreading misinformation again by terming ‘bad loan write off’ by banks as ‘loan waiver’.
The unusual Ozone hole that developed earlier this spring and eventually turned out to be the largest one has been healing, the scientists involved in the observation process revealed.
The ozone layer is a region of earth’s stratosphere that absorbs the ultraviolet radiation coming from the sun. It had set a new record earlier this month when a huge depletion occurred in the northern hemisphere. The depleted area can easily cover the size of Greenland and stretched over the top of the polar icecap.
In the late last week, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) declared that ozone in the arctic region is healing. Scientists said, “previous smaller holes have appeared in the ozone layer over the northern hemisphere before but it was the first time you can speak about the ‘real ozone hole’ in the Arctic.”
CAMS revealed that due to unusual weather conditions the hole had been formed. According to the organization, cold temperatures and powerful winds formed a “polar vortex,” that created a frigid condition that led to ozone depletion.
The organization tweeted, “Although it looks like the polar vortex has not quite come to an end yet and will reform in the next few days, ozone values will not go back to the very low levels seen earlier in April.”
Although it looks like the #PolarVortex has not quite come to an end yet and will reform in the next few days #ozone values will not got back to the very low levels seen earlier in April.
Healing of atmospheric layer not an impact of coronavirus lockdown
The CAMS revealed that the healing of the ozone has nothing to do with Coronavirus lockdown. They said, “This Arctic ozone hole actually has nothing to do with corona virus-related lockdowns, but rather was caused by an unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex.”
As per reports, scientists had earlier mentioned in a report, “While we are used to ozone holes developing over the Antarctic every year during the Austral spring, the conditions needed for such strong ozone depletion are not normally found in the northern hemisphere.”
The Scientists added, “This ozone hole was basically a symptom of the larger problem of ozone depletion, and closed because of local annual cycles, not long-term healing. But, there’s hope: the ozone layer is also healing, but slowly.”
The thickness of the Ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere changes with the season
The thickness of the Ozone layer mutates with the season. The freezing winters lead to a high altitude cloud combining with the Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which are highly damaging to Ozone layer, which has been contributing towards thinning out the ozone layer from decades.
As per reports, depletion has been causing annually for the last 35 years. After the ban on CFCs, the ozone in the southern hemisphere is recovering. The 2019 Antarctic hole was the smallest one after the crisis was discovered.
As it was formed due to unusual weather circumstances, the Arctic ozone depletion was a different case and because the weather is warmer, therefore, the same high-altitude clouds do not form.
Comic artist Rachita Taneja, the founder of webcomic Sanitary Panels, took to Twitter today to wish for the death of Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar while mourning actor Irrfan Khan’s demise. In her tweet, Taneja wrote: “Take back Akshay Kumar and give us Irrfan Khan back”.
The now deleted Tweet
This comment probably drew her a lot of criticism which impelled her to deactivate her Twitter account. Her handle @visualfumble has now been deleted.
Bollywood actor Irfan Khan passed away in Mumbai today. He was rushed to Kokilaben Ambani hospital on Tuesday following colon infection and was admitted to the ICU. In 2018 he was diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumour.
Akshay Kumar a vocal supporter of PM Modi
Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar has never shied away from expressing his admiration for PM Narendra Modi. He has been quite vocal about his support for PM Modi and the initiatives taken by the Prime Minister over the years. His film Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and Padman were also, in fact, along the lines of what the prime minister has been talking about for the past three years.
Akshay Kumar had vociferously supported the ‘Janata curfew’ called by PM Narendra Modi to fight the coronavirus pandemic and was also one of the first actors to announce a donation of Rs 25 crore to PM Modi’s CARES fund to help the cause.
Rachita Taneja’s past hateful tweet
This is not the first time Taneja has been hateful.
