A day after the Maoist attack in Dantewada district which claimed four lives, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh Wednesday convened an emergency meeting of officials and asked them to intensify operations against the ultras.
Singh held the meeting with senior bureaucrats and police officials at his official residence, where he reviewed the law and order situation. He directed them to intensify operations against the naxals, a government public relation official told agencies.
Maoists on Tuesday attacked a police patrol party accompanying a three-member team of national broadcaster Doordarshan for election related coverage, near Nilawaya village under Aranapur police station limits of Dantewada at around 11 am.
Two policemen- Sub Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh, assistant constable Manglu and the cameraman of Doordarshan Achyutanand Sahu were killed on the spot. Of the two injured policemen, an assistant constable Rakesh Kaushal died here at a private hospital on Wednesday morning.
During the meeting, the chief minister condemned the attack and expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of the martyred personnel and the media person, the official said.
Chief Secretary Ajay Singh, Principal Secretary (Home) Amitabh Jain, Principal Secretary to the CM Aman Singh, Director General of Police (DGP) A N Upadhyay, Special DG (anti-naxal operations) D M Awasthi and states Additional Director General (Intelligence) Ashok Juneja were present at the meeting.
Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh are scheduled to held next month in two phases- on November 12 and 20. The counting of votes will be held on December 11.
Naxals have called upon voters to boycott the polls in the state.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought details from the Narendra Modi-led government on the pricing and strategies of Rafale fighter jets in a sealed cover within ten days.
The pricing of the aircraft, the government so far had maintained, is covered under the Official Secrets Act.
The decision from the Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices UU Lalit and KM Joseph came after hearing a clutch of petitions filed to seek investigation into the alleged irregularities in the multi-billion dollar deal.
The matter will next be heard on November 14.
On October 27, the Centre had submitted the details of the decision-making process of the Rafale deal to the Supreme Court’s Secretary-General in a sealed cover.
The Rafale jet deal controversy has been on the boil over the last few months. The Congress and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal.
The fighter jet is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft, which security analysts believe can be a ‘game-changer’ for India’s defence system.
The deal to procure its fleet was announced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with then French president François Hollande in 2016.
Political slugfest over the deal escalated when Hollande, in an interview last month, claimed that France had no choice in the selection of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence as offset partner for Rafale-maker Dassault.
Top political leaders on Wednesday paid homage to India’s third prime minister Indira Gandhi to commemorate her 34th death anniversary.
“Tributes to our former Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary,” tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi also took to the micro-blogging site to remember his grandmother “with a deep sense of happiness.”
“Remembering Dadi today with a deep sense of happiness. She taught me so much and gave me unending love. She gave so much of herself to her people. I am very proud of her,” his tweet read.
The Congress President, along with his mother and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, also paid floral tributes to the ‘Iron Lady’ at her memorial Shakti Sthal.
Indira Gandhi, who was hailed as one of the tallest world leaders, was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards at her residence located in Akbar Road on October 31, 1984. This came after Operation Bluestar was executed at Amritsar’s Golden Temple, wherein Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to confront Sikh separatists who had taken shelter at the holy shrine.
Born on November 19, 1917, to India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Nehru, she served as prime minister for three terms lasting almost 16 years.
Gandhi, who is the second longest serving Prime Minister, was well known for path-breaking economic and social reforms, including nationalisation of banks, copper, refining, cotton textiles and even insurance industries. She also abolished privy purses of the erstwhile princely states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday dedicated to the nation a 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, believed to be the tallest in the world, and said it will be a reminder about the courage of a man who thwarted efforts to disintegrate India.
Gujarat Governor O P Kohli, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and BJP chief Amit Shah were present at the unveiling of the ‘Statue of Unity’.
The ceremony coincided with Patel’s 143rd birth anniversary.
Had Sardar Patel not united the country, we would need visas to see lions or pay homage at Somnath or view the Charminar in Hyderabad, the prime minister said.
He added that the statue will remind those who question India’s existence that this nation was, is and will remain eternal.
He described the Statue of Unity as a symbol of the country’s engineering and technical capabilities.
The imposing monument is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US and is built on an islet, Sadhu Bet, near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat’s Narmada district.
It has been built using over 70,000 tonnes of cement, 18,500 tonnes of reinforcement steel, 6,000 tonnes of structural steel and 1,700 metric tonnes of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure.
A viewing gallery has been created at a height of 135 metres inside the statue to enable tourists to have a view of the dam and nearby mountain ranges.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced 16 policemen to life imprisonment for killing 42 people of a minority community in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre case in Uttar Pradesh.
