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Tughlaq Road Chunavi Ghotala: PM Modi said Congress is looting the money designated for pregnant women

OpIndia Staff
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Tughlaq Road Chunavi Ghotala: PM Modi said Congress is looting the money designated for pregnant women

A day before India goes to vote in the 2019 general elections, Prime Minister Modi in a frontal attack on Congress upped his ante and said that a new name has been added to the list of corruption by Congress, “Tughlaq Road Chunavi Ghotala”.


Prime Minister Modi was referring to the “Tughlaq Road” address of a senior functionary of a political party from whose residence money was transferred to the party headquarters through hawala route.

Addressing a rally in Junagarh, Gujarat, Prime Minister Modi said that Congress has snatched away food from poor and children and filled the stomach of their own leaders. “Congress is looting the money designated for pregnant women,” PM Modi said.

PM Modi was referring to the logs that were recovered from the mobile phone of Lalit Kumar, accountant of Rajendra Miglani, who is a close aide of Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath in the ongoing income tax raids. The logs show amounts allocated to various schemes were siphoned to be sent to the party fund. Apart from collecting money from PWD, Excise, transport etc departments, they also collected money for a scheme meant for the nutrition of infants and pregnant women. On the dispatch part, the note mentions entries like Cheque PCC, Cash PCC, Delhi AICC, Election Bond AICC, Cheque AICC, MLAs etc heads to where money was sent, with amounts in lakhs against them.

PM Modi further said, “In last 3-4 days you would have seen sacks full of cash of Congress leaders being found. It has not even been six months of Congress government in Madhya Pradesh.” He added that after turning Karnataka into its ATM, Congress has turned Madhya Pradesh into one. “Fate of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh won’t be any different,” he said. Congress only comes to power to loot the nation, he said.

“All day Congress runs the same tape, “Modi Hatao, Modi hatao”. This is the same Congress which was nurtured by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,” PM Modi said in Gujarat. “Can people of Junagarh and Somnath forget Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel? If Sardar weren’t there, imagine where Junagarh would have been,” he added. Junagarh and Bhopal, two princely states, which initially wanted to be part of Pakistan, had succumbed to Sardar Patel’s diplomacy and agreed to become part of India. The majority population in Junagarh wanted to be part of India, while the ruler wanted to join Pakistan. India sent its army and surrounded Junagarh. The ruler panicked and left India in a jiffy.

The first phase of voting will start tomorrow. Gujarat goes to vote for all 26 Lok Sabha constituencies on April 23 in single phase. BJP President Amit Shah will be contesting from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency.

Is Imran Khan the undeclared Mahagathbandhan ally for Congress? His statements are proof

Jinit Jain
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Is Imran Khan the undeclared Mahagathbandhan ally for Congress? His statements are proof

As the first phase of the Lok Sabha 2019 election is just a couple of days away, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has upped the ante in an attempt to influence the voters’ decision in the upcoming polls. Recently, Imran Khan tweeted that the Indian government shows a ‘Moral Bankruptcy’ and it defies the International laws, UNSC regulations to continue winning elections.


Firstly, it is downright hilarious that a Pakistani, least of all, is passing sermonising homilies to the leaders of India and Israel beseeching them to comply with the International rules and UNSC resolutions. Imran would do well to realise that those who live in glass houses (read shanties for Pakistan) should not throw stones at others.

Pakistan has been nurturing and sheltering terrorists since time immemorial and actively using them as a state instrument to implement its ‘thousand cuts’ policy to bleed India. UN-designated terrorists such as Hafeez Saeed freely operate in Pakistan, giving speeches at will and contesting elections. JeM founder Masood Azhar is executing his nefarious designs from within the safe custody provided by the Pakistan Army.

Evidence handed over to Pakistan by India conclusively corroborates Pakistan based Jaish-e-Muhammad’s role in the terror attack in Pulwama in which 40 CRPF personnel lost their lives. Pakistan has also been grey-listed and is on the verge of being black-listed in the FATF list of countries for not doing enough to curb terrorism emanating from its land. Hence, it is rather amusing that a country like Pakistan which routinely flouts International rules and regulations is displaying such inordinate care for India to uphold the rules.

