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Pro-Aurangzeb ‘historian’ spreads false and derogatory comment about Lord Ram

OpIndia Staff
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Pro-Aurangzeb ‘historian’ spreads false and derogatory comment about Lord Ram

Audrey Truschke a supposed historian who is best known for whitewashing the crimes of barbaric Mughal ruler Aurangzeb, cooked up a storm on Friday by alleging that Lord Ram was called a “misogynistic pig” by Sita while she when through her Agnipariksha (a trial by fire):

Pro-Aurangzeb 'historian' spreads false and derogatory comment about Lord Ram
Tweet by Audrey Truschke

In the above tweet, Truschke claimed to have “loosely translated” Valmiki’s narration of the Ramayana. Soon objections were raised over the comment of hers, and she later brazened it out by claiming that she had “summarised parts of the Ramayana accurately and in colloquial English”.

When asked to provide references for her sensational claims she cited a couple of verses from a “Sanskrit critical edition” which she claimed were translated into English by Goldman and Pollock.

This was soon picked up by well-known Twitter historian True Indology who asserted that Sita had merely accused Ram of not trusting her, without going to the extent of calling him a “misogynistic pig”. Coming to the references provided by Truschke, True Indology claimed that the two scholars contradict each other and that Truschke herself had provided incorrect references.

To drive home his point, he later posted the complete translation of the said verse where nothing remotely close to “misogynistic pig” was visible:


Twitter user and columnist Abhinav Agarwal too listed out the said Sanskrit Shloka in question, and translated Sita’s statement to Ram as, “Why are you speaking such harsh words, which are violent to hear for me, like a common man speaking to a common woman”. He also floated the possibility of the word “common” being replaced by vulgar but again there was no connection to the phrase, “misogynist pig”.

Later when she was supposedly cornered, Truschke described her controversial statement as being colloquial, and not being a literal one:


Other Hindu scholars too took note of Audrey’s claims and author Hindol Sengupta described them as an attack on a non-white culture by racist white supremacists while pressing her to prove her claims or apologise instead:


Even bestselling author Amish Tripathi drew a conclusion similar to Sengupta:


Even though not commenting directly on the matter, noted author and economist Sanjiv Sanyal listed a quote from Edward Said’s book Orientalism, about Western scholars controlling the interpretation of a culture, which might accurately describe what Truschke and her ilk might be up to:


Even after being thoroughly proven wrong Truschke didn’t apologise for her erroneous and defamatory claims and took refuge under a supposed victim card by compiling the alleged abuses she received, without engaging in a proper debate with the aforementioned scholars, who respectfully raised various pertinent points.

Yashwant Sinha takes ‘sanyaas’ from BJP, Twitter asks Shatrughan Sinha to follow suit

OpIndia Staff
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Yashwant Sinha takes ‘sanyaas’ from BJP, Twitter asks Shatrughan Sinha to follow suit

For the longest time, two ‘rebel leaders’ from the BJP, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha, have been attacking the party, and if reports are to believed, Sinha has proclaimed that he is taking ‘sanyaas’ from politics and quitting BJP.


Amusingly, this proclamation of sanyaas comes days after Yashwant Sinha had taken to Twitter to assert that the BJP and PM Narendra Modi are scared to fire him.


With one the incorrigible rebels quitting the party after grandstanding about how BJP doesn’t have the courage to expel him, Twitter erupted with people asking Shatrughan Sinha to follow suit.

Veteran journalist Kanchan Gupta requested Yashwant Singa to take Shatrughan Sinha along as ‘sanyaas’ can be lone and the media wasn’t really interested in ‘exes’.


Some tried to appeal to Shatrughan Sinha “courage” to urge him to follow suit.


Some even poked fun at Shatrughan Sinha with a hilarious spin-off on the ‘Gangs of Wasseypur” dialogue.


Others just said ‘good riddance’ and wondered when they would also get rid of Shatrughan Sinha.


Meanwhile, an old tweet by Shatrughan Sinha paints a pretty picture of BJP waiting endlessly to get rid of Shotgun Sinha.

