Category: Bihari

Mamata raises Assam NRC issue in a meeting with Amit Shah

Source: telegraphindia.com

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday told Union home minister Amit Shah that genuine Indians belonging to Bengali, Bihari, Gorkha and Assamese communities were excluded from the NRC in Assam and sought his intervention to ameliorate their miseries.

Banerjee told this to Shah in her first meeting with the home minister, who assumed office about three months ago.

“I have come to meet the home minister to discuss about the NRC in Assam and told him that many genuine Indians were excluded from the list. I have requested him to do the needful so that they can be included in the NRC as they are in distress,” she told reporters after the meeting with Shah.

The chief minister said that among those who were excluded from the National Register of Citizens include many Bengali, Bihari, Gorkhas and even Assamese.

“I have requested him to examine their cases and resolve the issues,” she said.

The final NRC, a list of Assam’s residents published on August 31, excluded the names of 19 lakh people.

“The home minister has assured me that he would look into it,” she said.

Asked whether there was any discussion on the implementation of the NRC in West Bengal, Banerjee said no such discussion has taken place but it was her stated position that such an initiative was not required in her state.

“Even Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said that the NRC was not required in his state,” she said.

The chief minister said she has come to New Delhi after she was given an appointment by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a meeting.

“Meeting the Prime Minister and the home minister is a constitutional obligation. Besides, we have international border issues with Bangladesh and Bhutan and state borders with Bihar and Jharkhand. We also have the sensitive ‘chicken’s neck’ (corridor connecting northeastern states with the rest of the country). So meeting with the home minister is in that context necessarily,” she said.

The chief minister said she has met the prime minister on Wednesday and raised the issue of renaming the state.

Banerjee also invited Modi to inaugurate a coal block in the state. The coal block is the second largest in the world, she said.

‘Ploy by Companies to Pressure Govt to Lower Taxes’: Bihar Minister Says There’s No Economic Slowdown

Source: news18.com

Patna: The country is not facing economic slowdown and big companies are trying pressurise the government to lower tax rates by showing a decline in manufacturing, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi claimed on Wednesday. His comment invited immediate ridicule from the opposition RJD.

Modi, who also holds the finance portfolio in the Nitish Kumar government, cited the example of Parle G biscuits and said its demand had, in fact, increased in Bihar.

He doubted the claim of its manufacturers that a fall in demand of the company’s biscuits could have been caused by developed states opting for expensive pastries instead of the cheap confectionary with a higher tax rate. But it did not appear to be so.

Parle, the manufacturers of Parle G biscuits had recently warned of a massive lay-off following a slump in production which they blamed on a fall in demand caused by an increase in prices.

The rise in prices, it said, is due to a rise in the cost of production resulting from higher tax rates payable for confectionery items under GST, which came into force two years ago.

There is no mandi (economic slowdown). All these reports one gets to see in the media about automobiles and other sectors suffering is actually a ploy by lobbies in the corporate world to put pressure on the government for lowering tax rates, the senior BJP leader said at a programme organized by a news channel in Ranchi.

Sushil Modi was heavily trolled on Twitter by opposition RJD for his comments. Veteran RJD leader Shivanand Tiwary charged him with “trying to wish away a financial crisis that is too stark”.

“Of late, Sushil Kumar Modi has begun sounding like the French monarch who said if people did not have bread, they should eat cakes,” Tiwary told PTI here.

The phrase is commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette supposedly uttered during one of the famines that occurred in France in 1789 during the reign of her husband

King Louis XVI ahead of the French Revolution.

Recently, he (Sushil Modi) said that the decline in automobiles was because people did not like to buy vehicles during the Pitri Paksha which in fact began only last week and continues for only a fortnight,” Tiwary, who was a member of the Rabri Devi cabinet, said.

“Before that he had scandalized all by claiming that economic slowdown was some sort of a seasonal phenomenon which occurred during monsoons and automatically got rectified later on. It all displays his utter ignorance about financial matters, though he is the minister in charge of the department, the RJD national vice-president said.

