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Pictures of ‘Baby Kejriwal’ donning AAP’s white cap and muffler take internet by the storm

OpIndia Staff
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Pictures of ‘Baby Kejriwal’ donning AAP’s white cap and muffler take internet by the storm

As the counting of votes continued in Delhi Tuesday, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) tweeted a photo of a toddler dressed as Party chief, Arvind Kejriwal describing him as ‘Mufflerman’.

Besides wearing the AAP white cap, the child donning Kejriwal’s trademark spectacles, a fake moustache, a maroon sweater and a muffler, replicating the popular winter wear ensemble of Kejriwal, took the internet by the storm as social media users could stop gushing about the toddler.


The one-year-old, identified as Avyaan Tomar, is the son of a businessman Rahul Tomar, and his wife Meenakshi. Both are reportedly AAP supporters. The child was spotted at the AAP’s ITO headquarters in Delhi with his parents early in the morning.

The photo of ‘Baby Kejriwal’ was used extensively by the microbloggers who could not hold back from swooning over the toddler.


Avyaan’s sister Fairy, who is now nine years old, was also spotted dressed as Kejriwal after the Delhi assembly elections in 2015. She had attended Kejriwal’s swearing-in ceremony, donning a muffler and glasses.

Fairy Tomar as ‘Baby Kejriwal’ back in 2015. (image: outlookindia)

The Tomars have supported Kejriwal since the time he was involved with activist Anna Hazare in 2011. “I want my daughter to become like Kejriwal and have the same qualities that he has —honesty, integrity, compassion… We used to bring her to Anna’s (Hazare) rally here and when Kejriwal came to the forefront of the anti-graft struggle, we made our daughter the mascot of that effort,” Meenakshi told PTI at the time.

The Aam Aadmi Party has secured a massive victory for itself in the Delhi Assembly Elections. Arvind Kejriwal has succeeded in fending off a strident challenge from the BJP and he is set for a third term as the Chief Minister. However, things were not all bad for the BJP. It has managed to increase its vote-share significantly but Congress, which ruled Delhi for 15 years before being voted out in 2013, looked on the path to draw a blank yet again in the 2020 Delhi election results.

Indian Railways launches “wake-up call” facility to alert passengers 30 minutes before reaching destination

OpIndia Staff
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Indian Railways launches “wake-up call” facility to alert passengers 30 minutes before reaching destination

The Indian Railways in its continued effort towards convenient travel for passengers has provided a much-needed service of “Wake-up call” that will get the passengers on their toes before 30 minutes the scheduled arrival of destination.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal also took to Twitter to inform about the much needed facility.


Railways will free you from worrying about missing your station, he tweeted while informing people about the ‘wake-up call’ facility being launched by the Indian Railways. This way, the passenger will be able to get ready before they arrive at their destination.

The “wake-up call” facility is launched by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation in-association with Bharat BPO. The facility can be available by calling on helpline number 139.

In December 2019, this was marked as a biggest achievement of Indian Railways after data revealed that there was zero passenger death in the fiscal year 2019-20 took place. The data revealed that the total numbers of consequential accidents – collisions, fire in trains, level crossing accidents and derailment – have decreased by nearly 95 percent over the last 38 years.

Despite losing, BJP candidate from Hari Nagar Tajinder Bagga pledges to fulfil his poll promises to voters

OpIndia Staff
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Despite losing, BJP candidate from Hari Nagar Tajinder Bagga pledges to fulfil his poll promises to voters

Though BJP candidate from Hari Nagar constituency, Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga has lost the recently concluded Delhi assembly elections, he has, nonetheless, pledged to fulfil the promises made by him during the elections.

Undeterred by defeat in the recently concluded Delhi assembly elections, Bagga took to Twitter to express his commitment in fulfilling the promises made by him in the manifesto.


Bagga had promised to open a Defence Coaching Centre for girls in Hari Nagar. Now, Bagga has pledged that he will fulfil his manifesto promise within the next 30 days in his personal capacity. He has also added that he would do his best to accomplishing promises made by him during the elections.

Conceding his defeat to AAP’s Raj Kumari Dhillon, Bagga echoed the poem quoted by late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said that he is not afraid to win or loss and accepts whatever he got after the struggle. Bagga also thanked the people of Delhi and extended his compliments for Arvind Kejriwal and AAP workers.