The unmissable pattern in the Gauri Lankesh, Unnao and Kathua narratives

Ashish Shukla
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The unmissable pattern in the Gauri Lankesh, Unnao and Kathua narratives

Brinda Karat of CPI (M) has suffered from amnesia in accusing BJP leaders of complicity-by-support in the Kathua and Unnao rape incidents in an edit piece in The Hindu.

The thing most common in amnesia, of course, is memory loss — hopefully temporary in Brinda’s case, though with the Left-Liberal-Media gang you could be sure it’s more likely a front to their shameless lies and propaganda.

Draw a parallel with the unfortunate killing of Gauri Lankesh last year and you would see the following patterns emerge:

  • Blame the BJP and right-wing even before their complicity is established (Ramachandra Guha);
  • Never bother to cover your tracks in case the accusation goes unproven;
  • Never lift a finger in case your own cabal of Left-Liberal-Lutyens Media are shown going soft on murders and rapes where a Hindu is a sufferer: more so if the alleged crime is committed by a Muslim or minority

Karat has gone into metaphoric convulsions over Kathua, stating that Hindus of the region are communalizing an unfortunate, tragic incident of a defence-less little girl-child, staging protests and unrest.

The amnesia stops madam Karat from bringing the following facts in readers/public domain:

  • The government called an officer from Kashmir to investigate the matter rather than involving Jammu police officers which reek of political conspiracy;
  • They called an officer who allegedly himself was in prison for one year;
  • The subsequent charge-sheet claims that Hindus of Jammu have conspired against Bakharwal community — clearly an attempt to divide Hindus and Muslims of Jammu into communal lines;
  • Two kids from Meerut were allegedly beaten up by police and forced to give wrong statements as they professed in front of the judge;
  • That the protests were also staged by Jammu’s lawyers’ body (a non-communal professional body) which Karat hides in her hysterical piece

So what’s wrong when the two BJP state ministers appealed for the matter to be investigated by CBI? In fact, a ground report by Swarajya magazine has today exposed glaring loopholes in the charge sheet and the version of the locals is vastly different.

But wait! Let Madam Karat’s amnesia be over before asking her these significant omissions in her half-truth of an edit piece.

Now let’s look at Unnao, another unfortunate and tragic incident. Madam Karat is not truthful when she omits the fact that

  • UP CM Yogi Adityanath has condemned the incident in a plain-speak as is he won’t;
  • That 6 policemen have already been suspended;
  • That State government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on the matter

Later, the BJP MLA was even arrested. But why would Brinda Karat wait for full facts before writing a motivated opinion piece?

So if these communists and their allied mainstream media make an allegation—without being on the ground—the relevant investigating authorities must abandon the book of CRPC and submits to their prejudice and bias.

Madam Karat must never be asked why her feminism is not outraged when a six-year-old Hindu girl-child is raped in Bihar’s Rohtas district, allegedly by a Muslim youth Meraj Alam.

The bindi-girl would never shed a tear and mount a public outrage over hackings of BJP and RSS workers occurring regularly across India.

So this is the kind of cabal which is confronting and damaging our nation in every living minute of their undignified existence.

All those who love our country must keep showing them their hideous face in the mirror as a matter of an oath.

ISIS had planned attacks on Jews in Ahmedabad and Mumbai : ATS Gujarat charge sheet

OpIndia Staff
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ISIS had planned attacks on Jews in Ahmedabad and Mumbai : ATS Gujarat charge sheet

The Gujrat Anti-Terrorism-Squad had filed a charge sheet yesterday in Ankleshwar, Gujrat against two alleged operatives of ISIS who were arrested last year. The 1500 page charge sheet filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate RD Mehta states that arrested operatives were working for ISIS and were planning attacks on Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

According to reports, the accused, Mohammad Kasim Stimberwala and Ubed Ahmed Mirza were arrested on charges of planning lone wolf attack on a Jewish Synagogue in Ahmedabad. But the charge sheet alleges that they had also planned to attack Jewish areas in Mumbai as Mumbai has a larger Jewish population.