Rachita Taneja’s tweet from her now deleted account. (image courtesy: @896rudra on Twitter)
Following the Supreme Court verdict on Ram Janmabhoomi case where the apex court decided in favour of constructing the Ram Mandir, Taneja had taken to Twitter to abuse the temple. Taneja’s comics which many times reek of Hinduphobia has been commissioned and published by various international publications like Forbes India.
Actor Irrfan Khan died on Wednesday in Mumbai’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, where he was being treated for a colon infection. The versatile actor, one of Indian cinema’s most respected thespians, battled a tumour for several months and had returned to Mumbai some months ago after being treated in London.
Netizens not only remembered his magnificent acting career but also the progressive ideas of Irrfan Khan, who had time-and-again expressed his idea of practising religion, despite being well aware of the fact that he would be admonished by the hardliners.
On Jule 25, 2016, Irrfan Khan had appeared on Times Now’s ‘The Newshour’ show with then Editor-in-Chief of Arnab Goswami, where he took part in a discussion expressing his ideas on Islam and his own way of practising his faith.
In the debate, Irrfan had shared his experience of being a Muslim and topics such as Ramazan and Roza were also discussed along with the issues of terrorism and the global perspectives. The other panellists on the debate were Mohandas Pai, Zafar Sareshwala, Mufti Mohd Manzur Ziyaee of the Haji Ali Dargah Trust and Tasleem Ahmed Rehmani, President, Muslim Political Council of India.
The debate was on the backdrop of a controversy which had erupted after actor Irrfan Khan had made certain comments on the need of observing Roza during the Ramzan and also sacrificing animals during the Islamic festival of Bakrid.
In 2016, during an event in Jaipur, Irrfan Khan had stated that in today’s practises, the actual meaning of Qurbani (sacrifice) has been lost. He had added that purchasing a goat from the market and killing it after two days is not ‘Qurbani’. He had added that the essence of the Islamic festival is about giving up, sacrificing something that is important to oneself. Khan had faced widespread criticism from Islamic clerics and even the AIMPLB for his remarks.
Muslims are fighting against terrorism
At around 1.40 minutes of the show, Irrfan Khan speaking to Arnab Goswami said, “We don’t see the whole picture. There is a huge chunk of the Muslim population that is fighting against terrorism. We only see Muslims in India. When you go abroad, you see there are people who are fighting terror… and trying to put Islam, the way they have understood, in the right perspective”.
“The way I have understood Islam is through some incidents. And there are various delicate experiences that teach you these philosophies, which have multiple layers. It’s not a single dimension and that’s why it continues for years and years,” he said, revealing some incidents that he heard in his childhood.
Irrfan Khan added that the ideas have become transactional and the seeking part has been eliminated in the religion. “Mercy and compassion are the basis of Islam”, said Irrfan Khan as he spoke about the misconceptions people have about Islam and terrorism.
One should introspect before performing rituals
In every religion, there is an aspect of practice and there is an aspect of discovery, said actor Khan. When you stop seeking, the practices take over, added Irrfan Khan. In the show, Irrfan’s challenged the clerics about some of the rituals observed by Muslims during Ramzan and Muharram.
Irrfan had openly said that instead of observing fast during the month of Ramzan, people should rather introspect. He has also spoken against sacrifice during Muharram and how one is supposed to mourn in that period and not celebrate it like a festival.
‘Rather than fasting during Ramzan, people should self-introspect. Animals are being slaughtered on the name of Qurbani,” Irrfan had said in the show.
Faith is a house with many rooms: Irrfan Khan
At around 45th minute of the show, Irrfan Khan while talking about the subject of faith, presented his views on Islam and faith by citing a reference from his Oscar-winning film ‘Life of Pi’. Khan said, “A dialogue from the film says, ‘Faith is a house with many rooms.’ The other person asks him, ‘Is there no room for doubt?’’ he says, ‘Plenty, on every floor. Doubt is a useful thing, it keeps your faith alive. Until and unless you test, your faith is not alive.’ That is what I do. I test. I test my teachings and I experience myself, that’s how you work on your soul.”
