Tag: leader

BJP dares Cong chief to clear stand on ‘thieves’ remark

Source: dailypioneer.com

State BJP leader and party spokesperson, Pratul Shahdeo has demanded State Congress president Rameshwar Oraon to make his stand clear on his ‘all are thieves’ comment. A few days ago, the State Congress chief, while talking to media persons on Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) future in State remarked that Chor Log Chori Karte Samay Ek Rahte Hain, Aur Chori Ka Maal Baatte Samay Alag Ho Jate Hain (thieves are together while committing theft, but fall apart while sharing the loot).

Shahdeo said, “The BJP wants to know from Congress chief that who is he referring to as Chor (thief) in his remark. With such a remark, Congress has equated JMM leader and former chief minister Hemant Soren, JVM (P) leader Babaulal Marandi and RJD chief Lalu Prasad on the same table.”

The BJP leader said this is not for the first time that Mahagathbandhan leaders have used such words for their partners. During the last Lok Sabha election, JMM executive president and former Chief Minister Hemant Soren had compared alliance leaders with rubble. The BJP leader said that Oraon’s remark, who is a senior Congress leader in State, implies that all is not well within the Mahagathbandhan camp.

Sources said that with just three to four months left for Assembly elections, the Mahagathbandhan leaders are yet to decide on alliance formula. Few days ago, Oraon stated that the Mahagathbandhan is still not clear about who they are going to project as their leader in coming Assembly poll. Oraon’s remark was a shock for JMM leadership as the JMM leaders have tried to project Hemant Soren as their Chief Ministerial candidate.

The Congress, on August 26, appointed Rameshwar Oraon as the new president of its Jharkhand unit and announced five working presidents for the State ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled later this year.

The new appointments in Jharkhand came after former State Congress chief Ajoy Kumar resigned from his post on August 9 owning moral responsibility, but blamed senior State leaders for sabotaging the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP leader on the occasion also attacked JMM for being anti-tribal. Shahdeo said, “JMM is number one party who is anti-tribal, as on several occasions the party has tried to betray tribals of this State.”

The BJP leader said that the JMM government introduced CSAT mode of examination in JPSC which is against the interest of tribals and moolvasi. Also in the JPSC examination very less weightage was given to local languages. Shahdeo said, “The JMM leader intentionally created hurdles in defining the local policy depriving lakhs of tribals from Government jobs.”

The BJP leader claimed that the JMM leaders, with an attempt to weaken the Gram Sabha, had provided sand license to businessmen from Mumbai. Also the JMM never made any local as Rajya Sabha members but made millionaire businessmen Muktinath Upadhaya and KD Singh as party’s representatives for Rajya Sabha.

Sheila Dikshit, an efficient leader who steered Delhi into the future

Source: thehindu.com

The political legacy of veteran Congress leader Sheila Dikshit, who was India’s longest serving woman Chief Minister, was best summed up by her one-time rival and now Union Minister for Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan. “We had our differences on policies, but we always admired her behaviour and efficiency,” he said as Delhi plunged into mourning following her death on Saturday evening.

“For 15 years, I had the opportunity to work with her in the Assembly as an MLA. But we always admired her behaviour and efficiency at work,” he said.

It was this efficiency that made Ms. Dikshit the face of a fast-changing Delhi, someone who knew how to change political adversity into opportunity.

The city’s change to cleaner public transport bears testimony to Ms. Dikshit’s efforts. In April 2001, public transport in the national capital collapsed as nearly 10,000 old and polluting diesel buses were ordered off the roads by the Supreme Court. The Congress government led by her was not ready with a plan to deploy cleaner CNG buses.

“For nearly two decades, Sheilaji personified Delhi and the aspirations of its citizens. She served them with her heart and mind and they gave her their abundant love. Every resident of Delhi will feel that he or she has today lost a member of his or her family,” former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said. 

Her largely successful legacy in Delhi was, however, marred by allegations of corruption during the 2010 Common Wealth Games. 

She also briefly served as the Governor of Kerala from March to August in 2014.

Ms. Dikshit was born in Kapurthala in Punjab to a non-political family in 1938, and graduated from Miranda House, University of Delhi. In July 1962, she married bureaucrat Vinod Dikshit, who she had met during her college days.

And her first foray into politics came when she assisted her father-in-law Uma Shankar Dikshit, a loyalist of Jawaharlal Nehru who had served as a Minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet in 1971 and become the Governor of Karnataka and West Bengal.

Ms. Dikshit took the formal plunge in 1984 when she became a Lok Sabha member from Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh. Known to be a loyalist of the the Gandhi family, she was hand-picked by Rajiv Gandhi in his Council of Ministers after he became the Prime Minister in 1984.