Perhaps, it’s germane to invoke a recent interview of Imran Khan to the Financial Times. In an interview to the FT, Imran Khan refused to comment on the plight of fellow Uighur Muslims living in Xinjiang province of China, claiming that he is unaware of them. The atrocities meted out to them is documented but Pakistan PM Imran Khan believes he will get away with it by feigning ignorance.

In fact, it is ironical when an ignoramus like him, who couldn’t uphold his country’s founding principle of extending solidarity for Muslims across the world, is issuing ‘morality’ certificates to others. Pakistan has been disregarding and conjuring up morals as per its whims and fancies to suit its conveniences. So, it doesn’t befit a Prime Minister of a nation that champions ‘Immoral Depravity’ to pass moralising sermons to others.

A few days back, Imran Khan quoted a spurious report refuting India’s allegations of downing a Pakistani falcon (F-16) and blamed BJP of whipping up war hysteria to win the elections. Even after denial by the US defence department of any exercise done to ascertain the number of F-16s with Pakistan, Imran Khan used the misleading report to cast aspersions on the Modi government.

Even while lying about the F-16 count based on an already debunked report on a news portal, Imran Khan had brought up the Indian elections, making evident just how much Pakistan fears the second term of PM Modi.


However, the Indian government, as well as the Indian Armed Forces, have maintained that they have in their possession incriminating evidence establishing the use of F-16s in their planned attack targeting Indian military assets in Jammu and Kashmir following India’s precise airstrikes in Balakot killing hundreds of terrorists holed up in a JeM terror camp.

Recently, the elaborate press conference by IAF hit the last nail in the coffin, debunking the lies peddled by Pakistan regarding the use of F-16s in their operation against India. However, what is more, unsettling is the concerted attempt by Imran Khan to intrude into India’s political space and attempting to affect the outcome of the polls in India.

A weak BJP government at the centre or perhaps a non-BJP government with a friendly disposition towards Pakistan augurs well for it which is currently reeling under tremendous pressure from several international entities and countries due to Modi government’s adroit diplomatic manoeuvres.

Under the previous UPA governments, Pakistan had been able to continue its agenda of creating chaos in India through terrorist attacks, encouraging separatists and international lobbying without the fear of strong retribution. Perhaps that is the reason the Pakistani leadership is growing so restless about the Indian elections, they would love to go back to an era where they could wound the Indian pride, kill Indian citizens and soldiers and hope to go unpunished.

Pakistan and its ISI backed stooges have in the run-up to 2019 elections openly and unabashedly supported the Congress party. Interestingly, in the aftermath of the Balakot airstrikes against terror camps in Pakistan, Pakistani government representatives and media have frequently used the lines of argument used by Congress leaders in their desperate attempts to malign India.

Many of Congress’ leaders have tried to peddle conspiracy theories about the Pulawama attack and ask the proof of the Balakot airstrikes, exactly what Pakistan has been doing. This, combined with continuous narrative peddling of ‘bilateral talks’, peace, cooperation and virtue signalling about the Indian government’s stand on Kashmir, worked really well to blur the lines between the Indian opposition and Pakistan. A statement issued by joint opposition parties in Indian under Rahul Gandhi was used by Pakistan’s official channels to malign the government of India.


Khan fears that Modi’s re-election will be detrimental to the fortunes of Pakistan which are in the verge of a severe economic crisis and somehow trying to pull itself out of the abyss. Khan knows that with Modi at the helm in India, the morale of the Indian Armed Forces will always be high and they will be given complete autonomy to thwart the misadventures plotted by Pakistani sponsored terrorists and cause irreparable damages in retaliation. An empowered India under a strong Modi government will continue its policy of marginalising and isolating Pakistan. It is this fear of Modi that is compelling Imran Khan to denounce BJP and meddle in the Indian elections.

