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Shabbir Gurfan from Surat arrested for sending obscene pic to Barkha Dutt, three others for sending obscene texts

OpIndia Staff
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Shabbir Gurfan from Surat arrested for sending obscene pic to Barkha Dutt, three others for sending obscene texts

Delhi Police has arrested a 45-year-old butcher Shabbir Gurfan Pinjari from Surat for sending an obscene picture to journalist Barkha Dutt in February. Pinjari is sent to 14-day judicial custody. Three others, 23-year-old Rajiv Sharma, 31-year-old Hemraj Kumar and 34-year-old Aditya Kumar have also been arrested for sending obscene text messages. The three are residents of Delhi.

The four accused said they got Barkha’s number on social networking site where it was being circulated claiming it was for ‘escort services’.

On February 18, Barkha on the receiving end of sexual harassment when she got an unsolicited d*ck pic on her WhatsApp from an unknown number. She took to Twitter to voice her complaint where she had blamed ‘nationalists’ for sending her the offensive picture.

Barkha Dutt received an unsolicited d*ck pic on WhatsApp

Following her tweet with the image, Twitter had blocked some of the features for her account, post which Barkha had complained to Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, though Jack did not respond. She had also claimed that she got many such obscene messages, which she did not put up in public domain.

An FIR was reportedly registered under IPC sections 354-D (stalking), 506 (threatening), 507 (criminal intimidation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy), and sections 67 and 67-A (publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act) of the IT Act.

Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose appointed as the first Lokpal of India

OpIndia Staff
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Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose appointed as the first Lokpal of India

Ending a long wait, India’s first Lokpal has been constituted consisting of a chairperson and eight members. The President of India has appointed former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose as Chairperson of Lokpal of the country. Justice Ghosh was selected by a committee comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Loksabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, and Mukul Rahtogi as eminent jurist. Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who is part of the committee, did not attend the meeting.

 

The Lokpal will be assisted by 4 judicial members and 4 non-judicial members. The judicial members are Justice Dilip B. Bhosale, Justice Pradip Kumar Mohanty, Justice Abhilkasha Kumari, Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathi, all of them are former chief justices of various high courts. While the non-judicial members are Dinesh Kumar Jain, Archana Ramasundaram, Mahender Singh and Indrajeet Prasad Gautam.

The Lokpal is an anti-corruption authority or ombudsman, having jurisdiction over all Members of Parliament and central government employees in cases of corruption. The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 was passed by the Parliament of India in 2013, after several amendments to the original draft prepared by the joint draft committee when the Lokpal movement led by Anna Hazare was at its peak.

Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose is a member of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) at present, who had retired from Supreme Court in May 2017.

West Bengal police shields wife of Mamata’s nephew as she is caught with 2 kg gold at Kolkata airport: report

OpIndia Staff
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West Bengal police shields wife of Mamata’s nephew as she is caught with 2 kg gold at Kolkata airport: report

Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Airport was abuzz with hearsay on Saturday, March 16 that Rujira Banerjee, the wife of the second-in-command of TMC and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee was caught with 2 kgs of gold, reports MyNation.

As per the report, the lady flew in on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok and while passing through normal screening, was found carrying two kilos of gold.

When customs officials questioned her about the gold, which was approximately valued at Rs 68 lakh, she reportedly called up her husband Abhishek Banerjee, who is Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour. Soon, several senior Kolkata Police officers reached the airport and tried to allegedly whisk her away.

This resulted in a run-in between the local police and the customs officials, however, ultimately the matter got resolved, said the report. It is still uncertain whether the gold was seized by the customs or whether a case was registered against Abhishek Banerjee’ wife.

This news has led to a political storm where political parties are questioning the West Bengal Government. BJP leaders have called for a detailed inquiry.

Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta attached a photograph of a news item that appeared in a local Hindi newspaper on Sunday on his twitter handle and asked for an inquiry.

Similarly, Babul Supriyo also tweeted about it and dropping obvious hints as to who was the accused, assured his followers that he is acquiring details of the incident.


Meanwhile, State BJP Mahila Morcha chief, Locket Chatterjee also took to Twitter to post a link of the news report and demanded a statement from Abhishek Banerjee.