We do not need mediators to seek god
Later, Khan said that he did not need mediators to seek God, to which the maulana replied saying that intermediation was necessary. Questioning the Maulana present in the debate, Irrfan Khan had said why does he need anyone in the middle to understand his faith. My faith is between me and my god, he said.
When the Maulana said, you need Quran and a knowledgeable cleric to help someone understand the religion, Khan said he will himself try and introspect about his religion and he did not need a middleman to connect him with the god.
“One man comes and he imparts his understanding of the Quran, a second man comes and he can give a different understanding, and the third man can give a third understanding. Take translation, for example, the same thing is interpreted in various ways, and that sometimes sends people down the wrong path,” Irrfan Khan had noted in the interview.
The Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic has unleashed unfathomable strife and great hardships across the world. Apart from the rising death toll, people have also suffered immensely due to the economic crisis that was precipitated by the necessary lockdown. In India, a nationwide lockdown has been in force since the 25th of March and various groups, migrant workers especially, have suffered gravely due to it. Amidst the grave turn of events, people from various walks of life have come forward to help alleviate the suffering of people in their own personal capacity. One of them is Manish Mundra, the producer of the popular Bollywood movie Masaan.
Even before the lockdown, Manish Mundra has been contributing to charities to help people in distress. In March, before the lockdown, or even the Janata Curfew on the 22nd of March, he had contributed Rs. 10 lakh towards BJP politician Kapil Mishra’s appeal for donations to help the Hindu victims of the anti-Hindu riots in Delhi. Later, a day before the Janata Curfew, Manish Mundra pledged Rs. 3 crores to secure 70 ventilators for the treatment of those affected by the virus.
Since then, the filmmaker has been participating actively in India’s fight against the Wuhan Coronavirus. He has been working to deliver PPE kits in hospitals where they would be necessary for the doctors to combat the virus. He has delivered the PPE kits to hospitals in Nagpur, and in places such as Dehradun, Morena, Yevetmal, Darbhanga and Ahmedabad. He has donated kits to numerous other hospitals other than the places mentioned. He is also serving as a conduit for people who wish to donate but do not have the means to organize the distribution.
Speaking to OpIndia, Mundra said, “My biggest motive is to help my country in these difficult times and specifically the frontline medical and support staff. If we can protect them we can fight longer. That’s the key to win this Coronavirus fight. If the doctors and nurses fall we fall.” And while he did face initial hurdles in logistics owing to the nationwide lockdown, things soon fell into place. “As they say god helps if we are in pursuit of good things Twitter got me an amazing person in Anubhuti she is professional with an expertise in logistics across India. She came from nowhere and became part of our team and since then we have had no problem in despatches,” he said.
Over and above this, Mundra and his team has also been serving cooked food packages. Food worth Rs 3-4 lakh is being supplied daily.
Cooked food served
In addition to this, Manish Mundra has also been helping those who are donating ration kits to those hurt by the lockdown. People have expressed profound gratitude to him for helping them help other people. There are others who have initiated their own efforts to combat the virus taking inspiration from him. He has made contributions to those who are working to provide the affected with food during the ongoing crisis.
@ManMundra sir inspired by you sir we have started producing PPE kits
Intially production of 50 kits to 2000 kits flat 2 days
Simultaneously, Manish Mundra has also been urging others from the Bollywood industry and sports industry to contribute to the country’s fight against the pandemic and has been working to organize a concerted response to the crisis. He emphasized that there was a need to distribute as many PPEs as possible in states most affected and informed them that should they use the Indian Postal Network, the equipment would reach them in five to seven days. He said that he could help them locate suppliers and they could make the payment directly.
In the states of MHA / MP / UP / RAJ. Talk and enquire about how can you contribute. One #PPE set costs around 750 delivered. If you do 1000 it will cost 750,000 max and we need more than 20,000 plus kits everyday. We can help you locate the suppliers. Pay them directly
In addition to that, Manish Mundra has emphasized the need for the distribution to be done in a planned manner. “We need to do a statewise plan for PPE distribution to all key hospitals of Maharastra / MP / UP/ Rajasthan/ Bihar / Jharkhand. To identify key hospitals in the HotSpot and send them the PPE,” he said.