However, Pakistan, desperate as it is to salvage its rapidly sinking international support and have some say left in the geopolitical arena of the Indian subcontinent, perhaps have realised that in their attempt to vilify PM Modi and BJP for taking a strong stand against them, they are actually damaging the Congress’ chances, however feeble, of winning in the elections. The similarity between the statements made by Congress and Pakistan against the Modi government is by now evident to every average Indian. Perhaps, that is why, within hours of bitching about PM Modi and BJP, Imran Khan has suddenly come up with a statement that he hopes bilateral ties will improve with a BJP government in India for the second time.


It is almost hilarious that the above statement by Pakistan has come barely 24 hours after they ran media reports vilifying BJP’s election manifesto and hailing Rahul Gandhi’s political rants.


Seeing their flip-flops, one can almost begin thinking whether Pakistan is playing the role of an undeclared Mahagathbandhan ally for Congress. When they realised that their continuous barbs against PM Modi might actually benefit him in elections because it is almost synchronous with the opposition’s lines, they have switched strategies.

PM Modi’s 5 years in office have been devastating for Pakistan. The old India that just kept quiet after repeated terror attacks and open support to separatist elements, was awakened from its slumber and has hit Pakistan back hard every time, with surgical strikes, international isolation, suspension of bilateral talks, counterstrikes at LoC and Balakot air strikes. Pakistan’s bluff of ‘gun to the head’ diplomacy has been punctured and shredded to pieces by the Modi government. Like a sinking man clutching at straws, Imran Khan, the puppet of the Pakistani army, is now probably hoping for some miracle in the Indian elections, that would bring him some breathing air.

‘There is no danger except that you are convicted’: Supreme Court rejects Lalu Prasad Yadav’s bail plea in multi-crore fodder scam

OpIndia Staff
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‘There is no danger except that you are convicted’: Supreme Court rejects Lalu Prasad Yadav’s bail plea in multi-crore fodder scam

The Supreme Court has dismissed RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav’s bail plea in three cases of the Fodder Scam. The convict was represented in the Court by senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal.


Convict Lalu told the Court that he could be released as he posed no threat. Sibal said, “If I am released on bail, I won’t run away. My appeal is not being heard. What is the danger if I am released on bail?” CJI Ranjan Gogoi, to this plea, retorted, “There is no danger except that you are convicted”.


The CBI, in an affidavit, had opposed Lalu’s bail plea. The agency has stated that the convict could seek bail on medical grounds but use it for political purposes. It stated further that Lalu had been conducting political activities from the hospital ward where he has been for the past 8 months.

“During the period in which the petitioner (Lalu Yadav) remained in hospital, he is not only granted a special paying ward with all facilities but he is virtually conducting his political activities from there which would be clear from the list of visitors,” the CBI said.

Lalu Prasad Yadav was found guilty in multiple cases pertaining to the Fodder Scam last year. Apart from the Fodder scam, Lalu and his son Tejashwi are accused in the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) scam as well.

SC to allow the admissibility of three ‘stolen’ documents of Rafale deal as evidence in examining review petitions

OpIndia Staff
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SC to allow the admissibility of three ‘stolen’ documents of Rafale deal as evidence in examining review petitions

A three-judge bench comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S K Kaul & K M Joseph on Tuesday dismissed the preliminary objection raised by the Centre with regard to the admissibility of the secret documents annexed to review petitions, reports ANI.

According to the reports, Supreme Court has now allowed the admissibility of three documents in Rafale deal as evidence in re-examining the review petitions filed against the earlier Supreme Court judgment of December 14th refusing to order probe in procuring 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.

The Supreme Court will schedule another date for the hearing of review petitions. The Supreme Court was hearing five Rafale review petitions, mainly on the issues of the admissibility of “stolen” Rafale documents as evidence and the claim of privilege raised on them by the government.

The Union government represented by Attorney-General KK Venugopal had argued that the review petition should be dismissed at the preliminary stage itself because they were based on “stolen” documents published in newspapers like The Hindu.

In December, the Supreme Court, dismissing the case, had clarified that the examination has been primarily from the point of the exercise of jurisdiction by this court under Article 32. The SC did not find it as a case for the court to scrutinise the process of acquisition.

