Seeking stay on the appointment of a new Army chief, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Friday wrote a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee.

Swamy said the timing of the appointment of new Army Chief will demoralise forces.

In a letter to the President, he said, “The timing of this proposed announcement will, inter alia, ensure that the COAS office is politicised and the armed forces demoralised.”

Swamy said, “The present government’s endeavour to announce the next COAS is in direct contravention to the established convention, both in terms of timeframe and also with regards to certain ongoing investigations that are currently before the judicial system.”

The opposition BJP has said the outgoing government should not appoint the new Army Chief and should leave it to the next government that is expected to take over towards the end of next month. The party has even petitioned the Election Commission to halt the process.

Notwithstanding objections by the BJP, the Defence Ministry is going ahead with the process of appointing the new Army Chief and has recommended the name of Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The recommendation of the Defence Ministry will have to be approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, official sources said.

As per tradition, the government announces the name of services chiefs-designate two months before the retirement of the incumbent.

Sticking to that, it is expected to announce the name of the new Army chief by May 01, three months prior to the date of retirement of Gen Bikram Singh.

The appointment of incumbent Chief Gen Singh was also done three months prior to the retirement of his predecessor Gen VK Singh, who had a turbulent relationship with the Defence Ministry and even dragged the government to the Supreme Court over his age controversy.

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Friday, chided BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for having invoked ‘Maa Ganga’ and slammed him for trying to act like a God.

Sibal said, “Maa Ganga is very wise, she can distinguish between the good, the bad and the ugly.”

“Kehte hai Ganga swachh kar dengey, yeh haath lagaengey aur Ganga saaf ho jayegi, bhagwan hai na (He (Modi) says he will clean up Ganga, he will touch with his hands and Ganga will get cleaned…he is God!),” he added.

Sibal was referring to Narendra Modi’s statement, in Varanasi that he was being called by the sacred river to serve the people on her banks.

“I bow to the purity and culture of this land. At first, I thought that the BJP has sent me here to fight the elections. Before coming here, I thought I was going to Kashi, but after I reached here I felt that Maa Ganga has called me here like a loving mother calls out to her son,” Modi said.

On his plans for Varanasi, he said would do all he can to maintain the purity of this sacred land and said that making Varanasi the spiritual capital of the country and the Ganga Purification Project would be his priority.

Sibal also hit out at Modi for speaking on the famed Ganga-Jamuni culture in the city.

“Surprising that Modi of all people talks of Ghalib and Kabir and Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb,” Sibal said.

“He (Modi) also evoked Gautam Buddha, who left his kingdom for nirvana…Modi comes to Varanasi for his kingdom,” he added.

The union minister also took the opportunity to negate the ‘Gujarat model of development’.

“Vibrant Gujarat is full of vibrant lies. The administration there is run by a man for whom distorting facts is a daily routine,” he said.

In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday deferred the verdict in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and referred the case to a larger Constitution Bench.

The Constitution Bench will now decide whether the Tamil Nadu government can release a life term convict whose death sentence has been converted into life imprisonment.

Saying that an interim order staying Tamil Nadu government’s decision on remission of sentence will continue, the top court added that the seven conspirators in the assassination case will not be released for now.

The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam framed seven questions to be addressed by the Constitution Bench, including whether after commutation of the death sentence into life imprisonment, can the government further grant them remission by releasing them.

The court also said that the Constitution Bench, which will take up the matter within three months, will also address which is the appropriate government under the code of criminal procedure – whether it is the state government or the central government or both.

Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy welcomed the apex court’s decision, calling it ‘sensible’.

The Centre had filed a petition challenging the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to release the life convicts.

On February 20, a bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh stayed the state government’s order, citing procedural lapses on the part of the State.

Notably, Chief Justice of India, P Sathasivam, is demitting office today.