The idea is we send bulk PPE to one state each day and arrange to distribute it across. And can repeat the cycle for next two weeks. What we would need is identifying the hotspot Covid hospitals / compiling the address / contact person and number and planning the logistics
In the ongoing pandemic, Manish Mundra has come up with the slogan of “Let’s do more!” He says the entire team that has come together to fight for the cause has come together on Twitter, most of whom have never met each other in person. “The entire team developed through Twitter. Now we have few more team members making possible for us to reach far off destinations in 3/4 days. With the help of Indian Railways / Indian Post and other courier services. Anubhuti, Devang Dave, Ankit Jain, Bhoomika, Dharmendra Chonkar… we all came together through Twitter,” he said.
In yet another incident of anti-Hindu vandalism on Wikipedia, today the Wikipedia page of RSS was edited to brand it as a terrorist organisation The introductory sentence in the article was changed to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, abbreviated as RSS is an Indian right-wing, Hindu terrorist organisation.
The original article said “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, abbreviated as RSS is an Indian right-wing, Hindu Nationalist organisation”. The words “Hindu Nationalist organisation” was replaced with “Hindu terrorist organisation” to brand the cultural organisation by a Wikipedia editor with the user name Ahmedfalah7711.
Although the vandalism was reverted by several alert editors on Wikipedia, this Ahmedfalah7711 seems to be in a mission to defame RSS, as the vandalism was repeated several times by the user. Even though the article was put under semi-protection, the vandalism continued as it was done by a logged in account.
In general most Wikipedia vandalism is done by without logging into the crowd-sources encyclopaedia site, and semi-protecting articles allows to stop such attacks as editing in such articles are not allowed without logging into the site. But as the RSS article vandalism was done by a logged in user, the semi-protection didn’t work. The article was first vandalised just after 12 at midnight today, and after that a war between the vandal and editors continued, each reverting the previous edit.
A look at the talk page of Ahmedfalah7711 shows that the user is a regular offender, as the user has been warned multiple times in the past for indulging in edit wars. Last month the user had vandalised the Wikipedia page of Home Minister Amit Shah, where it was edited to say that Amit Shah was born in a Jain family, and he calls himself a Hindu despite being seen praying at Jain temples.
The user had also vandalised the Wikipedia page on Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques. This article documents the various non-Islamic places of worship which were converted to mosques, and the user had removed the entire section on Ram Janmabhoomi from the article.
Islamists are having a free run on Wikipedia in recent times by doing disruptive editing. Just two weeks ago, the page on Noakhali riot was vandalised where Hindus and Muslims were switched, and the anti-Hindu riot by Muslim was converted into anti-Muslim riot by Hindus. Before that, the Wikipedia page of Delhi riots was made as anti-Hindu from the beginning. The leftist Islamist administrators the site also deleted the page on Tablighi Jamaat hotspot of Coronavirus, calling it anti-Muslim, despite the fact that the religious congregation has emerged as one of the major spreaders of the virus in India and several other countries.
National Commission of Minorities chairman Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi slammed Delhi Minorities Commission chief Zafarul Islam for his remarks against India which claimed that Muslims in India are treated badly.
Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi said that Indian Muslims and Muslims in foreign countries know that Muslims in India are happy and living with dignity and honour. There’s no Islamophobia in India.
The National Commission of Minorities chairman said, “Muslim consider India as heaven”. He added that Zafarul Islam has tried to malign the country’s image.
In a video message, Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi stated, “National minorities Commission condemns the statements made by Zafarul Islam which are divisive in nature. Zafarul Islam should not have forgotten that people of all religion have been living in harmony for centuries and have faced all calamities together.”