Canadian Islamic Centre spokesperson refers to Hindu Gods Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu as ‘rapists’

Tarek Fatah
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Canadian Islamic Centre spokesperson refers to Hindu Gods Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu as ‘rapists’

While legislators in Canada were bending over backwards last week, flaunting their ‘anti-Islamophobia’ credentials, an Islamic Centre in Toronto was facing accusations of ‘Hinduphobia’ from the largely apolitical community of Hindu Canadians.

Their angst was directed at the Noor Cultural Centre that was hosting an event titled “Dalit and Muslim persecution in India” barely days before the world’s largest democracy went to the polls to pass verdict on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Had the discussion featured speakers from both sides of the Indian political divide, allegations of ‘Hinduphobia’ or anti-India hate would have had no foundations. However, both speakers invited had made no secret of their hostility towards the Indian prime minister.

The controversy further escalated when a stack of emails was leaked to the Hindu community that contained emails sent by Noor Centre’s Khadija Kanji to Toronto’s Inter-Faith Council.

In the email, while discussing the Nigerian Boko Haram’s practice of kidnapping and raping girls, Kanji appears to defend the Islamic attack on India by the Arab invader Mohammad Bin Qasim who raped Hindu women and sold thousands of them as slaves in Arabia, claiming it “was in line with standard practice of the time.” 

To make her argument, Kanji wrote:

“Many towering figures in civilizational lore have engaged in brutal gendered violence – from the [Hindu] gods Brahma, Siva and Vishnu (who raped Anasuya) to Richard the Lionheart to Christopher Columbus, among many others.”

I asked Ms Kanji if she had used such hateful language. She admitted but claimed she had used the reference to Hindu gods in ‘context’ of the discussion. She sent me another email where she had explained:

“If it is not okay to argue in this way about Hinduism – by de-contextualizing theology and treating singular historical incidents as representative and normative of religion and its followers – then it is not okay to do the same for Islam and Muslims.”

Hindus on social media were shocked. Ragini Sharma, a PhD from York University who had been leading the campaign against the Noor Centre event, labelling it as ‘Hinduphobic,’ told me: 

“I am shocked and deeply hurt at the hatred that Khadijah has expressed towards India, Hindus and Hindu religion in this email. The depravity of the hate-filled message speaks to a deep prejudice she harbours.”

She added:

“The reference to Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu as rapists is deeply hurtful to Hindus. She [Kanji] displays her complete ignorance about Hinduism when [she] applies an Islamic lens to understanding Puranic Hindu stories.”

Sharma demanded that “the Noor Center needs to be held responsible for holding an event that promotes hate towards the Indians and Hindu community of Toronto. We will be pursuing this further. There is no place in Canada’s multicultural society for such hate-mongering.” 

Vidhya Dhar, a Kashmiri Hindu who as a child survived the Hindu genocide in Kashmir in 1990 also expressed his deep hurt at the “humiliation” heaped on the 40 Hindus that attended and were “policed by goons” inside the mosque. He wrote:

“As a practising Hindu, I am shocked to read this spiteful comment on the three dynamic forces operative within the Hindu cosmos symbolized by the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Mocking our Gods by comparing them to Christopher Columbus reflects the writer’s hatred towards Hindus.”

At the discussion, Muslim speaker Sanobar Umar accused the ‘Hindu Right’ of being in cahoots with American White Supremacists and then demanded Prime Minister Modi be sent to prison for abandoning his wife. 

Outside the Islamic Centre, a handful of Hindu Canadians protested holding placards that demanded an end to Hinduphobia and anti-India hysteria in Canada.

Hindus protest

Interestingly, not a single newspaper dared to report on the event lest Islamists get upset. Which begs the question: What are Indian diplomats doing as India’s reputation and character of its democracy is trampled by well-heeled Islamists in Canada?

Leaked Google documents reveal aggressive ‘news blacklist’ and manual manipulation of right wing sites

OpIndia Staff
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Leaked Google documents reveal aggressive ‘news blacklist’ and manual manipulation of right wing sites

Documents accessed by The Daily Caller indicate that the search giant Google manually manipulates search results even as the company officially denies such manipulation.