As reported by Republic TV, a complaint has now been filed against Abhishek Banerjee. The report says:

Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee has been named in Kolkata airport 2kg gold seizure complaint after a standoff customs department versus the city police. “The complaint details Kolkata police’s alleged intervention in the matter adding that it had warned the customs officials that they should “release immediately (Banerjee’s wife) or face problems”. The complaint also said that two women passengers, one of whom is Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira Naroola, after being asked to show their passports and eventually their luggage, resisted following the instructions from the officials. The complaint also says the women passengers abused female officials who had come to check their bags”. 

The TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, who was targeted by the CPI(M) and BJP for his burgeoning assets (Rs 1.52 crore in 2014) and controversial bank transactions but was shielded by the party, rose from the oblivion in less than five years and secured the ‘number two’ position in the Trinamool Congress.

Note: After this story was published, we got contacted by the representatives of Abhishek Banerjee was his wife. The representatives have denied that any such incident took place. They have asserted that the wife of Banerjee was not carrying any gold at all. She was travelling with her sister who was required to identify the belongings in her bag which was duly identified and found to be not violating any statutory limits. They have also denied that any kind of political influence was used. 

As Congress appears lazy about its election strategy, journalists get restless with polling dates approaching

OpIndia Staff
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As Congress appears lazy about its election strategy, journalists get restless with polling dates approaching

It is election season and in a beautiful display of vibrant democracy, everyone seems to be talking only about it. Supporters of politicians and political parties have taken to social media to voluntarily campaign for the ones they support. From sending messages on WhatsApp to changing display image and name of WhatsApp groups, the election mood has firmly set in.

All, except Congress. Which seems clueless as even their lone campaign, ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ seems to have backfired as BJP and its supporters hijacked that ‘insult’ into a badge of pride. Congress’ secret weapon, Priyanka Gandhi makes Rahul Gandhi appear well clued in on what is happening in the world. For example this ‘atak gayi’ video.


It can be seen in the above video, Priyanka, during her monologue forgets what she was saying and admits how she got ‘stuck’.

Amidst all this, some people on Twitter pointed out how Congress-friendly journalists seem to have taken upon themselves to help Congress form their election strategies. Almost on cue, everyone woke up to realise that Congress does not seem to have any plan for Bihar, the state which has 40 Lok Sabha constituencies.


But if you try and understand the nuances, it seems like they are building ground for alliances in states where Congress has been reduced to such a non-entity that they are fighting for survival.

There have been feelers sent out how Congress leaders are ‘upset’ that the party leadership has failed to forge alliances. This time to Bihar UPA ally, RJD.


More ‘neutral journalists’ joined in, with more ‘analysis’.


See how Bihar makes an appearance again?


And so does Delhi. We had earlier reported that how after weeks of deliberations, snubbing and begging, Aam Aadmi Party and Congress may finally get into an alliance for 2019 general elections even though it is highly unlikely they will be allies for 2020 state assembly elections.

Has everyone really just woken up or is this a well-coordinated attempt to set a stage for alliances coming together? That when Congress does finally join hands with Aam Aadmi Party, it does not appear like a desperate attempt, but just a well planned out strategy? Such seemingly coordinated tweets coming from ‘friendly’ media persons in an attempt to set a narrative or ground is not something new.

This is not the first time the friendly media has come to Congress’ rescue. After winning Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh elections, when Congress President Rahul Gandhi could not zero in on the Chief Minister’s name due to various contenders, the media personalities came to Rahul Gandhi’s rescue by saying how a few days’ delay is no big deal because BJP took over a week to name Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.


A half an hour later, The Wire journalist Rohini had a similar tweet.


Some journalists, as we know, have been known for trying to push a narrative through their tweets and articles for quite some time now.


We all know how that turned out. Some people hopped on from one propaganda to another, but modus operandi remained the same. A well-coordinated attempt to set base for when Congress and Rahul Gandhi finally says or does something, it doesn’t really appear outlandish.

And as you could see, it is not just a one-off incident. There are many, many such well-coordinated tweets which make one question the integrity and independence of the PR-machinery masquerading as ‘journalists’.