A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed the trial court’s verdict which had acquitted the accused.
The high court convicted 16 former Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel for murder and of kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code.
It termed the massacre “targeted killing” of unarmed and defenceless people by the police.
The high court’s verdict came on pleas challenging a trial court’s decision to acquit 16 policemen of charges of murder and other crimes in the case.
The Maharashtra Irrigation scam was one of the biggest UPA government scams which involved financial irregularities and where the sheer magnitude of the money siphoned off by the politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus was staggering. Most of the leaders involved in the scam are the NCP leaders. In February 2012, chief engineer Vijay Pandhare, member of state technical advisory committee, wrote to the former chief minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan alleging that there was a rampant corruption in the department. The authorities wrote back to Pandhare asking him for concrete evidence to which he replied back with a letter of 15 pages detailing the modus operandi and the specifics of the scam which stated that more than Rs 35,000 crore, which was half the amount of Rs 70,000 crore spent on the irrigation schemes between 1999-2009, were pocketed by the nexus. After a survey, it came to the light that, over a decade, the state irrigation potential had increased only 0.1 per cent. The scam opened a Pandora’s Box.
Between 1999-2009, Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar was the Minister of State Irrigation and during this period, it was evident that he twisted the administrative processes and ensured that he directly handled every file pertaining to new projects. All approved files carried his signatures and his culpability mounted by the day. The list of malpractices by Ajit Pawar in the irrigation sector can roll into pages. But he has categorically denied corruption charges and said that the decisions were taken while keeping the state cabinet in the loop and also the decisions were taken well within the power vested with him as the Irrigation Minister. And as of date, the most dismaying aspect of the scam is that the lakhs of farmers particularly in the Vidharba region, for whom the project was supposed to bring relief from the unending cycles of drought, have still not being provided irrigation facilities.
All the politicians involved in this are happily living their exorbitant life at the price of farmer suicide being the most common thing in Maharashtra. Leaving aside their fake promises of upliftment of peasants, the-so-called-proposed-dams, livestock schemes, Gramin Yojanas amidst inflation, false hoarding of goods, lack of basic education and mechanisation, agricultural marketing and all the other plight faced by poor farmers, the most trivial thing that the government could ensure is that every morsel finds its mouth. Even oppositions were the spectators; there were no inherent checks and balances. The government caged the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Three times the Congress-NCP government, the then Chief Ministers – Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushil Kumar Shinde, and Ashok Chavan turned a blind eye to the ongoing plunder in their respective tenures.
The Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government is completing four years in power. Fadnavis’ voice was one of the loudest against the irrigation scam. He came to power taking on Pawars over corruption, but once coming to power, he turned deaf and dumb on investigations – which was expected to hit NCP, particularly, its former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare, but he went soft-foot on the issue. At the same time, the Chief Minister has not shown gusto in bringing into light the misdeeds of the previous government. After the State Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar proposed a white paper on the state’s dismal financial performance in the past 15 years of the UPA rule, the CM insisted that it be softened to a mere status report. BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the recent Assembly elections by winning 121 seats – 23 short of an absolute majority. Hectic negotiations with both the Sena and NCP failed to yield results as both insisted on a larger share of ministries than BJP was willing to cede. Now that the picture is clear, there is a big question mark on the future of the investigation into the infamous irrigation scam. Will Fadnavis now take the investigation – which is expected to hit NCP, particularly its former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare, to its logical end? Or would he be forced to go soft-foot on the issue just to keep his government from falling?
Surprisingly, BJP loyalists like Nitin Gadkari and Chainsukh Sancheti have also been implicated in the scam. In the 13 days since his government was formed, Fadnavis’ actions have been ambiguous towards both the NCP and the issue of irrigation. On one hand, he sent a powerful message to the irrigation lobby by appointing IAS officer Malini Shankar as the Water Resources Department (WRD) head, ending the tradition of appointing department officials to that crucial post. While on the other hand, the ACB had filed two FIRs and one charge sheet in the scam, no politician was indicted. A nexus of contractors, officials, and politicians had milked thousands of crores meant for irrigation projects, revealed sources. NCP leaders who had controlled the department came under the scanner, but so far nothing much is done in this case. The AAP leaders are trying their best by knocking legal doors, let’s see what further twist this case takes.