One of the documents reportedly shared with The Daily Caller reads, “T&S (Trust & Safety) will be in charge of updating the blacklist as when there is a demand”. As per the report, two official policies dubbed the “misrepresentation policy” and the “good neighbor policy” inform the company’s “XPA news blacklist,” which is maintained by Google’s Trust & Safety team. “The deceptive_news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor and misrepresentation policies,” the policy document reportedly says.

The Daily Caller mentions that the said document is “approved” by gomes@, nayak@ and haahr@ as on 8/13/2018. Ben Gomes is Google’s head of search and reports directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. As per the report, Pandu Nayak is a Google Fellow and Paul Haahr is a software engineer who is involved in “fringe ranking: not showing fake news, hate speech, conspiracy theories, or science/medical/history denial unless we’re sure that’s what the user wants.”

As per the alleged policy document accessed by The Daily Caller, “The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any Search feature or news product. It will not cause a demotion in the organic search results or de-index them altogether.” That means the site will not be removed from the top ten search results thrown by Google on the first page, but other search features like “top news,” “videos” or the various sidebars that are returned as search results. Hence, while the top ten search results called the “ten blue links”, may not get impacted by the blacklist but almost every other Google search result is which could mean a significant dip in the web traffic.

While testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Pichai on December 11, 2018, Pichai had claimed that Google does not manually intervene on any particular search result. However, an alleged memo which was last edited on December 3, 2018, a week prior to Pichai’s testimony, accessed by The Daily Caller describes the process by which a site can be blacklisted for deceptive news.

The beginning of the workflow starts when a website is placed on a watchlist which is used for monitoring of sites to determine if they violate the Good Neighbor Policy. This watchlist is maintained and stored by Ares with access restricted to policy & enforcement specialists working on the Good Neighbor Policy. Access to the listing can also be shared at the discretion of counsel and legal investigations on a need to know basis to enforce or enrich the policy violations. The investigation of the watchlist is done in the tool Athena, the Ares manual review tool, and intakes signals from Search, Webspan, and Ares in order to complete reviews. … Once a domain is determined to be violating the misrepresentation policy or the Good Neighbor Policy, such patterns are then added to deceptive_news_blacklist_domains.txt by the Trust & Safety team.

This clearly shows that there is a manual component “manual review tool” involved in maintaining the blacklist. Interestingly, the blacklist contains many right-wing conservative sites like Gateway Pundit, Matt Walsh’s blog, Gary North’s blog “teapartyeconomist.com,” Caroline Glick’s website, Conservative Tribune, a property of The Western Journal and the website of the American Spectator.

As per The Daily Caller, in a statement issued by a Google spokesperon, Google has asserted that the search giant does not “manually determine the order of any search result, nor do our algorithms or policies attempt to make any judgement on the political leanings of a website.” The spokesperson said that the Google News guidelines are publicly available which provide guidelines on content and behaviour for matters like sponsored content, deceptive practices and more. Google says such sites are not eligible to appear on news surfaces or in information boxes in search. These policies (the ones on sponsored content) does not impact these sites which appear in the organic search result of Google.

Times of India spreads fake news, says Meerut student Umam Khanam was “harassed” for “not wearing a BJP cap”

OpIndia Staff
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Times of India spreads fake news, says Meerut student Umam Khanam was “harassed” for “not wearing a BJP cap”

Times of India, one of the leading publications of the country, which often indulges in propagating fake news, has yet again caught peddling half-truths regarding the suspension of 22-year old Meerut Law Student.

In a report, Times of India journalist Piyush Rai has resorted to false propaganda to target the BJP by reporting that the 22-year old Meerut Law College student was suspended after she refused to wear a BJP cap. He further claimed that the “inebriated” students who had allegedly molested Umam Khanam for ‘refusing to put on a BJP cap’ were also rusticated.

Image Source: Times of India
The Times of India report

However, all the claims made by the Times of India journalist are whole lies. Journalist Swati Goel Sharma, who had visited the college which the students studied in, had talked to fellow classmates and college students only to find out that the two students were just suspended contrary to claim of Piyush Rai, where he reports that the two students have been rusticated.