Prakash Ambedkar reminds how Sharad Pawar failed to get Dawood Ibrahim surrender

OpIndia Staff
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Prakash Ambedkar reminds how Sharad Pawar failed to get Dawood Ibrahim surrender

As the campaigning for Lok Sabha election gains momentum, politicians have been making allegations against each other at an increased rate. Joining this, Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar has said that NCP leader Sharad Pawar had rejected an offer from Dawood Ibrahim for surrender. He said that Dawood Ibrahim was ready to surrender to India, but Sharad Pawar had ignored this proposal.

According to Prakash Ambedkar, Dawood Ibrahim had met Ram Jethmalani in London, and had proposed to surrender. Dawood was ready to participate in the judicial process and was even ready to go to jail, with only one condition that third-degree torture should not be used on him, Ambedkar said. This proposal was forwarded to NCP chief Sharaf Pawar, but he didn’t act on it. He said that now demands of bringing back Dawood Ibrahim has been made but Sharad Pawar has already lost the opportunity.

Prakash Ambedkar is not the first person to make this allegation, this claim keeps coming into public domain from time to time. Ram Jethmalani himself had revealed that indeed Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel had offered to surrender, but it was rejected by both Maharashtra CM Sharad Pawar and UPA government in centre at that time. He had said that Dawood’s only condition for surrender was that he should be kept in house arrest instead of jail, and an assurance that he wouldn’t be subjected to third-degree torture by police.

In fact, Sharad Pawar also did not deny the claim, and had confirmed that Ram Jethmalani had indeed approached him with the proposal for surrender from the underworld don and the prime accused in the Mumbai bomb blast case. But the proposal was rejected because the conditions were not acceptable to the state government. Sharad Pawar had said that the condition that Dawood should be kept in house arrest instead of jail was not acceptable for the Maharashtra government.

After the Pulwama attack, the demand from taking action against Pakistan based terrorists is at peak. In such a scenario, Prakash Ambedkar reminding people that Sharad Pawar missed an opportunity to get Dawood Ibrahim back can be seen as a clever political strategy. Prakash Ambedkar had earlier rejected the offer to join the mahagathbandhan led by the Congress party, and has joined hands with Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM for the Lok Sabha elections. They have formed a platform called Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, and Ambedkar has already released a list of 37 candidates for Maharashtra.

Another shocking comment by Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, says BJP was waiting for Parrikar to breathe his last

OpIndia Staff
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Another shocking comment by Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, says BJP was waiting for Parrikar to breathe his last

Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, who is known for his controversial remarks, has issued an insensitive statement regarding the recent demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parikkar and swearing-in of new CM Pramod Sawant. Politicising the death of the leader, Nirupam questioned the timing of swearing of new CM at 2 am on Tuesday and added that he thinks BJP was waiting for Parikkar to breathe his last.


“In Goa, the new CM took oath at 1:30, during night time. It seems that BJP was waiting for Parikkar to breathe his last. At least, they should have waited ’till immersion of his ashes” Nirupam tweeted. However, what Nirupam is missing to add in his tweet is the fact that it was desperate Goa Pradesh Congress Committee which wrote to the Governor staking claim to form the government, hours after the demise of CM.

The Goa Congress Pradesh Committee in their letter to the Governor first wrote about how deeply they mourn the demise of CM Manohar Parrikar and then say that this ‘development’ calls for the immediate and smooth transfer of power to Congress. They had gone on to write that the coalition partners of the Parrikar led government had allied with the BJP on the condition that the government would be led by Manohar Parrikar and with his death, BJP has no allies.

The new CM of Goa had to take charge so soon because of constitutional reasons, because a state must have CM all the time. When a CM resigns or dies, the government falls, and the appointment of a new government becomes a priority as per law, unless president’s rule is imposed. In case of resignation, the incumbent CM can function as care-taker CM, but that provision is not applicable in case of death.

This is not a new practice, this has followed since independence whenever a CM or PM dies while in office. Gulzarilal Nanda had taken charge as PM immediately after deaths of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shashtri, because India must have a PM at any point of time. The same practice was repeated after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, who was killed on the morning of 31st October 1984. Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of India at the evening on the same day, who had rushed to Delhi from Calcutta after getting the news. Therefore, Pramod Sawant taking charge as CM of Goa one day after the death of Manohar Parrikar is as per established conventions and constitutional requirements, and there is nothing unusual about it.