Rizvi also stated that Zafarul Islam should remember that despite vehement opposition from an Islamic nation like Pakistan, many Arab nations have honoured our PM Modi with the highest civilian awards of their countries. Rizvi added that strict action should be taken against Zafarul Islam for his hateful comments.
दिल्ली अल्पसंख्यक आयोग के चेयरमैन डॉ जफरुल इस्लाम खान @khan_zafarul ने जो देश को लेकर बयान दिया है, वह बहुत ही निंदनीय है और हम इसकी घोर निंदा करते हैं।
— Syed Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi (@GhayorulHasan) April 29, 2020
Zafarul Islam had shared a provocative and hateful post
Zafarul Islam had taken to Facebook on Tuesday to share a provocative post to thank Kuwait for “standing with the Indian Muslims”, over an old statement by the Kuwaiti secretary-general of the cabinet. Islam had even threatened Hindus in India, saying, “Mind you, bigots, Indian Muslims have opted until now not to complain to the Arab and Muslim world about your hate campaigns and lynchings and riots. The day they are pushed to do that, bigots will face avalanche”.
Kuwait Ambassador’s Statement
Recently, an old statement by the Secretary-General of Kuwait cabinet had gone viral on social media, where the Secretary-General had parroted Pakistan’s favourite lines about Muslims being persecuted in India.
The Kuwait government, through their ambassador in India Jassem Al-Najem, has clarified that they respect the UN charter of non-interference in other countries’ affairs and respecting the sovereignty of nations. The Kuwaiti ambassador had also highlighted the current cooperation between the two nations.
Besides affecting the physical and mental state well being of people, the coronavirus outbreak may have also created a situation of constitutional crisis in the state of Maharashtra.
The chief minister of the state, Uddhav Thackeray, was elected to the position of state’s chief minister on November 27, 2019. Since he was not a member of either house of the state legislature, it was imperative for him to become a member within 6 months, i.e May 27, 2019. However, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the Election Commission had indefinitely postponed the polls of legislative council scheduled on April 24, thereby plunging Maharashtra government into a crisis.
As per reports, in order to thwart the impending predicament, a group of cabinet ministers including NCP leaders Ajit Pawar and Jayant Patil, Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde and Anil Pranab, and Congress’ Babasaheb Thorat met with the state governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari on Tuesday with a revised state cabinet recommendation to appoint Thackeray to the council.
However, according to one senior cabinet minister privy to the discussion with the state governor, Koshiyari was non-committal in assuring the ministers of Thackeray’s nomination to the council. With Thackeray’s fate as CM in limbo, the government is considering approaching to the Election Commission demanding early polls to the legislative council.
Soon after the Election Commission deferred the Legislative Council elections in the state amidst the coronavirus crisis, Thackeray wanted to be a nominee of the governor as two such posts were lying vacant. A proposal for his nomination was submitted to the Raj Bhavan on April 9 but no decision was taken by the governor on the grounds of technicalities. The government then passed a new resolution this Monday.
“A cabinet meeting was summoned on Wednesday to assess the state’s fight against the coronavirus. We may pass a resolution urging the Election Commission to carry out elections to the council as early as possible, preferably before May 20. All the social distancing norms mandated by the ICMR will be followed. The EC holds the power of reducing the notice period of the council elections. They should accept our request for the sake of stability of the state government,” the cabinet member said as quoted by the Times of India.
The cabinet member also added that the government was also mulling over the proposal of asking the Supreme Court of the country to suspend the provision of the election within six months. “In the wake of nationwide lockdown, the government has postponed all statutory activities by three months. Likewise, we feel that the top court should also relax the provision of six months as a special case. Thackeray has not been able to fight the elections because of the ongoing lockdown,” the member said.
In the event that Thackeray fails to be nominated on the council, he will have to resign from the post of chief minister. However, Thackeray can be sworn in as CM yet again after he gets elected to either House within 6 months or a new CM will have to be elected.