In his attempt to push his ‘secular’ journalism, the reporter further alleged that 22-year girl, Umam Khanam was suspended by the College even after she was harassed by her inebriated classmates for refusing to put on a BJP cap during the college trip. The false accusations of Piyush Rai fall flat as most of the students along with the teachers who had accompanied them to the trip have categorically said that neither the students present in the bus were under the influence of the alcohol nor there were wearing any BJP caps.

Further, the College authorities had formed a committee to look into the complaints made by Umam Khanam. The college had even immediately suspended the two students who were accused of alleged harassment. However, even after a week of the incident, the committee could not hold a single meeting as neither the victim nor the accused or their parents have appeared before the committee for giving their statements. Hence, the college suspended the 22-year old student till further hearing.

According to a student from the college OpIndia.com spoke to, she has been suspended for allegedly levelling false allegations. “All the evidence was against her and she doesn’t have any proof,” said the source.

On April 2, Umam Khanam had started a controversy after she had alleged that she was harassed by fellow students for being a Muslim during a college trip. Umam Khanam, in a series of tweets, had also claimed ‘victimhood’ stating that certain students under the influence of alcohol had harassed her.

She had claimed that the fellow students were carrying BJP caps which they were forcing her to wear and consequently, she was harassed after she refused to wear those caps. She also suggested that her Muslim identity played a role as she was the only person from the community in the entire group. She further stated that the faculty had ignored the fact that students were harassing despite being present right at the scene.

However, the teachers who had accompanied the students to the trip had refuted all the accusations and had denied any such incidents during the trip as claimed by the 22-year old Law student Umam Khanam.

A ground report by journalist Swati Goel Sharma, Swarajya, had revealed further interesting details regarding the incident as nearly 35 students, who are also the classmates of the alleged victim Khanam had shared their side of the story backed by clear facts.

Many students also came forward to give their testimonies to Swarajya regarding how Umam is a “religious fanatic” who did this “to get into the good books of Shehla Rashid and Afra Khanum”. The students added that the 22-year old student had actually discriminated a few of them for their beliefs and said that Umam had a grave contempt towards the BJP.

Another student also said that Umam was a religious fanatic. He has said that how Umam was very conservative and orthodox, who had referred Dawood Ibrahim as India’s ‘baap‘ and wanted Modi to be lynched. One of her classmates also said that Umam had supported Sharia laws, cracked gau mutra jokes and went on calling everyone andh bhakts and Hindutva-types who disagrees with her.

In a hurry to target the ruling BJP and the Hindus, the Times of India journalist has now resorted to propaganda to paint a picture that some sort of harassment had occurred during the trip without even following basic journalistic ethics of reporting or at least hearing the other side of the story.

Rahul can do ‘ILU ILU’ with terrorists, but the BJP government will give a befitting reply to them: Amit Shah

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul can do ‘ILU ILU’ with terrorists, but the BJP government will give a befitting reply to them: Amit Shah

Taking a dig at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, BJP Chief Amit Shah said that Rahul Gandhi can do ‘ILU, ILU’ with terrorists, but the BJP government will give a befitting reply to them, reports ANI.

On Tuesday, BJP President Amit Shah while addressing a rally in Nagpur said, “After the air strike at terror camps in Pakistan’s Balakot, Rahul Gandhi led Congress was busy mourning. I would like to tell Rahul Baba that if you want to do ‘ILU-ILU’ with terrorists, then you may, but one must remember it is the BJP which is in power and we believe in giving a befitting reply to terrorists,” said Shah.

Accusing Rahul Gandhi of defaming Hindus, BJP President Shah demanded the Congress President apologise to the Hindu community in the world, especially to the Hindus of India, before the elections.

Amit Shah targetted Rahu Gandhi for contesting from the Wayanad constituency in Kerala. Referring to Rahul Gandhi’s alliance with radical Islamists in Kerala, Amit Shah said that when a procession is taken out in Wayanad, it becomes difficult to make out whether it is an India or Pakistan procession. Amit Shah also said that the Congress party also could not find a native candidate of Nagpur to contest from there instead the party has given a ticket to an outsider.