The reports state that Stimberwala worked as a laboratory technician at a hospital in Ankleshwar while Ubed Ahmed Mirza was a practising lawyer at Surat District court. The charge sheet claimed that both were highly radicalised by the Jihadi ideology of the Islamic State and were actively planning lone wolf attacks on Jews. Both of them were in contact with a radical Jamaican preacher named Abdullah el-Faisal and a suspected ISIS handler named Shafi Armar. Armar and el-Faisal both had been termed as ‘absconding’ in the charge sheet.

The arrest of Kasim Stimberwala had caused a political storm in October last year because he was employed by the Sardar Patel Hospital in Ankleshwar and Congress leader and Sonia Gandhi’s close aide Ahmed Patel was a trustee in the Hospital.

Both the accused reportedly conducted a recce of the Synagogue in Khadia and were also trying to recruit more radicalised youth to send outside India to carry out terrorist attacks. The also reportedly tried to purchase weapons from Delhi and Lucknow but could not succeed. According to the charge sheet, their target was the Nariman Point area to maximise the number of Jewish casualties.

Stimberwala and Mirza both have been charged with IPC sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 121-A (sedition) and 125 (waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with India). They were also charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The FIR which was lodged against them in October 2017, reportedly stated that both accused were under the influence of the Jamaican El-Faisal. The Jamaican radical preacher was convicted in the UK for spreading hatred and was deported to Jamaica by the UK officials. The FIR also stated that El-Faisal was later arrested in Jamaica on charges of trying to send radicalised youth to Syria.

Thousand strong mob goes on a rampage in MP’s Burhanpur after Friday’s Namaz prayers

OpIndia Staff
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Thousand strong mob goes on a rampage in MP’s Burhanpur after Friday’s Namaz prayers

Tension gripped Madhya Pradesh’s Burhanpur town on Friday after a large mob speculated to be numbering into a thousand, went on a rampage following the Friday Namaz Prayers. As per reports, the mass violence was triggered when the large mob had taken out a rally near Iqbal Chowk following the afternoon Namaz, to protest against the recent Kathua rape case.

The stick-wielding mob got triggered during the rally, and after sloganeering started to vandalise nearby shops and vehicles, including a bus from Maharashtra. The mob also blocked a highway and brutally assaulted some shopkeepers.

Seeing the tension, the whole marketplace was shut and panicked shoppers either took shelter in nearby shops or ran to the nearest bus station. It has been claimed that some of the youths even resorted to looting the stores.

The tension intensified when the mob reached the Shanwara region where the cops were waiting to restore order. Seeing the cops, the violent youths proceeded to pelt stones at them, which resulted in injuries to two policemen, with one carrying a serious head injury.

In order to restore peace, the police proceeded to lathi charge the violent youths and later senior police officers deputed a strong police force in the town. The police arrested a few mobsters from the spot and are investigating CCTV footage to track the other perpetrators. Currently, the situation is said to be in control.

Incidentally, the Burhanpur region had made news in the past when some youths had proceeded to chant “Pakistan Zindabad” slogans last year following India’s defeat to Pakistan in the Champions Trophy Final. The police though had later dropped the sedition charges from 15 youths charged in the case.

This violence after Friday prayers, unfortunately, isn’t a stand-alone incident. Kashmir routinely witnesses such violence with three people dying in post prayer clashes in 2016. Last year too saw such violence and clashes broke out between youths and the security forces, in the Srinagar and the Pulwama district.

The post-Friday prayer violence is sadly also not restricted to Kashmir and in August last year, the police had to fire at a mob in Aligarh which was resorting to incessant stone pelting after Friday prayers. Post-Eid prayers too had seen intense violence in July 2017 when a large mob decided to attack a police station in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

UPA government framed Lt Col Purohit despite having information that he was on duty, claims report

OpIndia Staff
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UPA government framed Lt Col Purohit despite having information that he was on duty, claims report

Republic TV has accessed an official letter by the Army which reveals that the then Congress government deliberately framed Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit despite having information that he was on duty and was gathering intelligence. Lt Col Purohit, who was arrested in 2008 in the Malegaon blasts case was jailed for a total of 8 years 9 Months and 22 days. The government and media at that time continuously labelled Lt Col Purohit as a traitor to further their agenda of establishing the idea of ‘Hindu Terror.’