The lines shared by Bagga is from a poem authored by Shivmangal Singh Suman, which was frequently shared by former PM late Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Delhi Elections 2020: The BJP’s vote-share has increased and so has its number of seats, the results cannot be extrapolated to fit larger anti-BJP narratives

OpIndia Staff
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Delhi Elections 2020: The BJP’s vote-share has increased and so has its number of seats, the results cannot be extrapolated to fit larger anti-BJP narratives

The Aam Aadmi Party has secured a massive victory for itself in the Delhi Assembly Elections. Arvind Kejriwal has succeeded in fending off a strident challenge from the BJP and he is set for a third term as the Chief Minister. However, things were not all bad for the BJP. It managed to increase its vote-share significantly and by the looks of it, it will certainly win more seats than it won the last time around.

Some intellectuals, however, have lost their sense of proportions and are attempting to portray a completely different picture from what the results actually represent. It needs to be mentioned here that the BJP has not formed the government in Delhi since 1998, which is more than 20 years. Therefore, any analysis of the results must be made on the backdrop of this information.

The Delhi results have certainly sparked a renewed hope among ‘intellectuals’ that AAP has emerged as an alternative pole in Indian politics and that they represent a form of politics that could potentially succeed at the national level.


If the results indeed reflect a defeat of the politics of ‘communal polarization’, then it begs the question as to how did the BJP’s vote-share increase so significantly from the last time around? An increase in the number of seats accompanied by a significant increase in vote-share cannot be interpreted as a rejection of a particular brand of politics.

Furthermore, it is not the case that the Aam Aadmi Party refrained from indulging in communal politics. Amanatullah Khan, the AAP candidate from Okhla, was spotted leading a riot against the Citizenship Amendment Act in the Delhi. Arvind Kejriwal was prancing around reciting the Hanuman Chalisa on national television to ensure that he did not lose too many Hindu votes. All of this does not indicate a defeat of the politics of ‘communal polarization’.

Some others believe that “a political campaign that focused on Governance issues trumped one that was divisive”. Even that isn’t entirely true as the BJP highlighted the failures of the Arvind Kejriwal government greatly but at the end of the day, it just wasn’t enough. It’s true that Shaheen Bagh affected the elections disproportionately and it is understandable why but it is just wrong to claim it was only one party that focused on Shaheen Bagh and the other on governance issues. That is simply not how election campaigns are run.


Others believe that the AAP’s victory suggests that running a ‘clean modern government’ works in winning elections. Well, the AAP’s governance wasn’t ‘clean’ by any measure. It was plagued by scams and malfeasance of one variety or the other but it hasn’t affected its electoral prospects all that much.


All in all, the BJP did suffer a defeat in the Delhi Assembly Elections, but not much can be made of the results. Polarization did occur but it wasn’t enough to win them the elections. It also seems that having a known Chief Ministerial candidate has worked in AAP’s favour and when combined with the welfare scheme promised and implemented by the incumbent Delhi government, it was enough for the AAP to register a thumping victory.

At the same time, the increase in BJP’s vote share and the total collapse of the Congress party in Delhi cannot be ignored. It is safe to say that had the Congress not collapsed to this extent, the BJP would have won a lot more seats than it has. The BJP hasn’t won Delhi in 20 years and another defeat in the Union Territory cannot be interpreted as some verdict on matters of ideology and larger narratives on how a government ought to be run. The defeat of BJP in Delhi in 2015 did not affect the larger national narrative in any manner and it is unlikely that it will after AAP’s victory in 2020 as well.

Matthew Cherry’s prophesy about winning Oscars came true 8 years later, through ‘Hair Love’

OpIndia Staff
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Matthew Cherry’s prophesy about winning Oscars came true 8 years later, through ‘Hair Love’

Former NFL pro and movie director Matthew Cherry saw his 8-years-old Oscar-winning prophesy coming true when he won an Academy Award this year for his movie ‘Hair Love’.

Cherry won his first Oscar on Sunday for the animated short film ‘Hair Love’, which narrates a story of a black father learning to style his daughter’s hair. Apparently, in 2016, Cherry predicted that he had an ‘Oscar-worthy’ idea, calling out 3D Artists on his Twitter timeline to get in touch with him.

“Nailed it”, Cherry tweeted after winning an Oscar award for a movie based on an idea that he had envisioned 4 years back in 2016.


In 2012, Matthew Cherry posted a tweet declaring that he would one day be nominated for the much-coveted Oscar awards.