Sanjay Nirupam is a habitual offender when it comes to issuing controversial remarks.

Recently in his tirade against PM Modi, he had said: “Narendra Modi, since the day he rose to power, has been blaming Congress party for every wrong thing that is happening in the country and in future PM Narendra Modi may say that Congress is the reason for his birth”. He had also added that country will “politically” hang PM Modi in 2019 elections for the hardships they had to face during demonetisation.

Sanjay Nirupam, in past, has also used crass language. He had even called PM Modi as ‘illiterate and uncouth’. Sanjay Nirupam’s offensive tirade is not limited to PM Modi, as earlier he had tweeted a sexist tweet on Smriti Irani after the fake news circular was withdrawn. Recently, after the Karnataka elections concluded, he had used vile and derogatory language for the Karnataka governor also.

Manifesto burning: BJP files complaint against AAP for violating model code of conduct

OpIndia Staff
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Manifesto burning: BJP files complaint against AAP for violating model code of conduct

The BJP Delhi unit has approached the Election Commission Tuesday and sought action against the Aam Aadmi Party alleging violation the Model Code of Conduct as they tried and incited violence by burning the copies of BJP’s 2014 manifesto with pictures of their leaders.


In its complaint, the BJP alleged that AAP was “indulging in violent acts” and violating the model code of conduct. They claimed that the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal along with his other party members namely, Manish Sisodia, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Kailash Gahlot and Pankaj Gupta have burnt the BJP’s manifesto on March 13.

In the letter written to the EC by SN Verma, co-convener of the legal department of BJP Delhi Pradesh, he requested that orders should be issued to leaders and workers of AAP to “cease and desist from such violent acts”.

The letter read, ” The AAP leaders are violating MCC by either not seeking permission for such events from Election Commission or they have sought permission for election meetings from EC and misused such permission to violate MCC by burning BJP’s manifesto”.

Meanwhile, with the Lok Sabha elections fast approaching, the AAP’s theatrics has just speeded up. On January 22, 2019, the BJP Delhi unit filed a criminal defamation case against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP members for allegations levelled by Kejriwal against the BJP of deliberately deleting names of lakhs of voters from the electoral roll in Delhi.

Terming the allegations as ‘unfortunate and false’, the BJP had stated that adding or removing voters from the electoral roll is the responsibility of the Election Commission and not of any political party.

The BJP had also knocked the doors of the Election Commission demanding de-recognition of AAP as a registered political party from the Election Commission.

As reported earlier, the AAP call center, allegedly, had been making phone calls to people in Delhi and telling them that BJP has deleted their names from the voter list, and Arvind Kejriwal was restoring their names. Several people have reported receiving such calls, and some of them posted recordings of the calls on social media also.

After people raised objections on the misleading calls they received, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi had requested the Delhi police to investigate the phone calls that many people in Delhi have been receiving telling that their name has been struck off from the voter list.

However, this is not the first time the AAP is accused of violation of electoral norms. He had been called out by the BJP during Goa assembly elections in 2017 as well, when he had, during a series of rallies in Goa on January 7-8, asked voters to “accept money from the Congress and BJP candidates but vote for the AAP”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had then filed two complaints against the AAP supremo, seeking his prosecution under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for asking voters to accept money. The Congress too had condemned the Delhi chief minister’s statement.

The poll panel had, thereafter, directed that a complaint is lodged against Arvind Kejriwal under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act dealing with bribing voters and the relevant sections of the IPC.

The AAP-Congress conundrum: What it means for the parties in Delhi

K Bhattacharjee
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The AAP-Congress conundrum: What it means for the parties in Delhi

The Aam Aadmi Party, for a while now, has been begging the Congress for an alliance. Congress, on the other hand, has been jittery about the entire prospect. Senior leaders in Delhi Congress, like former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, have clearly voiced their concerns against the proposed alliance.

However, there appears to be a significant section of other voices within the party who are pursuing it with the top leadership of the Congress actively.


For the Congress party, in the long run, the alliance would prove to be disastrous although, in the short term, the alliance is likely to accrue some benefits. That the Congress party is even considering the alliance, which would further constrict their national presence, is another evidence of the party’s terminal decline.