In a news report yesterday, Republic TV stated that they have accessed a letter which has the official secret Army file number A/31687/PUROHIT/MI-9, written by Directorate General of Military Intelligence. The letter, which was written in response to Detachment 3, Southern Command Liaison Unit’s application in December 2017 and was reportedly sent to the Chief of Army Staff, makes references to the communication under the Congress government.

According to the Republic TV report, in point 2 of the letter, the DGMI refers to a query sent by Rakesh Maria, the former ATS chief, asking army for details of inputs and letters shared or sent by the army on any meetings and terrorist-related incidents in the case involving Lt Col Purohit. Rakesh Maria’s query on March 24, 2011, came 9 days after Suresh Kalmadi was questioned over the CWG scam. Republic TV claims it was at a time when the Congress needed a distraction.

The news report goes ahead to state that point 3 of the letter reveals the response the DGMI gave to Maria after 5 days. The response was reportedly incomplete and without any consequent response from other offices of the Army. The response reportedly was, “no input available with the office regarding any official communication pertaining to any terrorist-related inputs or information about meetings’’ in the case of Lt Colonel Purohit.

The report states that the term ‘no input available’ was used as gospel truth by Congress. Later the DGMI wrote to consequent offices for more input but the government did not follow up.

The 4 lines on page 2 reveal the entire Congress leadership was lying about Col Purohit. Line 1 of the Army letter reportedly concludes that ‘Lt Col Purohit was operating a source network through which he had obtained intelligence inputs’. This is in contradiction to what we were led to believe that ‘there were no inputs’.

It further adds that in Line 2, the army letter concludes that ‘Lt Colonel Purohit’s superiors at the appropriate level were informed of the inputs provided by the source’. However, the Congress never revealed the source or the fact that Sudhakar Chaturvedi, who was named an accused in the case, was actually a ‘source’ who worked for the Army.


Point 3 A of the document reveals that the UPA government had access to this documented evidence on Sudhakar Chaturvedi. The confidential Army document gets into detail about a report received in January 2008, 10 months before the arrest of Lt Col Purohit. The report said that ‘One of the sources was Mr Sudhakar Chaturvedi’ who was introduced as an active source. It adds that Chaturvedi, named an accused under Congress was actually ‘providing details on political and religious activities in the area of responsibility’. All of this is documented in the Army letter sent by the DDGMI this month.


Sudhakar Chaturvedi was granted bail one month after Lt. Colonel Purohit was released in 2017. Earlier former undersecretary to Ministry of Home Affairs RVS Mani had revealed that Lt Col Purohit was breaking the back of groups that were involved in radicalisation and hence he was deliberately framed by the UPA government.

Here’s why the Karnataka elections will signal the end of the road for Siddaramaiah

deepakrao
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Here’s why the Karnataka elections will signal the end of the road for Siddaramaiah

Just a couple of weeks back, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was brimming with confidence. After all, he had dented the BJP’s powerful Lingayat vote bank by recommending a separate religion for Lingayats and by introducing a Kannada flag, he had carved out a Kannada identity to take on the BJP’s Hindutva narrative. After a pan-Karnataka trip with Rahul Gandhi, he seemingly had the high command’s total confidence, and above all, he had successfully converted the battle for Karnataka into Siddaramaiah Vs Modi. The Siddaramaiah – Rahul Gandhi duo had everything under control – or so they thought.

But now, with hardly a month left for the big day (May 15th) – the date of counting, Siddaramaiah’s plans seem to be in tatters. What has changed for the ‘Kannada strongman’ who planned to ride on Kannada sentiments to victory?

Even without Modi entering the fray, the BJP seems to be on an ascendancy. A pre-election survey by India Today shows the BJP at 35% rapidly growing from the 19.9% it had got previously. India Today, of course, gave a seat prediction which showed a hung assembly with Congress at pole position. But BJP at 35% with JDS splitting into Congress votes, should come comfortably close to victory. In the past, too, BJP has won with a lesser vote share than Congress. And all this, without Modi even starting his campaign.