Cherry, in his acceptance speech, stated that he had dreamt of creating an ode to black hair to increase their representation in animated films. He said that ‘Hair Love’ was done because he wanted to normalise black hair and see it get more representation.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNw8V_Fkw28]

The 6-minute short animated film depicts a beautiful story of familial love. A daughter struggles to set her hair because he mother, who usually did it, is in hospital, getting treatment for cancer. The father, though he initially struggles, finally learns to do his daughter’s hair just like his wife used to do, by learning from his wife’s tutorial videos.

Through his movie, Cherry brought to fore Crown Act, that seeks to proscribe discrimination based on hair colour and texture. Cherry brought along with him DeAndre Arnold, a teenager who was not permitted to attend graduation without cutting his dreadlocks, to the awards ceremony.

“There is a very important issue that’s out there. It’s the Crown Act and if we can help this get passed in all 50 states, it’ll help stories like DeAndre Arnold, who’s our special guest tonight, stop happening,” Cherry said.

The Metamorphosis of Arvind Kejriwal: From calling Narendra Modi a psychopath, he hasn’t attacked the PM once on Twitter since 2019 results

OpIndia Staff
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The Metamorphosis of Arvind Kejriwal: From calling Narendra Modi a psychopath, he hasn’t attacked the PM once on Twitter since 2019 results

Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal has undergone a huge transformation since he was elected as the Chief Minister of Delhi in 2016. His devotion towards RamBhakt Hanuman, which was apparent from his recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa on national television a few days prior to the 2020 Assembly Elections, is not the only change that has manifested in the politician. Since Narendra Modi’s reelection as Prime Minister, Arvind Kejriwal has not attempted to insult him even once through his account on Twitter.

In fact, the only time Arvind Kejriwal has mentioned Narendra Modi’s name on Twitter since the 23rd of May, 2019 apart from the congratulatory message was during the run-up to the Delhi elections when he hit out at Pakistani Minister Choudhary Fawad Hussain for his comments on the Prime Minister.


Such behaviour is a far cry from the time when Arvind Kejriwal had called Narendra Modi a coward and a psychopath on the social media platform in December 2015.

Kejriwal’s psychopath tweet

Even during the run-up to the Lok Sabha Elections when every regional leader aspired to sit on the Prime Minister’s chair, Arvind Kejriwal had launched vicious attacks on Narendra Modi. However, when all of it fell flat and Narendra Modi was re-elected to power with an even greater majority than in 2014, the AAP supremo made a calculated effort to disassociated himself anti-Modi rhetoric.

Arvind Kejriwal’s anti-Modi tweets

In effect, during the Delhi Assembly elections, Arvind Kejriwal did all that he could to avoid a direct confrontation with Narendra Modi because he realized it isn’t a battle he could win. After his suggestion that Pakistan and Imran Khan were helping Narendra Modi win the Lok Sabha Elections and that Narendra Modi represented Nathuram Godse’s ideology did not work and the Delhi electorate gifted Narendra Modi more than 55% of its votes, Arvind Kejriwal was smart enough to recognize that personal attacks against the Prime Minister was a losing strategy for Assembly Elections and immediately changed track.

Along with that, Arvind Kejriwal has refrained from attacking the BJP on national narratives and stuck to campaigning on entirely local issues. While the BJP campaigned on Shaheen Bagh and nationalism, Arvind Kejriwal refrained from associating himself with the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and allowed the BJP to win the battle on narrative uncontested. He did so because he was perfectly aware that he would lose spectacularly if he played the game on BJP’s points.

It is for this reason that even Radical Muslims are mighty upset with Arvind Kejriwal and feel betrayed for his lack of support towards the crowd at Shaheen Bagh and Jamia. He left it for Amanatullah Khan to ensure that the possibility of a vote split among the Muslim community between the AAP and Congress did not materialize while he went around chanting the Hanuman Chalisa and demonstrating his Hanuman Bhakti. The Radical Muslims were also angry when Arvind Kejriwal recited the Hanuman Chalisa on national television but he paid them no heed.

Arvind Kejriwal played the game smartly and the Delhi electorate has rewarded him with a massive victory in the Delhi elections. He has also cemented his places as the leader of a regional party along the lines of Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal and Akhilesh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh but within a much smaller territory which has significantly less autonomy.