He said, the recent report by an international media house has stated that investors are withdrawing capital from the country and there are no fresh investments. Noted economists have time and again pointed out that the unimpressive GDP growth rate of five per cent too might be an exaggerated figure as it does not take into account the huge unorganized sector which is yet to recover from the impact of demonetization, Tiwary said.

Our Deputy CM seems to be in the same frame of mind as last year when he had hoped for less crime during a religious festival by cajoling criminals with folded hands to give up their activities for the period, he quipped.

At the inauguration of the Pitri Paksh fair at Gaya in 2018, Sushil Modi had urged those involved in anti-social activities to refrain from indulging in crimes during the fortnight-long congregation as visitors came from far and wide and they might return with a bad image of Bihar in mind. The deputy chief minister had invited severe ridicule from political opponents for it.

18 trafficked girls rescued from Bihar and Guwahati

Source: telegraphindia.com

Morigaon Police have rescued 18 persons, including three babies and 10 minors, in a joint operation with the CID, on Sunday, 13 from East Champaran district of Bihar and five from Guwahati.

Swapnaneel Deka, superintendent of police, Morigaon, said, “Two persons from Bihar — Dipak Kumar and Anil Kumar — from Piprakothi and Katua respectively, have been arrested in connection with this on Sunday from Bihar and brought to Assam along with the victims. Interrogation is going on.”

Based on a tip-off, the police conducted a raid in East Champaran district of Bihar and rescued 13 trafficked persons from there on Sunday.

The other five victims were rescued on Wednesday from Kamakhya railway station here. All of them were minors.

“Two local residents have also been arrested. They were associates of the two accused, Dipak and Anil and are also being questioned,” Deka said.

Eight victimsare from Morigaon, one each from Nagaon and Golaghat districts, while the remaining eight are yet to be identified.

Barpeta baby theft

Barpeta police on Saturday recovered a 15-day-old girl, Bilkish Prabin, who was stolen on Friday night.

A police source said, “Imam Ali, Obaidullah Hoque and Nurjahan were arrested in connection with the alleged kiddnapping case on Saturday from Hajo, Kamrup district. One is still absconding. We are interrogating the arrested persons and hope to arrest all of them soon.” The police got a tip-off that the kidnapper was planning to sell the baby to a couple at Hajo in Kamrup and a search operation led to the arrest of the trio. The baby was sleeping with her mother at their residence at Bahmura in Barpeta when she was kidnapped on Friday night.

Saved on bus

A minor girl from Assam was saved from being trafficked after a co-passenger from Bengal’s Raiganj heard a conversation between the teenager and her companion in a bus that aroused his suspicion and prompted him to act.

The 17-year-old girl has been handed over to NGO Childline in Raiganj, from where passenger Subhradeep Bhowmik hails, and police in North Dinajpur are trying to contact her family in Assam so that she can be sent home.

The girl has told the police that like her, the youth accompanying her was from Assam’s Rangiya and had promised to marry her.

“I feared my family would not accept the relationship. So, we eloped a few days back and reached Siliguri. From there, we took a bus to Raiganj. I did not have any idea where he was taking me,” said the girl.

“During the journey, I overheard snatches of their conversation, which roused my suspicion,” said Bhowmik.

As the bus reached Kishanganj, the youth hurriedly got off. “He did not return. The girl told me the youth had taken her cellphone and cash,” Bhowmik said.

Former inmate of Bihar shelter home raped by 4 men in moving car

Source: dailypioneer.com

A woman, who had been an inmate of the infamous Muzaffarpur shelter home, was allegedly raped by four men in a moving vehicle (car) in Bettiah town of West Champaran district, police said on Sunday.

The Muzaffarpur shelter home had hit the headlines in 2018 after a social audit report highlighted that over 30 girls were allegedly raped at the Government-aided shelter home, run by an NGO.

Bettiah town police station SHO Shashi Bhushan Thakur said the woman was admitted to a Government medical college on Saturday evening and a medical examination was conducted by a team of doctors on Sunday, he said.

It will be confirmed whether she was raped only after getting the medical examination report, he said.