The more terrible news for Siddaramaiah comes from his own constituency Chamundeshwari where Intelligence reports suggest he is on a weak wicket. He has been trying to contest from one more constituency in North Karnataka, but the high command has shot it down.

HD Kumaraswamy has been campaigning hard in Mysore, and his campaign in the CM’s constituency has seen strong support. The wily old fox, former PM H D Deve Gowda has declared war on Siddaramaiah (even referring to him in the singular) and has tied up with Mayawati with the intention of destroying Siddaramaiah’s backwards-Dalit-Muslim vote bank. And every extra vote JDS will get will help the BJP. It is expected that the BJP will field a weak candidate in Chamundeshwari to help the JDS beat Siddaramaiah.

The Lingayat card seems to be have backfired, with slow realization dawning that being tagged as a minority religion will only help the powerful politicians who run educational institutions. Also, the Veerashaiva mathas who are strongly opposed to the separate religion tag, have declared war on Siddaramaiah, who now seems unlikely to get any benefit from his game plan.

The controversy over MLA Harris’ son Nalapad, has given a poor picture of the law and order situation in the state. Add to this, unending civic woes in Bangalore, frequent power cuts and the slowly growing water shortage problem is unlikely to endear Siddaramaiah to urban voters.

Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao’s vicious attack on UP CM Yogi, asking people to beat him with chappals is unlikely to help the situation. Yogi belongs to the Nath tradition and has close links to the Vokkaliga community, who will be most displeased. Vokkaligas anyway have no love lost for Siddaramaiah, who has given preference to his Kuruba community over Vokkaligas in job postings and other areas. If that wasn’t enough, Siddaramaiah went ahead and called BJP, RSS men as “Hindu Terrorists”.

It seems unlikely that Congress can take away Lingayat votes from BJP and Vokkaliga votes from JDS. Adding to their woes, their own Dalit and backward vote bank are under attack from Shah and Gowda. The entry of MEP, a new Muslim party has only multiplied troubles for the Siddaramaiah – Rahul Gandhi duo.

Add to all this, the chaos over ticket distribution! Congress could not finalise its first list of seats for many days thanks to a bitter feud between Siddaramaiah and Kharge. Old Congressmen like Moily are upset over neo-Congressis like Siddu getting more seats. No sooner has the first list was released, than huge dissidence has broken out.

Perhaps the worse alarm bell for Congress is Karnataka – Siddaramaiah nemesis is yet to come! Modi’s previous visits saw the tag ‘ten percent govt’ highlighting Congress corruption. In a whirlwind campaign, Modi is expected to take on Siddaramaiah head on and expose his failure on all fronts.

All these added together can lead to only one result – a defeat for Siddaramaiah!

Whether BJP crosses the 113 majority mark depends on Modi, but one thing seems to be very clear, Siddaramaiah’s reign is over. He himself may lose his constituency and it is unlikely that Congress will get more than 80-85 seats. In the event of a hung assembly, Deve Gowda’s first condition for a coalition will be to keep Siddaramaiah out of the picture.

So it seems like it is all over for the Karnataka Chief Minister, barring the actual counting of votes!

Modi government’s Aadhaar endeavor applauded by World Bank

OpIndia Staff
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Modi government’s Aadhaar endeavor applauded by World Bank

World bank endorses the initiative taken up by the government by saying that India’s strong government push to increase account ownership through biometric identification cards helped narrow both the gender gap and the gap between the rich and poor.

India has considerably reduced the gender gap in providing access to financial services with 77% women against 83% men having bank accounts, the World Bank said in its Global Findex database 2017 released on Thursday, whereas globally, 65% women have an account compared with 72% men, a gap of 7 percentage points that remains unchanged since 2011.

According to reports, “In India three years ago, men were 20 percentage points more likely than women to have an account. Today, India’s gender gap has shrunk to 6 percentage points thanks to a strong government push to increase account ownership through biometric identification cards.” According to government data, the total number of current and savings accounts in banks has risen from 122.3 crores in March 2015 to 157.1 crore in March 2017.