Launching a scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi’s ally Omar Abdullah, Amit Shah said, “Omar Abdullah is saying that there should be a different Prime Minister for Kashmir. I would like to tell Rahul Baba and Abdullah that Kashmir cannot be separated from India, whether we are in power or not.”

This comes after Omar Abdullah had said that he would like to bring back the posts of ‘President’ and ‘Prime Minister’ for Jammu and Kashmir and also warned that any attempt to tamper with the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, notably, Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution, will lead to a rethinking of the state’s relationship with the nation.

Recently, Union Minister Arun Jaitley had attacked that the Congress party by saying its manifesto was prepared with a ‘tukde tukde’ mindset and even an ‘Ivy League’ mindset in an apparent reference to the Congress party promise of dilution of AFSPA and reduction in presence of security forces in the Kashmir valley is reduced, if voted to power.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had also recently targeted the security forces after he had claimed that Jammu and Kashmir Police killed unarmed people for promotions and money in Kashmir. His statements against the security forces depict the disdain of the Congress party towards the security forces, which is being increasingly growing lately.

BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi assassinated by leftists, dehumanized by liberals

Abhishek Banerjee
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BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi assassinated by leftists, dehumanized by liberals

An attack on an elected MLA is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on our democracy and the founding principles of our republic.

Bhima Mandavi was an elected MLA out on an election campaign, days before our General Elections, the largest democratic exercise in the world. He was a public representative out to meet the people to request their support at the polling booth. This is the most sacred part of any democratic tradition. It reminds the nation that those who govern are not masters but servants and must humble themselves before the people.

In this sense, BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi died while in the act of performing the highest and noblest of all rituals in Indian democracy.

And who killed him? Violent left-wingers who are enemies of democracy.

Except we are not hearing that in the discourse, even when we are hearing something at all.

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Chhattisgarh CM ‘blamed’ the death on ‘ignoring police warnings’ instead of the ones who actually murdered him.

No! No! No! No! A hundred times no!

This is not the time for Chhattisgarh CM to speak like a regressive patriarchal jerk who blames rape on what the woman was wearing, or how late she stayed out at night and in which part of town.

This is time for Indians, cutting across party lines, to speak in one voice against the Great Evil of left-wing terror. To speak against those in politics and public life who enable the leftist ideology of hatred, murder and violence. And those who govern have a special responsibility to do so.

This is hardly a partisan issue and nor should it be. Who can forget what happened at Jhiram Ghati in 2013 when top Chhattisgarh Congress leaders were killed by followers of the same violent leftist ideology? Among them was Mahendra Karma, a great man, a patriot and a hero who led the Salwa Judum resistance against violent leftism.

Leftism is a challenge to us as a nation. We have to recognize that.

Except that did not happen yesterday. Because the killers were leftists and the victim was a BJP MLA, the assassination was met with a chilling silence among sections of society that otherwise claim to be very vocal about civil liberties and democracy.

The artists, the journalists, the intellectuals, the academics were all silent. These people, who pretend to be thought leaders and conscience keepers, all refused to speak when it really counted. And their silence against violent leftism makes them look both complicit and suspect. Remember that an attack on an elected MLA is an attack on all of us.

Remember the liberal crowd that comes out on the streets against one angry tweet or some trolling on Facebook? Remember the people who write alarmist articles every time some quarrel breaks out in some neighbourhood over kids playing cricket? Remember the folks who rush to their Western paymasters screaming ‘intolerance’ and feeding them stories about the dangers of everything from sarees to Hanuman stickers?

Those are the people who have been trying to glorify violent leftist ideology as some kind of movement for civil liberties. And on the other hand, they have been trying to dehumanize members of the RSS/BJP to the point where the nation no longer cares about their deaths.

This dehumanization of RSS/BJP members has a long history. Can you name even a single person who was burned to death inside S-6 compartment of Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002? An entire coach full of people was burned alive in public view and the only thing heard from media and intellectuals was fake stories about how those people had refused to pay for tea, implying that they somehow deserved to be massacred.