The Centre had filed a petition challenging the State’s authority in ordering the release of all seven convicts, a day after the Supreme Court rejected its appeal against the commutation of death sentence to three convicts in the case — V Sriharan, alias Murugan, AG Perarivalan, alias Arivu, and T Suthendraraja, alias Santhan.

The bench had on February 18 commuted the death sentence of the three conspirators to life imprisonment, citing its January 21 judgement, which held that inordinate, unexplained and unreasonable delay in deciding the mercy petition of death row convicts was a ground for commutation of death to life imprisonment. The Tamil Nadu government subsequently decided to set free all the seven convicts in the case.

Besides Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan, the other four convicts are Nalini, Robert Pyas, Jayakumar and Ravichandran.

Rajiv Gandhi, who was the prime minister 1984-89, was killed by Dhanu, a Sri Lankan suicide bomber from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, at an election rally in Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991.

In 1998, all the 26 accused in the case were sentenced to death by a special trial court.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Gandhi on Friday once again launched a blistering attack on Narendra Modi saying that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate should tell the people what he has done for the farmers in Gujarat.

Hitting out at the Gujarat Chief Minister, the wife of businessman Robert Vadra said that Modi should tell the people what he would do if voted to power and not just teach English alphabets.

Mocking at the BJP strongman, Priyanka exhorted: “You are not teaching in a school, you are addressing the nation, tell them what you will do.”

Appealing to the people to vote for the Congress president, Priyanka said that Sonia has done a lot of development work in the Rae Bareli district.

She further urged the people to reject the parties involved in divisive politics and vote for the Congress.

Of late, Priyanka has raised the poll pitch by directly attacking Modi, who has also hit back by targeting her husband Robert Vadra for alleged dubious deals.

On a daily basis Priyanka has been campaigning for her brother and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and the UPA chairperson in Amethi and Rae Bareli districts.

Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday accused his successor and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee of declaring an “all-out war” against the Election Commission (EC).

Admitting that the state’s erstwhile Left Front government too had its share of differences with the poll panel, Bhattacharjee said Banerjee’s relentless attack and public outbursts against the commission were unprecedented.

“We too had our differences, but we never declared a war against the EC. It is unheard of, the way she has been attacking the EC, the language she has been using, her body language,” the veteran Marxist leader said.

With the EC compelling the Bengal government to twice remove several officials and policemen from poll duty, Banerjee has led a no holds barred attack on the panel, accusing it of colluding with the Congress, the BJP and the CPI-M to ensure the Trinamool’s defeat in the polls.

“She did not even hesitate to accuse a senior official of criminal charges. How can she launch such an attack on another constitutional body? It is unheard of and I don’t know how it is being allowed to happen,” said the CPI-M politburo member.

He was referring to Banerjee’s claim where she accused Deputy Election Commissioner Vinod Zutshi of being involved in a scam in Rajasthan and sought his removal from the poll panel.

Bhattacharjee also attacked Banerjee for her recent comments at a public rally where she claimed that some “CPI-M and Congress leaders draw up the transfer list of Bengal officers at the residence of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel”.

The CPI-M leader expressed satisfaction over the EC’s performance in the state during the Lok Sabha election.

“We are satisfied by EC’s performance, they are doing a good job. However, it would have been better if there were more central security forces. But at the same time, we don’t have any complaint regarding the deployment of central forces,” he added.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Friday said the media was trying to create a “false wave” in favour of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

The former UP chief minister said that Modi had cast his spell on the media, which was trying to create a “false wave” in his favour.

“Bhajpayiyon ne media ke through ek nakli hawa banane ki koshish ki hai,” she said and went on to add that even some “astrologers of fame had been managed to create a wave in favour of the BJP”.

She also alleged that both the Samajwadi Party (SP) and BJP were trying to polarize the electorate on caste and community lines.

She sought the intervention of the Election Commission (EC) for added security for mosques and temples in eastern UP and accused the Congress of shedding crocodile tears for minorities.