Partly the contribution might be India’s Jan-Dhan Yojana scheme, developed by the government to increase account ownership, brought an additional 310 million Indians into the formal banking system by March 2018. In India, the share of adults with an account has more than doubled since 2011, to 80 percent, the World Bank said, adding that an important factor driving this increase was a government policy launched in 2014 to boost account ownership among unbanked adults through biometric identification cards.

Between 2014 and 2017, account ownership in India rose by more than 30 percentage points among women as well as among adults in the poorest 40 percent of households. Among men and among adults in the wealthiest 60 percent of households it increased by about 20 percentage points.

It is said that the governments move of switching from cash to digital payments can reduce corruption and improve efficiency. In India, the leakage of funds for pension payments dropped by 47 percent (2.8 percentage points) when the payments were made through biometric smart cards rather than being handed out in cash.

Hailing India’s Aadhaar digital ID, the World Bank has said the initiative is estimated to be saving the government about $1 billion annually(₹650 crore) a year by reducing corruption and leakage for the Indian government. It is a help in fiscal budgeting. It is a help in providing other useful services,” World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu told reporters here during the release of a report on Digital Dividends.

An official from World Bank headquarters said that “India’s Aadhaar digital identification system has already reached close to one billion people enabling many of the poor to access services more easily and making it possible for the government to deliver welfare services more easily.” It further emphasised that India is on track to register its entire 1.25 billion population using its Aadhaar digital ID.

Amongst a lot of denunciations and condemnations from the opposition, this boost from the World Bank definitely gives the government reasons to celebrate its achievements and accomplishments.

Congress left firefighting over reports of Manmohan Singh opposing its impeachment motion

OpIndia Staff
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Congress left firefighting over reports of Manmohan Singh opposing its impeachment motion

The Congress party along with the opposition on Friday handed over a notice for the impeachment of the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra to Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. More than 60 MPs who signed the notice comprising of seven political parties including the Congress, NCP, SP, CPI-M and the BSP.

As per Rajya Sabha’s leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, the impeachment lists out five grounds of misbehaviour by the CJI and has been backed by the article 217 and article 124(4) of the constitution.

This Congress-led impeachment notice though hasn’t been without controversy. Soon after the announcement a Times Now report claimed that the notice was opposed by six Congress leaders including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

As per the report, the Congress party was divided in this regards and was split into two factions with regards to their views over the impeachment motion. While planning in this regard, the party had supposedly sought the opinion of its top legal minds and the report claimed senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi expressed his disapproval in writing.

The report further claimed that other senior leaders including Veerappa Moily, Manish Tewari and P Chidambaram backed Singhvi in this matter. Over former PM Manmohan Singh, the report claimed that he too was against the said motion.

Following such reports, the Congress party seems to have entered into a firefighting mode, via a press conference by senior party leader Kapil Sibal. With regards to Manmohan Singh, Sibal claimed that the party had chosen not to involve him in this matter, due to him being the former PM.

These reports too were prima facie contradicted to a certain extent by an ANI report which quoted Sibal as saying that it was “completely false that Manmohan Singh did not sign the impeachment motion against the CJI”.

Gujarat HC dismisses Ahmed Patel’s plea to dismiss plea challenging his win in Gujarat RS polls

OpIndia Staff
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Gujarat HC dismisses Ahmed Patel’s plea to dismiss plea challenging his win in Gujarat RS polls

Gujarat High Court today dismissed Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s plea to dismiss the plea filed by BJP Rajya Sabha candidate Balwantsinh Rajput challenging Patel’s victory in the high octane Rajya Sabha elections held in Gujarat in August 2017.


BJP’s Balwantsinh Rajput had filed a petition challenging August 2017 elections questioning the Election Commission’s decision invalidating two votes by rebel Congress MLAs on the objection raised by Congress. He has also accused Patel of indulging in corrupt practice by taking 44 Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru and keeping them in captivity and spending lavishly on their entertainment.

Patel filed an application in the High Court seeking dismissal of Rajput’s petition at the admission stage claiming it was filed in a faulty manner and with inadequate details, and not following the provisions the Civil Procedure Code.

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