As we have said before, regional parties are actively trying to undermine Congress’ national presence. Only recently, Kumaraswamy had said that a senior leader from the JD(S) had joined the BSP with his consent so that the latter could win more seats in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP is not in alliance with the Congress party and SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh have marginalized the Congress in a state which for a long time was a Congress bastion.

The conditions of the alliance between the AAP and Congress aren’t very clear yet and perhaps, will not be until the matter is formalized. The alliance could be limited to Delhi but Kejriwal is known to be cunning and will push for an alliance in Haryana and Punjab as well where the AAP could only gain from the alliance should it happen. For the purpose of simplicity, we would focus on Delhi only in this analysis.

What Could Go Wrong for the Alliance

Quite obviously, the formation of an alliance would lead to the consolidation of anti-BJP votes. Assuming that vote transfer for the candidates would work smoothly, the alliance might even exceed expectations and secure 5 or 6 seats in Delhi. However, there are several contradictions within the alliance itself.

Firstly, the Aam Aadmi Party is a product of the dark days of Corruption under the UPA regime. Therefore, their supporters may not be as excited about the prospect of an alliance with the Congress as their leaders appear to be. While Congress supporters are unlikely to care either way and will likely vote for the alliance without any hesitation, the same can’t be said about AAP supporters. The extent to which the people of Delhi feel betrayed by AAP’s abandonment of all founding principles and allying with the Congress will determine the success of the alliance.

Secondly, the Congress party is clearly a house divided on the issue. An alliance with the AAP will mean that certain Congress leaders will not receive the Lok Sabha ticket which they otherwise could have. Moreover, Sheila Dikshit, one of the most prominent faces of the Congress in Delhi, is clearly not buying whatever AAP is selling. Therefore, there is a very real chance that the Congress will suffer a rebellion if the alliance does go through. And the rebellion could seriously hurt the alliance’s electoral prospects.

Future of the Alliance

In many ways, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are natural allies in the same manner as Shiv Sena and the BJP are natural allies. While the latter pair are united by a single core ideology, Hindutva, the former pair are united by the utter lack of one and solely the pursuit of power. The AAP harboured great national ambitions before it got restricted to Delhi. Ideologically, there is no difference between Congress and AAP. The AAP represents the same brand of minority appeasement and anti-Hindu politics that passes off as secularism in liberal circles. Therefore, an alliance is extremely natural.

That being said, if there’s an alliance between the two parties for the 2020 Assembly Elections, the Congress will definitely increase its tally which isn’t saying much as they don’t have any representatives in the Assembly to begin with. However, chances are extremely high that there will be a rebellion, within the Congress at least, if such an alliance does materialize as Kejriwal is extremely unlikely to relinquish the Chief Minister’s chair.

The overall picture appears to suggest that Congress is likely to suffer in the long run while the AAP is almost certain to gain. But what happens afterwards depends on the results of the 2019 General Elections itself. If the alliance is successful, then the Congress may be very much eager to tie up with AAP for the Assembly elections as well.

The biggest takeaway, however, is the fact that a party that dominated Delhi for such a long time may be restricted to becoming the junior partner in an alliance with a party that was formed to resist them. If that is not indication enough of a party in a state of terminal decline, then nothing else is.

Fact Check: Did 350 people convert to Islam in New Zealand after the Christchurch Mosque attack?

OpIndia Staff
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Fact Check: Did 350 people convert to Islam in New Zealand after the Christchurch Mosque attack?

After the horrific terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand which had left 50 people dead and almost equal number of people injured, one news has become viral on social media in last couple of days. Many people are sharing one news which says that 50 Muslims were killed in New Zealand, and 350 people converted to Islam.

Former MP and journalist Shahid Siddiqui also shared the news, quoting a tweet which contained what looked like an image of a news report on the same.


A video is also being spread on Social Media, which shows few persons accepting Islam in a public event. This video is claimed to be from New Zealand where 350 people converted to Islam after the Christchurch attacks. Several users have published this same video on Youtube making the same claim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6soqIEILsiA

This news is being spread on Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp by many people, so we decided to do a fact check on this news to check the veracity of the claim. First, we did an online search using the words used contained in the purported news report, but we were unable to find any news media or even a credible social media user from New Zealand sharing this news.