The woman, in her police complaint lodged with the Bettah town police station on Saturday, alleged that four men forcibly took her inside their vehicle (car) while she was passing through the area where she lives on Friday evening, and raped her in a moving vehicle, police said.

The men then dumped the woman in her locality after raping her. All the four men had covered their faces with masks but she could remove the masks and identify them.

While all the four persons belonged to the same family, two of them were brothers, she said. Over 30 girls were allegedly raped at the shelter home run by Brajesh Thakur, the chief of a state-funded NGO.

The alleged sexual exploitation of the girls was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by TISS to the state’s social welfare department.

An FIR was lodged against 11 people, including Thakur, on May 31, 2018. The state government had on July 26, 2018 handed over the case to the CBI. On February 7, 2019, the Supreme Court ordered authorities to transfer the case from Bihar to a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Saket District Court complex in Delhi, which would conclude the trial within six months by holding preferably day-to-day hearing.

Nitish Kumar is captain of NDA in Bihar, says Sushil Modi

Source: thehindu.com

Days after party MLC Sanjay Paswan’s statement that Nitish Kumar should quit his post of Bihar Chief Minister and enter national politics, senior leader of Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi on Wednesday tweeted to say, “Nitish Kumar is the captain of NDA in Bihar and will remain its captain in next assembly elections in 2020 also.”

Earlier, State BJP MLC Sanjay Paswan had urged Nitish Kumar to relinquish his post for the BJP, at least for one term.

“Nitish Kumar is the captain of NDA in Bihar and will remain its captain in next assembly elections in 2020 also…when captain is hitting 4 & 6 defeating rivals by inning where is the question of any change,” tweeted Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi. Mr. Modi is a senior BJP leader in Bihar and considered close to Mr. Kumar.

Mr. Sanjay Paswan had on August 9 created upheaval in the State’s ruling NDA alliance by saying, “Nitish Kumar should now step down from the post of Chief Minister for BJP…we trusted him for 15-long years and he should now reciprocate the same for the BJP for at least one term.”

Mr. Paswan had further said that, “When people are supporting PM Modi government on all issues like abrogation of Article 370, Ram Mandir, Triple Talaq and NRC, why should Nitish Kumar not relinquish his post for the BJP for one term in Bihar?” He also added, “He [Nitish Kumar] has been the Chief Minister of the State for long 15 years and now the BJP should get chance for the development of the state with the PM Modi model.”

Party sources told The Hindu that Sanjay Paswan might not have made such comment about Nitish Kumar without having a “green signal” from the top party leadership in Delhi.

Supporters of another Bihar BJP leader and MP from Begusarai, Giriraj Singh, have performed prayers to see him as the chief minister of Bihar. However, Mr. Singh, who is also a Minister in the Modi Cabinet, later explained that his supporters might have said this “in over-excitement out respect for him”.

The Janata Dal-United (JD-U), though, reacted sharply to Sanjay Paswan’s comment. “Only Nitish Kumar will be the face of the NDA in the next Assembly elections in the State and it has been accepted even by the top BJP leaders,” said party leader and spokesperson Nikhil Mandal, while another party leader and chief spokesperson Sanjay Singh asked Mr. Paswan, “Where were you during the 2015 Assembly poll when the people of Bihar had voted for Nitish Kumar and not the BJP?”

Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav, though, dared the CM to “contradict” what the BJP leaders were saying. “Has the CM guts to contradict what BJP leaders are saying? Is it not true that honourable Nitish Kumar got votes in the name of PM Modi without releasing his party’s manifesto and got 16 of his party leaders elected as MPs on the BJP manifesto [in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll]…Is it not true that he has been supporting the BJP on every Bill?…Then how come he is different?” tweeted Mr. Yadav.

Recently, projecting Mr. Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate for the Assembly poll next year, the JD(U) released its revised party slogan “Kyon kare vichar, jab hain hi Nitish Kumar (why should we mull over, when there is Nitish Kumar)”. Earlier, the slogan was “kyon kare vichar, thike to hain Nitish Kumar (why should we mull over, when it’s okay to have Nitish Kumar) but they revised it when the media raised questions over the word “thike” (just okay).