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)
Aam Aadmi Party leader Preeti Sharma Menon, social activist Anjali Damania, Ajay Mathankar, and others had been fighting a legal battle against FA Construction in Bombay High Court for irregularities in the irrigation projects at Karjat and Konkan region. FA Construction had approached the Supreme Court mentioning that the filed PIL is not maintainable even after the matter was already heard by the Bombay HC and the court clearly said that the PIL has maintainability and it’s not an invalid PIL. Despite this, the firm filed two separate Special Leave Petitions (SLPs) in the SC and they continued asking for adjournments with an intention of delaying the case proceedings, as alleged by the petitioners.
“FA Construction was using the SLPs simply to delay the proceedings of the Bombay HC. They themselves were hardly available during the hearings. On Monday also they tried to postpone the hearing but the court denied. The SC was fed up of the adjournments that FA Construction was demanding. Finally, the SC heard the case and stated that delaying the case is not acceptable; calling the PIL maintainable, the apex court asked the construction company to go back to the Bombay HC and let the trial continue,” said AAP Leader Preeti Sharma Menon.
The Kondhane Dam in Karjat tehsil of Raigad district that initially started with an estimated cost of Rs 56 crore later escalated to a Rs 1,500 cr project. The petitioners against the irrigation scam found such similar irregularities in all dam construction projects in the Konkan region where it all started with a small amount, got approvals without going through any proceedings, and with manipulated tender procedures. Preeti shared with Afternoon Voice that even the court suggested the petitioners that a criminal case of corruption can be filed and directed the ACB to investigate. Petitioners regret that the investigations and hearing were on initially, but since the FAC filed SLPs in 2015, there have been no proper hearings. The whole process got stuck up as everybody was waiting for the SC order.
The PIL was first filed in 2012 and Devendra Fadnavis, then in Opposition, was one of the biggest complainants of irrigation scams, aviation scams, etc. against the erstwhile government. The petitioners attacked the present government stating that even though they had truckloads of data to prove the scams, ever since the Fadnavis government has come into power, the government has gone slow on investigations.
“A few days back, in an interview, the CM stated that the investigation is going on and being monitored by the court but this is not true. This is not a court-monitored inquiry. ACB, which comes directly under the CM, is independently responsible for the inquiry. This is completely a case of criminal negligence from the government,” Menon added further.
When the hearings were stuck due to the SLPs, what prevented the ACB to go ahead with their investigations? Why has the ACB seized all efforts to continue with the inquiry? “There was no direction from the court for ACB to stop the investigation. The ACB is also hand in gloves with the contractors hoping for the SC to dismiss the case and stopping to function since 2015,” Menon charged.
Petitioner Ajay Mathankar said, “My objection about the scam was irregularity and corruption in the department — a lot of required permission was not taken to start the projects. Whatever work was done in the twelve projects in that area was illegal while taxpayers’ money was at risk. Balganga Dam project cost was already paid and we managed to save Kondhane’s Rs 500 cr till now because of the PIL.”
“The previous NCP-Congress government was majorly a corrupted one. The present government made this a poll issue in 2014; subsequently, the investigations were dragged and were stalled due to the court proceedings. The ACB had filed FIRs, charge sheets and put people in jail who were granted bail later — nothing has happened to the then ministers who were accused in the case,” Mathankar further asserted.
NCP MLC Vidya Chavan expressed, “If any corruption had occurred during the erstwhile government, the incumbent State BJP government would’ve investigated it. Being in opposition then, this government used to protest against the corruption, why aren’t they taking steps now? Who’s stopping them?”
She called the allegations against NCP-Congress government made by the BJP stating it as nothing but a political game plan to defame their government and Ajit Pawar. “All these were to stop the good developmental work done by the then Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra. They had made the similar allegations at the centre — be it 2G Spectrum case or Coalgate case. But after coming to the power, they failed to prove all of their allegations while corruption in the country has seen a new height under the rule of BJP,” she added.
Opposition parties said on Tuesday Maharashtra has lagged on development front under the four- year-old BJP-led government and also accused it of fomenting social unrest in the state for political gains.
While the Congress said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s government had taken the state backward by two decades, the NCP hit out at the BJP-led dispensation over its handling of the Maratha reservation agitation and violence at Koregaon-Bhima village in Pune district
The BJP-led government will complete four years in office on Wednesday.
State Congress vice-president and spokesman Ratnakar Mahajan said over the four years only Fadnavis’s political clout had grown since no one in the BJP dared to speak against him for fear of inviting the wrath of the party leadership.
“It is true that there is a perception that Fadnavis is the only leader of party (the BJP) in the state and his political clout had grown since there was no opposition to him. But, nobody dared to speak for fear of rebellion being crushed as is done in the BJP,” Mahajan said.
He said none of the pre-poll promises made by the BJP has been fulfilled.