The Jharkhand police have admitted to ‘mistakes’ after three polling officials and five policemen were killed on Thursday evening when the bus they were traveling in hit a landmine allegedly planted by the Maoists in the Dumka district.

A dozen more policemen were injured in the blast, which took place when the team was returning after the days polling. Dumka was among the four parliamentary constituencies in Jharkhand which voted in the sixth round of the staggered national election.

“We were well prepared for the first phase but it seems in the third phase, we made mistakes,” said Rajeev Kumar, a top police officer.

Mr. Kumar said traveling by bus on such a sensitive route was wrong. The team, he said, should have been on foot. “We will analyse and fix responsibility,” he said.

Questions have been raised about why the polling team was not ferried by choppers in an area known for Maoist violence, and why bridges they would use were not combed for bombs earlier.

Reports say voting will take place again at one polling booth after electronic voting machines were destroyed.

This is the second deadly attack by suspected Maoists since the nine-phase national election began earlier this month. On April 12, as many as 13 people, including poll officials and jawans, were killed in two Maoist strikes in Chhattisgarh.

The first attack took place in the Darbha Valley in Sukma district. Five jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed and six others were injured when Maoists allegedly blew up an ambulance. A technician who was seriously hurt in the attack, died the next morning.

Less than an hour later, and 160 km away in Bijapur, Maoists blew up a bus in which the poll officials were returning. Five poll officials, the bus driver and its cleaner were killed while three others were injured.

Around 500 jhuggis (huts) were destroyed in a fire at a large slum in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj this morning.

The fire, reported this morning, has been doused. 28 fire engines were sent to put out the flames, said an official, adding that the reason for the fire is yet to be ascertained.

“No casualties have been reported so far,” the official said.

“Fire was reported at 8.30 AM and fire tenders were immediately rushed to the spot. Plastic and wood kept in an open yard in the area also fuelled the fire,” said AK Sharma, Director of Delhi Fire Service.

“Heavy smoke filled the area as the blaze spread and small cylinders kept in the jhuggis exploded,” he added.

A Congress promise of reservation for backward Muslims kicked up a row with BJP calling it a “last desperate” act on its part to get some votes, a charge rejected outright by Congress which said it has not come out with any supplementary manifesto.

“Congress has not come out with any sub-manifesto,” party spokesperson and Law Minister Kapil Sibal said today maintaining that the issue of sub-quota for backward Muslims is pending in the Supreme Court and as long as the matter is not resolved there the party cannot do anything.

“These are only suggestions made in the process of public consultation. We have put it before people. When Congress comes to power, we will take it forward. These are suggested policies and programmes, which have come up at the open manifesto consultation process.

“These are suggestions for consideration, when the government comes to power. When we are open to it, we have a right to consider it as and when the Supreme Court decides it. This is the best possible way. There is nothing wrong with that…There is no appeasement…We must respect the sentiments of the public,” Mr. Sibal said.

He was asked about reports that the Congress has put on its website a sub-manifesto in a fresh minority pitch promising quota reservation in jobs for backward Muslims.

When told that that these are not mere suggestions as Congress had announced a minority sub-quota before the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh as well, the Union Minister said, “Yes, we had announced it even in UP but the matter is pending in the Supreme Court. How can we do it unless the Supreme Court decides it?”

He added that in some states like Andhra Pradesh reservation has been made for backward minorities. The matter is now pending with the Supreme Court.

The BJP accused the Congress of releasing an additional manifesto promising reservation for backward Muslims, saying it is their “last desperate” act to get some votes and people will not believe in a “supplementary manifesto of a losing party”.

“Losers may promise the moon tomorrow. But the people have suffered under their 10 years rule. So nobody is willing to discuss it also,” BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said.

A resident of Motuka village in Rajasthan’s Tonk district on Thursday preferred to exercise his right to vote and chose to get inked before attending the prayers for his deceased son.
Ram Dayal Gurjar has become an example for the voters. Gurjar’s son passed away two days back and a meeting was organised to offer prayers for his soul at his house.