Congress-NCP to fight 123-125 seats each, leave 41 for allies: Prithviraj Chavan

Source: freepressjournal.in

Mumbai: The Congress and NCP will fight about 123-125 seats each and leave 41 constituencies for smaller allies in the upcoming state polls, former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said on Tuesday.

He added that seats may be swapped based on consensus between the two major opposition parties. “Talks are on the with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (of Prakash Ambedkar), Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, Samajwadi Party. If alliance talks work out, 41 seats would be allocated to smaller allies,” he said.

Chavan, however, stressed that the VBA’s demand that the Congress severe ties with the NCP cannot be accepted. With a steady inflow of leaders from various parties into the BJP, Chavan accused the ruling dispensation of misusing power to finish off the opposition.

“Political parties are at the heart of parliamentary democracy, but now this is under threat. There is an attempt to take the country towards one-party rule which the country briefly experienced during Emergency,” he alleged.

Against the backdrop of the arrest of former Union minister P Chidambaram and ex-Karnakata minister DK Shivakumar, Chavan said the BJP was trying to terrorise opposition leaders to force them to join it.

Speaking about the induction of Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Jaydutt Kshirsagar and Avinash Mahatekar into the Fadnavis cabinet, Chavan said 91st Constitutional amendment, made during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2003, had clarified that even if an MLA quits the Assembly and joins another party, he cannot be made a minister.

“We have filed a petition in High Court challenging appointment of three such ministers. The judgement is likely tomorrow,” he said.

HC issues status quo over eviction of Bihari people

Source: dhakatribune.com

Court also issued rule to 24 respondents including the National Housing Authority and DNCC

The High Court has ordered to maintain the status quo for two months over eviction of stranded Bihari people from 32 plots situated at Mirpur Section 11 in Dhaka.  

The High Court bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Khairul Alam passed the order on Monday after hearing a writ petition filed by the Bihari people on August 25. 

The court also issued a rule to 24 respondents including the National Housing Authority and the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC). 

Advocate Md Shahjahan accompanied by other lawyers stood for the petitioner while Deputy Attorney General Md Sarwar Hossain Bappi represented the state.

On August 7, the National Housing Authority issued a letter to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police seeking their help to conduct an eviction drive at the plots.

RPI demands seats, silent on contesting on BJP symbol

Source: freepressjournal.in

Mumbai: Republican Party of India (RPI) led by Ramdas Aathwale has demanded 10 seats for the forthcoming Assembly election, but has kept a secret whether the party will contest on BJP symbol Lotus or not?

RPI Mumbai unit held a rally at NSCI Stadium in Worli on Thursday. The event was attended by CM Devendra Fadanvis, Union Minister of State Ramdas Athawale, Lok Sabha member Rahul Shewale, Ministers Mahadev Jankar, Suresh Khade and Avinash Mahatekar, among others.

It was being said Athawale will open his cards about whether RPI candidates would contest on Lotus or not. But he did not utter a single word about it. “We want 8-10 seats in the Assembly election. I am confident our alliance will win 240 seats in the poll,” Athhawale said.

Replying to his demands, CM Fadnavis assured him him that RPI will have its own representative in the state Assembly.

“It is now certain the BJP Shiv Sena-RPI-RSP grand alliance will again come to power in the state. But, I promise the next Assembly will have leader of RPI as its member,” Fadnavis assured among thunderous applaus from the audience.

Power follows me, says Athavale

“I am always criticised for compromising valuses to be in power. Actually, wherever I go, power follows me. When I joined the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, they were in opposition.

Later, we came to power at the Centre as well as in the state,” Athawale stated, while addressing his workers. He also praised the BJP-Sena government for effective implementation of various schemes of SC and ST.

Won’t allow change in Constitution

Athwale also countered allegations of the Opposition and stated he would not allow the Modi government to change the Constitution.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a strong supporter of reservation of SCs and STs. The BJP is not anti- Ambedkar or anti-reservation. If any anti-Constitution thing happens, I am there to protect the Constitution,” Athavale said.