“However, Fadnavis’s increased political clout has not benefited the people of the state. None of the promises made before the 2014 Assembly polls has been fulfilled.
“All assurances like a toll-free Maharashtra and reservation for the Dhangar community were given just to win elections. The four years of the BJP-Sena rule has taken the state backward by two decades,” the Congress leader said.
On September 21, Fadnavis completed 1,421 days in office to become the longest-serving non-Congress chief minister of the state, a record previously held by Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi, who was in office for 1,420 days. Fadnavis is the first BJP chief minister of Maharashtra.
Responding to questions, Mahajan said the BJP’s claim to have become the single largest party in local bodies in the state was “half truth”.
“The BJP is a power hungry party. Earlier, political parties did not contest the local bodies polls on official party symbol. The objective was to ensure peace and harmony in gram panchayats, municipal councils, zilla parishads.
“Now, the BJP aligned with local outfits and fought the local bodies like in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections and claim that the all numbers are with the ruling party,” he said.
Mahajan said only 39,000 farmers benefited from the loan waiver scheme which was dubbed as the biggest in history by the Fadnavis government.
These farmers got loan waiver to the tune of Rs 16,000 crore, not a very big amount given the overall size of the scheme, he said.
“Fadnavis had announced that 89 lakh farmers will get Rs 34,000 crore loan waiver. Which figure is correct? People would like to know,” he said.
Mahajan rubbished the government’s claim that the Jalyukt Shivar Yojana was revolutionary and 16,000 villages had become drought-free under the water conservation scheme.
“Which are these villages? Their names should be uploaded on the government website. How many are from Marathwada, which is reeling under severe drought like conditions,” he asked.
The Congress leader said the government defence that Jalyukt Shivar related works were completed but nothing could be done because of lack of rains was “childish”.
“The Ground Water Survey and Development Authority (GSDA) has reported that the water table had depleted in over 30,000 villages,” he said.
Speaking about the handling of the Maratha reservation agitation and Koregaon-Bhima violence, NCP spokesman Nawab Malik alleged the “government had been fomenting social unrest in the state for political gains.”
“The government has not delivered on its electoral promises. All sections of the society, including the youth and farmers, are disillusioned with it,” Malik said.
Meanwhile, political observers said Fadnavis’s biggest success in the last four years was to prevent any strong challenge to himself.
Agitations by farmers, anganwadis workers and Maratha community members were neutralised by dividing the protesters, according to Maratha reservation activist Sanjay Lakhe Patil.
The decisions taken to address Maratha grievances are only on paper. Nationalised banks do not give financial help to Maratha youth for self-employment initiatives, he said.
Not a single hostel has been constructed for Maratha youth as promised, Patil said.
Malik said the state is suffering because of the tug of war between the Shiv Sena and the BJP. “It is their internal matter. But, why should Maharashtra suffer in their fight,” the NCP leader asked.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has repudiated the opposition’s allegations that Jalyukta Shivar, his government’s flagship water conservation programme, has “failed” after a drought-like situation gripped parts of the state.
Fadnavis, who will complete four years in office on Wednesday, stressed the scheme was “100 per cent successful” and also accused the opposition parties of “politicising” the issue.
The chief minister averred the programme aims at creating structures to store rainwater through harvesting and not letting it percolate in the soil.
In the wake of deficit rainfall in the state (77 per cent of the annual average), ground water extraction was up by 27 per cent this season over last year in the state, resulting in depleting level subsurface, he argued.
“And when you extract water, the ground water level is going to fall. It will replenish when it rains next year,” he said, while interacting with a select group of journalists at his official residence ‘Varsha’ late night on Monday.
The chief minister observed that 179 talukas in the state received poorer rainfall vis–vis the monsoon of 2014. Yet, 143 of them are such where the ground water level is better when compared to those in 2014, Fadnavis added.
He attributed the better levels in the talukas concerned to the implementation of the programme.
“One (the opposition) doesn’t try to understand the science behind it…So, the issue is being merely politicised. The scheme is 100 per cent successful,” he said, without naming any party.
Seeking to drive home his point, Fadnavis said the government treated 16,522 villages under the programme, launched in 2015.
The chief minister said the government, with public participation, completed 5.57 lakh works worth Rs 7,692 crore.
“All these works have created 24 lakh TCM water… 10,694 works were carried out through public participation… we can see 45 per cent rise in productivity,” he added.
The Congress and the NCP had last week attacked the government over the programme, alleging it was a “failure”.
They had also claimed the scheme was implemented unscientifically and contracts were awarded to contractors close to those in power.