Although we found that two websites had reported the news, and both happen to be from India. Naqeeb News and Kashmir Glacier have published the report, although the latter has deleted the report now.

Screenshot of the news item on Naqeeb News

Moreover, the report only says 350 people accepted Islam, it does not give any more detail on the same, like the location where it happened and who organised it, which is unlikely for a media report. It also doesn’t include any detail about the people accepting Islam. Most people who shared the news are from India and Pakistan, which points towards the possibility that the news originated in the sub-continent and not in New Zealand.

Now coming to the video, in our web search, we have that to be an old video which has been used to make the claim about New Zealand. The following video was posted on Youtube 12 years ago in August 2007, which shows 5 Germans converting to Islam. Now that same video has been used to make the claim about 350 people in New Zealand accepting Islam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVAtyMR3TOg

A screenshot of the video has been given below as the video may show an error message of ‘not available’ for some users.

Therefore, the claim that 350 New Zealanders converted to Islam after 50 Muslims were killed by a terrorist is fake and no such incident has happened.

Chandrababu Naidu’s rant: Calls Prashant Kishore a “Bihari dacoit”, accuses Jagan and KCR of targeting TDP men

OpIndia Staff
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Chandrababu Naidu’s rant: Calls Prashant Kishore a “Bihari dacoit”, accuses Jagan and KCR of targeting TDP men

While addressing a rally in Ongole on Monday, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) head, Chandrababu Naidu, displayed his insensitivity towards Bihari’s by taking a jibe at Janata Dal (United) leader Prashant Kishor calling him a “Bihari dacoit”.


He also accused Telangana CM and TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) chief, K Chandrashekar Rao of ‘grabbing TDP & Congress MLAs’.

Chandrababu Naidu said that KCR is indulging into criminal politics wherein he is targeting the TDP and Congress MLAs to join the TRS party. Later targeting JD(U) national vice president Prashant Kishor, accusing him of removing names of over seven lakh voters in Andhra Pradesh, he called him a ‘Bihari dacoit’.

It is notable here that in Andra Pradesh, Prashant Kishore’s Indian Political Action Committee is helping YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy for his election campaign.

Meanwhile, JD(U) national vice president, Prashant Kishor, took to Twitter to give a snappy comeback to the AP CM for showcasing his prejudice against Bihari’s. He taunted Naidu by saying, “An imminent defeat can rattle even the most seasoned politicians. So I’m not surprised with the baseless utterances of N Chandrababu Naidu”.


Meanwhile, unleashing his animosity, Naidu had earlier claimed that the Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSRCP is doing injustice to the state with its deceitful politics and has stolen the data of TDP workers. Advancing his attack on YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) Chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy, Naidu had recently alleged that the YSRCP chief is ‘politicising’ the murder of his own uncle, YS Vivekananda Reddy.

Andhra Pradesh CM, Chandrababu Naidu, has also in the past targetted PM Modi with personal demeaning remarks and by displaying derogatory posters mocking the Prime Minister’s humble familial backgrounds in his Delhi’s protest which had faced severe condemnation.

Similarly, ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit to Guntur, Andhra Pradesh on February 10, Naidu had called the Prime Minister’s visit a ‘dark day’ and asked party workers to hold protests during the visit to the state.

Following Naidu’s statements, many anti-Modi posters had emerged across Andhra Pradesh ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state. Some of the posters had slogans of  ‘No More Modi’ ‘Modi Is A Mistake’, ‘Modi Never Again’, among others. Another image portrayed Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu with an arrow ready to shoot toward PM Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and other BJP leaders.

Following this offensive conduct, BJP President, Amit Shah had, on February 12, in a harsh open letter come down heavily on Naidu for not just making personal remarks against the PM but also lacking the courtesy to receive the PM when he visited Andhra Pradesh.

Shah accused Naidu of betraying the people of Andhra Pradesh by supporting Congress, the very same party against which his father-in-law N T Rama Rao had founded the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and furthered that, “His actions smack of political opportunism.”

Shah said that Naidu, who has duped the people of his state by joining hands with the Congress, does not have the moral right to criticise the Central government.

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