Some counts suggest that nearly 1000 lakh people have been killed by Communism. Yesterday, BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi joined that unending list of victims. And yet when some student union goon flies the blood red Communist flag with the dreaded hammer and sickle, Bollywood celebrities descend to campaign for them. This is an outcome of a culture that systematically glorifies left-wing violence.

There is no celebrity whose PR agent will tell them to stand with a placard for Bhima Mandavi. There is no academic or intellectual who expects to get NGO funding by speaking up for what happened to Bhima Mandavi.

But the thing is that we the people have the power to make these propagandists irrelevant. We do not have time for photo shoots with placards, speaking at fake intellectual conferences or signing propaganda petitions. And they would not let us into the big Lutyens clubs anyway where the liberals gather to sip wine that is subsidized with taxpayer money.

But we do have the power to vote.

We have the power to start speaking among ourselves to counter the ideology of violent leftism. Let a billion voices emerge against the scourge of leftism. No celebrity, no intellectual and no academic could possibly drown our collective voice.

Bhima Mandavi died because he was participating in our most noble democratic tradition. The policemen who were with him died in the line of duty. If we do not speak and vote against left-wing evil today, we might be the victims tomorrow, every single one of us. Time to stand up and be counted.

Notes recovered from I-T raids in MP mention Excise, Transport, Mining, PWD under receipts, AICC, PCC, Election Bond, MLAs, Candidates under expenses

OpIndia Staff
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Notes recovered from I-T raids in MP mention Excise, Transport, Mining, PWD under receipts, AICC, PCC, Election Bond, MLAs, Candidates under expenses

The Income Tax department conducted raids at more than 50 locations connected to Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi in the last two days. Yesterday a press release issued by the department had revealed that Rs 20 crore was transferred to the headquarters of a ‘major political party’ through hawala route. The department had detected a racket of money collection, and recovered evidence unaccounted cash of Rs 281 crore collected by various persons related to the party and Madhya Pradesh government. This amount was collected from businessmen, government departments and politicians. Income Tax officers had also recovered unaccounted cash of Rs 14.6 crore along with several incriminating documents.

Apart from Indore, Bhopal and Goa, raids were also conducted in Delhi, which included the residence of AICC official SM Moin. When the raids were going on, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel had arrived there yesterday.

The I-T department press release had said that more than Rs 242 crores were siphoned from government exchequer using bogus billing. They had recovered cash logs detailing transactions of a total amount of Rs 281 crore.

Now, media has accessed some of the logs, which show the source of the money collected, as well as the destinations where the money was sent. The logs show that money was siphoned from several public welfare schemes in Madhya Pradesh, and they were sent to party offices and functionaries for election funding.


The logs were recovered from the Mobile phone of Lalit Kumar, accountant of Rajendra Miglani, who is a close aide of Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath. The logs show amounts allocated to various schemes were siphoned to be sent to the party fund. Apart from collecting money from PWD, Excise, transport etc departments, they also collected money for a scheme meant for the nutrition of infants and pregnant women. On the dispatch part, the note mentions entries like Cheque PCC, Cash PCC, Delhi AICC, Election Bond AICC, Cheque AICC, MLAs etc heads to where money was sent, with amounts in lakhs against them.


The entries under the receipt heading mention the following, with all amounts in lakhs:

  • Transport- 5445
  • Excise (MP)- 3622
  • Excise (GUJ)- 197
  • Mining- 550
  • PWD- 520
  • Urban Development-430
  • Po Aahar-1200
  • Energy department- 100

The total receipt showed an amount of 280.15 Rs crore in the documents seized by the Income Tax department.

Some of the entries under the expenses heading include the following, also in lakhs:

  • Cheque PCC-1082
  • Cash PCC-1000
  • Delhi AICC-1700
  • Election Bond-200
  • Leaders-95
  • MLAs-440.50
  • Candidates-420.50

The logs clearly show that immediately after coming to power, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh started siphoning money from various government departments and schemes, and diverted the same to party fund and politicians.

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