On his government’s four-year performance, Fadnavis, the first BJP chief minister of the state, said it has done “huge qualitative and quantitative works in all areas”.
Seeking to underscore the difference between his administration and the previous Congress-NCP government, the CM said his dispensation did better job in areas such as rural development, agriculture, irrigation, health, water resources, law and order, education, business, tourism and others.
“I am not claiming everything is fair. There are challenges (before the government). But the train of (growth of) Maharashtra had derailed, (and it) has been brought on track and it is running fast,” Fadnavis said.
Some people are habitual abusers. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is one of them. The other day he abused Prime Minister Narendra Modi by dragging Lord Shiva. At any Shiva Temple, we see Shiva Linga with Cobra protecting the top of the Linga with its hood. Snake is like an ornament for the Lord who is credited with gulping the venom that came out after the legendary churning of the ocean (Samudra Manthan).
Shashi Tharoor has seen a scorpion on the head of Shiva Linga. That scorpion is none else than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to Tharoor. Well, Mr. Tharoor, you intended to scold Modi. It could also be interpreted as Modi in any form was worshipping Lord Shiva.
A few months ago Tharoor said that in case the BJP returns to power at the Centre in 2019, they will tear the Indian Constitution apart and declare India as a Hindu Rashtra. I had commented then that Tharoor has no knowledge of the Constitution of India.
In politics, dissent and opposition don’t mean hurling filth and abuse at opponents. But Tharoor is not alone in this kind of political culture. His leader Rahul Gandhi who is also President of the Congress Party has gone a step ahead of Tharoor and the likes of Mani Shankar Aiyar in using language that is most foul against Prime Minister.
I would like to quote Rahul Gandhi who made the following statement on the floor of Lok Sabha some time back. Rahul said in Hindi which translated in English runs like this.
“No matter what you (BJP and Modi) say about me, no matter you abuse me, scold me, but I will not abuse you. I don’t believe in hate politics”
Well, Rahul Gandhiji, you have been saying this in your speeches of lately that “Chowkidar Chor Hai”. If this is not an abuse what it is! You tell the audience to repeat the slogan to abuse Modi. Such innuendos will not earn votes in elections. Rahul Gandhi has been harping on Rafale Deal outright saying that the Modi Government had taken Rs 30,000 crores from ‘your’ (public) pocket and given the same to Anil Ambani. The work on Rafale in India has not even begun.
To me, it appears that Congress rank and file and its leadership is frustrated to see that Modi’s popularity is intact despite the Opposition beating chest over demonetisation, GST, farmers plight etc. Rahul is trying to raise Bofors like a spectre on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections which is just a few months away from now. The bribery charge on Bofors Gun deal was against his father, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, that led to the defeat of the Congress in 1989.
But resurrecting the ghost of Bofors in a new form of Rafale will fall flat as there is no evidence to show that the fighter plane deal was made with France with Indian agents getting a bribe or the government or Prime Minister being involved in under the table deal. The deal was primarily to strengthen the depleting squadrons of Indian Air Force. Mig 21 squadrons, a couple of them, are going to be taken out of the Indian Air Force fleet in a few months from now. New 36 Rafale fighter planes would add only two squadrons of our Air Force.
Politically, the Rafale issue has failed to make an impact on the people of India. Majority of Indians have not heard anything like Rafale deal.
Someone coming from Kolkata said that in West Bengal, Rahul Gandhi’s style of the offensive against Modi is seen as an act of buffoonery. A retired Army officer said that Rahul has not learned his lessons in politics.
The Congress or for that matter other parties opposed to the BJP should first call a brain-storming session of its leaders to find issues to attack Modi and the BJP-led government of the NDA before any talk of Mahagathbandhan. Attacking Modi or Mohan Bhagwat will not bring votes.
Some other leaders of the Congress like Sanjay Nirupam has called Prime Minister ‘Anpadh aur Ganwar’. The list of abusers is long.
I conclude this article by quoting the following paragraph of Mark Thompson, former Director General of BBC from one of his articles.
“What happens when political language fails? When the rage and incomprehension boil over, and we run out of a common vocabulary and sufficient trust in each other’s words to be able to sit down and work through what unites and divides us? Don’t expect much comfort from history. From the fall of Athens to the rise of totalitarianism, observers from Thucydides to George Orwell have associated a breakdown in public language – or rhetoric, to give it a more traditional name – with the failure of democracy, loss of freedom, civil strife and, ultimately, tyranny and murder”.
By R K SINHA
(The writer of this article is a member of the Parliament, Rajya Sabha)
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of AFTERNOON VOICE and AFTERNOON VOICE does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