“We worked closely together during the years she was Chief Minister of Delhi, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief and secretary of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust,” Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said in a letter to Ms. Dikshit’s son, Sandeep Dikshit.

Ahead of the 2017 Assembly election, the Congress projected her as the chief ministerial candidate, but she was dropped after it tied up with the Samajwadi Party. She was made the Delhi Congress chief ahead of the Lok Sabha election and was defeated in the North East Delhi constituency.

NHRC issues notice to Bihar Police over JD(U) leader’s death; family claims Ganesh Ravidas was tortured in custody

Source: firstpost.com

New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Monday sent a notice to the Bihar police chief over the death of a JD(U) leader in police custody, hours after he was picked up for interrogation in a kidnapping case. The family of the leader, identified as Ganesh Ravidas, alleged that he was tortured in police custody.

Ravidas was found hanging from the ceiling of a toilet at the Nagarnausa police station in Nalanda on Thursday night, sources earlier said. Three policemen have been arrested in connection with the case.

Ravidas, who was the block president of the party’s Mahadalit cell, was picked up for interrogation in connection with the kidnapping of a girl, wherein he was not named as an accused, the sources had said.

“The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports that a local leader of the ruling JD(U) in Bihar, who was detained by the Nalanda police in connection with a kidnapping case, allegedly hanged himself inside the police station late on Thursday night,” the NHRC said in a statement.

The commission observed that the content of the news report, if true, amounted to a gross violation of the right to life. “Accordingly, the commission has issued a notice to the Director General of Police (DGP), Bihar, calling for a detailed report in the matter within six weeks,” the NHRC stated.

The police authorities had also been told to explain as to why intimation in this regard was not given to the commission within 24 hours of the occurrence of the incident, the rights panel said. Ravidas was detained by police on 11 July night in connection with an alleged kidnapping of a girl residing in his village.

He was suspected to have helped the girl elope, the NHRC said, quoting media reports. When police interrogation was on, he went to use a washroom, which was outside the lock-up, where he reportedly hanged himself, it said.

“The news report further reveals that the victim was killed by the police station in-charge and chowkidar. It is also stated that there were cut marks on the body of the deceased, suggesting it to be a case of torture in police custody,” the statement read.

BJP leader from Jharkhand joins JD(U) in presence of Nitish Kumar

Source: hindustantimes.com

Several political leaders from the neighbouring state of Jharkhand, including one from BJP, joined JD(U) on Sunday, following the party’s decision to go solo in the upcoming assembly elections in four states.

Those inducted into the JD (U) fold by national president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar were Prem Kataruka, former state secretary-cum-spokesperson of BJP, Manoj Yadav of JVM (P) and Arun Mandal and Prabhat Kumar Prabhakar of JMM.

Till now, as an unspoken rule, Bihar allies JD (U) and BJP have exercised restraint in allowing leaders from joining each other’s parties.

The notable crossover of Sanjay Jha from BJP into JD (U) camp in the state was an exception. Jha, who was elevated to the post of national general secretary, is now a minister.

Sunday’s development, viewed in the context of JD (U) turning down the ‘single berth’ offer in the union cabinet, is indicative that the party is not shy of triggering a political realignment in states ruled by its saffron ally. Jharkhand is one of the two BJP ruled states, other than Haryana, that goes to polls along with Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir later this year.

Arun Kumar Singh, in-charge of JD (U) affairs in Jharkhand, said that the joining of leaders will strengthen the party and help in providing a leg-up to its electoral prospects in the state, where voters are looking for an alternative.

That the Jharkhand state unit had already started its preparations on all the 81 assembly seats was evident from the claims of JD (U) state president Salkhan Murmu, who was pitching for Nitish-model of ‘Sushashan’ in his home state which, he believed, will usher development and also remove the friction between adivasi, moolvasi and others, so that people live in harmony.

Their optimism for a ‘good showing’ also stems from the rout faced by opposition parties—JMM, JVM (P), RJD and Congress—during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. “The JD (U) is in a position to provide a credible alternative to the tribals, minorities and others, particularly after the dismal electoral performance of the JMM-Congress combine,” he said.

Backing JD-U’s more than satisfactory poll performance in Arunachal Pradesh and the strong re-iteration that it was “not part of NDA outside Bihar,” a team of Prashant Kishor’s organisation has already landed in Ranchi to conduct an independent survey to assess the party’s electoral prospects in as many as 35 assembly seats in the first phase.

A BJP leader, not willing to be named, said that such things, ahead of elections, is a common phenomena and ‘disgruntled’ elementshave little or noimpact on final outcomeas voters remain wary and recent pollshave shown that theyreject ‘turncoats’ more often than not.