Echoing the same sentiment, CM Fadnavis said it was a malacious campaign of the Opposition parties that the BJP would end reservation. “In fact, when the 50 years limit of the SC and ST Reservation ended in 1997,

it was BJP PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee who extended this limit. We are not anti-Constitution. When Modi took oath, he saluted Constitution,” Fadnavis said.

‘Poster War’ Over Nitish Kumar Being “Just Fine”, And Bihar “Sick”

Source: ndtv.com

PATNA: A “poster war” erupted in Bihar on Tuesday as the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal countered a recent slogan by the ruling Janata Dal-United that claimed Nitish Kumar was doing “just fine” as the chief minister, and there was no need for a leadership change ahead of the assembly polls next year.

“Kyon na karen vichaar, Bihar hai bimaar (why not think for a change when Bihar is sick) screamed a poster put up by the RJD at its state headquarters on the Birchand Patel Marg in Patna. The party also came out with several verses on social media, alleging that the state was in a bad shape under Nitish Kumar and there was an urgent need for leadership change.

The RJD’s poster came up a day after people noticed that the JDU had, at its own headquarters right across the road, put up two gigantic banners proclaiming “Kyon karen vichaar, theeke to hain Nitish Kumar”. 

Roughly translated, it means “Where’s the need to think (about political alternatives) when Nitish Kumar is doing just fine”.

The slogan was the latest in a series of catchy one-liners the JDU has come up with to capture public imagination and eyeballs.

Two such older posters with slogans — Bihar mein bahar hai Nitish Kumar hai (Bihar blooms, the state wants only Nitish Kumar) and Sachcha hai, achha hai, chalo Nitish ke saath chalo (he is good, he is honest, let us go with Nitish) — can be still found inside the JDU office premises.

The move is being seen as an attempt by the JDU, a party without much organizational depth which banks heavily on the charisma of Nitish Kumar, also its national president, to suggest that despite the growing clout of ally BJP, the party still saw Mr Kumar as the NDA’s best bet in the state.

However, senior BJP leader C P Thakur, a former state party chief and a colleague of Mr Kumar in the erstwhile Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, had a different take on the slogan.

“I do not know why the JDU has used the expression ‘theeke hai‘ for Nitish Kumar. It gives an impression that he has been just okay when his performance as chief minister has been truly commendable. The party has a right to coin its own slogans, but it could have come up with something better,” CP Thakur told reporters in Patna.

JDU sources said on condition of anonymity that the slogan was coined by a senior office-bearer of the party who does not have “much aptitude for political strategy”.

It was unlike the 2015 assembly polls when Prashant Kishor, now the party’s national vice-president, had got his team to come up with “Bihar mein bahar hai, Nitish Kumar hai” which, rendered to acclaimed composer Sneha Khanwalkars tune, had worked wonders for the party when it had hit a rough patch, he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, a senior BJP leader known to be close to Nitish Kumar, reminded on Twitter assembly elections in the state are more than a year away. 

“This is not the time when the NDA would like to be in the poll mode…… there is neither any doubt nor any infighting over the issue of leadership in our camp.”

Sushil Modi had, in a rare gesture, said in the state assembly during the Monsoon session last month that the ruling coalition would contest the assembly polls under Nitish Kumar’s leadership.

Several hardliners in the BJP have shown the inclination for asserting the party’s supremacy in Bihar after its phenomenal growth under the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine. 

Five BJP backbones who departed in last one year

Source: afternoonvoice.com

The ruling BJP won landslide victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and returned to power for second consecutive term at the Centre. But the party lost five tall leaders in past one year which is irreparable loss.  These five great leaders were Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manohar Parrikar, Ananth Kumar, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. The BJP and the entire country will always remember their contributions to the nation.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. He died on August 16, 2018, in New Delhi. He served as the prime minister of India thrice.