Rajdeep Sardesai dances with psephologist Pradeep Gupta on air as AAP wins Delhi elections

OpIndia Staff
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Rajdeep Sardesai dances with psephologist Pradeep Gupta on air as AAP wins Delhi elections

With Delhi Assembly elections results coming in, it looks likely that Delhi has decided to give a clear mandate to Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party.

While the secular ‘camp’ has already started rejoicing, ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai looked particularly ecstatic as seen in the India Today studio, breaking into a jig with Axis MyIndia’s chief Pradeep Gupta, on the popular Bollywood track ‘Baadshah’. The duo was presumably celebrating getting the exit poll “bang on”.


The celebrity Television journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, who had once disabled his Twiter account alleging of becoming a victim of constant abuse on the microblogging site, was himself seen abusing a Twitter user for calling out his hypocrisy.

The Twitter user going by the Twitter handle @Ya_2317 had dared to point out how the members of this ‘secular’ camp who have been rejoicing AAP’s victory had blatantly called media outlets like Republic TV and Zee News Modi’s stooge during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This irked the ‘neutral journalist’, Rajdeep Sardesai who wrote: Don’t be a bloody idiot. We celebrated in the studio when we got Lok Sabha right too: @PradeepGuptaAMI even broke down in studio. We are celebrating our exit poll being bang on. Had we got it wrong, you folks would have crucified us. Now chill..


Pradeep Gupta’s India Today-Axis MyIndia exit polls had predicted a landslide victory for the AAP with 59-68 seats in the 70 member Delhi Assembly.

Moreover, exit polls conducted by Republic-Jan Ki Baat, Neta-NewsX, ABP News-C Voter and TV9 Bharatvarsh-CICERO had predicted AAP winning more than 50 seats in the 70-member assembly, down from existing 67 but still a huge victory. The polls by Sudarshan News and Times Now-IPSOS predicted numbers below 50 but above 40 for the Aam Aadmi Party. All the polls had predicted that BJP will increase tally from 3 to around 20.

According to the trends AAP has been leading from most of the Muslim dominated areas in Delhi. While, Amanatullah Khan, the most prominent Muslim leader from the Aam Aadmi Party, has won a resounding victory from his own seat at Okhla, in Seelampur, AAP candidate Abdul Rehman triumphed over BJP’s Kaushal Mishra. This shows that the Muslim vote has consolidated massively in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Maharashtra: Congress magazine ‘Shidori’ mocks Veer Savarkar, calls him ‘maafiveer’

OpIndia Staff
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Maharashtra: Congress magazine ‘Shidori’ mocks Veer Savarkar, calls him ‘maafiveer’

In the February edition of the Congress’ Marathi newspaper, Shidori, the party had published two articles belittling freedom fighter Veer Savarkar. One-piece was titled “Swatantryaveer Navhe, Mafiveer” (Not a freedom fighter but an apologist), while the other was named “Andharatil Savarkar” (The unknown aspects of Savarkar).

The first article relied upon another report published in the Marathi magazine, Samya Yoga Sadhana, which concluded that Veer Savarkar was not a freedom fighter but an apologiser. It was a dig at the mercy petition Veer Savarkar wrote to the British when he was lodged in cellular jail. The other article published in Congress magazine put out personal aspects of his life in the public domain that drew questions about the “character” of the freedom fighter.

As per reports, after the Maha Vikas Aghadi was formed, there was confusion within the party whether to carry articles targeting the freedom fighter. One of the Congress’ allies, Shiv Sena, has been a long advocate of awarding Savarkar, the Bharat Ratna (the highest civilian award). In the end, the articles were published by the magazine’s editor Ratnakar Mahajan after the intervention of the High Command.

Read: Here are the 5 most popular lies that leftists peddle against Veer Savarkar

Madhya Pradesh Congress Seva Dal released a book titled “Veer Savarkar Kitna Veer” (How brave was Savarkar?) where it was alleged that Veer Savarkar took money from the British, besides having physical relations with Nathuram Godse. The comments made in the book drew the ire of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi had attacked Savarkar in a rally and said that he was not going to apologise for speaking “truth” since his name wasn’t “Rahul Savarkar.” Ironically, former PM Indira Gandhi called Savarkar, the remarkable son of India.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut had then challenged the vocal opponents of the freedom fighter to spend two days in Andaman’s Cellular Jail to experience what Savarkar had gone through. On Monday, the BJP tried to corner Shiv Sena by putting forth a proposal in the Maharastra Assembly to acknowledge contributions of Veer Savarkar during the Independence struggle.

Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Delhi court sentences convicted NGO owner Brajesh Thakur, others to life imprisonment

OpIndia Staff
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Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Delhi court sentences convicted NGO owner Brajesh Thakur, others to life imprisonment

South Delhi’s Saket court sentenced NGO owner Brajesh Thakur, convicted in the Muzaffarpur sexual abuse case, to life imprisonment on Tuesday.


Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha sentenced Thakur to life imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life. Thakur was convicted of sexually and physically assaulting several minor girls at a shelter home in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.

Thakur has also been fined Rs 20 lakhs, other accused named Ravi Roshan, Vikas Kumar and Guddu have also been sentenced to life imprisonment and a monetary fine. 6 others have been sentenced to life too.

The same POCSO court had on January 20, 2020, convicted the former Bihar People’s Party (BPP) MLA Brajesh Thakur and 18 others of several offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault under section 6 of the POCSO Act, and offences of rape and gang rape under the Indian Penal code (IPC).

Other convicts in the case include Indu Kumari (Principal), Meenu Devi (house mother), Manju Devi (counsellor), Chanda Devi (house mother), Neha Kumari (nurse), Kiran Kumari (helper), Hema Masih (PO), Ravi Roshan (Child Protection Officer), Vikas Kumar (CWC), Roji Rani, Vijay Tiwari (Brijesh’ driver), Guddu Kumar (shelter home staff), Krishna Kumar (shelter home staff), Ramanuj Thakur (shelter home staff), Shajista Parveen (Brijesh’ associate), Ashwini Kumar (a doctor), Dilip Kumar (CWC chairman) and Ramashankar Singh.

Another accused Premila is still absconding. Shajista’s nephew Vikki alias Mohammad Sahil was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Brijesh Thakur was moved from Bihar’s Bhagalpur jail to Patiala high-security jail in Punjab following the Supreme court order on October 30, 2018. He was found violating jail norms in Bhagalpur.

The shocking incident of Muzaffarpur shelter home came to light in June 2018 when the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) submitted a report, based on conversations with several girls at the home.

The shelter home was housing the girls between the ages of 7 to 17 and many of the girls were suffering from speech-impairment. It was reported that they were given sedatives in the dinner and raped during the night and the inmates were brutally beaten regularly by the shelter home staff, including women and compelled the girls to have sex with the visitors.

Over 42 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at a shelter home named Balika Grih in Muzaffarpur, run by Brajesh Thakur, the chief of a state-funded NGO called Seva Sankalp Evam Vikash Samiti.

An FIR was lodged against 11 people, including Thakur, on May 31. The probe was later taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). It also later revealed that ex-minister Manju Verma’s husband had links with accused Brajesh Thakur.

As early trends started pouring in, Delhi BJP put up poster accepting defeat gracefully

OpIndia Staff
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As early trends started pouring in, Delhi BJP put up poster accepting defeat gracefully

After the earlier trends on Tuesday indicated a clean sweep in Delhi Election by Aam Aadmi Party, the BJP put up a poster outside Delhi’s BJP office with an undefined message outside the Delhi BJP office. Written in Hindi, the poster carried a message saying, “Victory doesn’t make us egoistic, and defeat doesn’t disappoint us”. As reported by Hindustan Times the text was posted along with the picture of union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Just after polling ended, most of the exit polls predicted a clean sweep by the Aam Aadmi Party. The BJP, however, had rejected the exit polls and said maintained that they were confident of forming a government in Delhi. However, the earlier trends on Tuesday indicated the exit polls predicted correctly.

The Aam Aadmi Party is leading on 62 seats and BJP on 8, while Congress has not even opened its account. The vote share percentage of the Aam Aadmi Party is 53.5% while BJP has got an impressive 39% vote percentage according to the election commission website.

The senior ministers and the heavyweights of BJP left no stone unturned to influence the voters mainly hailing from the middle class who are affected by roadblocks due to Mass protests in Shaheen Bagh.

The Aam Aadmi Party noted a massive win in 2015 Delhi Assembly Elections grabbing 67 seats out of 70 seats of the Delhi Assembly while BJP got 3 seats.

The polling for the Delhi Assembly Election 2020 was held on 8 February in all the 70 Delhi assemblies. The Aam Aadmi Party contested 70 seats while BJP on 67 leaving 2 seats for its ally Janata Dal-United and 1 for Lok Janshakti Party.

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