Vajpayee was first elected to parliament in 1957 as a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) which was forerunner of the BJP. In 1977 the BJS joined three other parties to form the Janata Party which led a government that lasted until July 1979. As foreign minister in the Janata government, Vajpayee earned a reputation for improving relations with Pakistan and China. In 1980, following a split in the Janata Party, Vajpayee helped the BJS to reorganise itself as the BJP. In 1992 he was one of the few Hindu leaders to speak out against the destruction of the historic mosque at Ayodhya.

Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister in May 1996 but was in office only 13 days, after failing to attract support from other parties. In early 1998 he again became prime minister, in elections in which the BJP won a record number of seats, but he was forced to make a shaky alliance with regional parties. In 1999 the BJP increased its seats in parliament and came back to power.

Manohar Parrikar

Former Defence Minister and the four times Chief Minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar passed away on March 17, 2019, at the age of 63. He was born on December 13, 1955. He was the Chief Minister of Goa since 14 March 2017. Parrikar was battling prolonged illness. He was diagnosed with a pancreatic cancer. A graduate in metallurgical engineering from IIT-Bombay in 1978, he was the first IITian to serve as the legislator of a state.

Parrikar proposed the name of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate before 2013 BJP parliamentary elections convention in Goa. He served in the National Democratic Alliance government under Prime MinisterNarendra Modi as Defence Minister of India from 2014 to 2017. He was a former member of Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. Parrikar was the Defence Minister in 2016 when India conducted a surgical strike on terror launch pads across the LoC, days after the terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.

Ananth Kumar

Ananth Kumar was Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers. He was born in 1959 in Bangalore. Ananth Kumar was influenced by the RSS from his childhood and joined the ABVP, the BJP’s student wing. During the Emergency, he was imprisoned. He was later elected ABVP’s State Secretary and then its National Secretary in 1985. He joined the BJP and was nominated state president of the BJP Yuva Morcha. He was then made BJP National Secretary in 1996.

In 1996, he was elected from Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency and has been elected from the same seat six consecutive times. In 1998 he was inducted into the Union Cabinet headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Minister for Civil Aviation. In 1999, he became a Cabinet minister in the NDA government. He handled various ministries like Tourism, Sports & Youth Affairs, Culture, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation.

He became the President of the Karnataka state unit of BJP in 2003 and led the BJP to become the single largest party in the Legislative Assembly and won the highest number of the Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in 2004. In 2004, he was appointed as the National General Secretary of the BJP.

Sushma Swaraj

Sushma Swaraj, a veteran leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former Minister of External Affairs in the Narendra Modi government in its first term, died on August 6, 2019, following a heart attack. She was 67. She breathed her last in New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

She was also the Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs from May 26, 2014, to January 7, 2016. She represented Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha constituency in the 16th Lok Sabha. She had joined the BJS after the Emergency of 1975. Swaraj had won her first election at the age of 25 in 1977 from the Ambala Cantonment Assembly constituency. In July 1977, she had become a Cabinet Minister in the Janata Party Government under Chief Minister Devi Lal. She taken got the position of the state president of Janata Party (Haryana) in 1979. Swaraj was also the Education Minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party–Lok Dal coalition government in Haryana during 1987-1990.

A Cabinet minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Swaraj had held the portfolios of Health and Family Welfare, Information and Broadcasting at different junctures. She was the Chief Minister of Delhi from October 13, 1998 to December 3, 1998. In November 2018, Sushma Swaraj had announced that she would not contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 due to health reasons.

Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley was born on 28 December 1952 in Delhi. Until 2014, Jaitley had never contested any direct elections. That year, he was BJP candidate in Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency, but lost to Amarinder Singh of Congress. Jaitley was selected by newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be Minister of Finance, Minister for Corporate Affairs and Minister of Defence in his cabinet. With Jaitley as FM, the Modi government was able to take several key economic decisions like demonetisation and GST. In Jaitley’s stewardship, the Modi government merged the railway budget with the general Budget. Moreover, the decision to advance the date of the general budget to February 1 was also taken with Jaitley as FM. GST went under several tax-slab revisions and Jaitley maneuvered them efficiently. He also introduced Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to resolve the issues with companies that were turning insolvent.