BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Tuesday hit back at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi over his “toffee” remark, calling the latter “childish”.

Addressing a rally, Modi said, “In the BJP, we have a galaxy of senior and able leaders, while on the other side there is a childish leader who talks of balloons and toffees.”

Rahul had dubbed the Gujarat model of development propagated by Modi as a “toffee model”, saying it had benefited only one industrialist in the state.

“Land of Aurangabad’s size…45,000 acres…has been given for a mere Rs. 300 crore. This is toffee model not Gujarat model. For Re. 1, you get a toffee here. There land was sold at Re. 1 per metre…it was the land of the poor and the farmers,” Gandhi had said.

Rubbing into the Congress further, Modi expressed pity that he had used harsh words against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Two recent books have claimed that the PM had little authority over his government and that he had surrendered decision-making to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

“Sometimes I think I should not have used harsh words for our PM. After all, the main fault lies with the family of Congress,” Modi said.

“The PM’s daughter said that Sanjaya Baru turned out to be a traitor… this means that what he said was true,” he added.

Mocking the Congress party, the Gujarat Chief Minister said, “After elections, you would need a high resolution camera to see Congress representatives in Parliament.”

He also hit out at the Central government, reminding the supporters that, “Dilli mein hospital mein padi sarkaar nahi chahiye, ek mazboot sarkaar chahiye.”

Former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi on Tuesday dubbed Reliance Industries as a “parallel state” that exercised power “brazenly” over natural and financial resources.

“We used to talk of black money as a parallel economy and so it continues to be. But Reliance is a parallel State. I do not know of any country where one single firm exercises such power so brazenly, over the natural resources, financial resources, professional resources and, ultimately, over human resources as the company of the Ambanis.”
“From (BR) Ambedkar who spoke of economic democracy to Ambani who represents a techno-commercial monopoly of unprecedented scale, is a far cry indeed,” he said delivering the 15th D P Kohli Memorial lecture organised to mark the year-long golden jubilee celebrations of the CBI.

Talking about the economic health of the country, Gandhi said the economy had seen some phenomenal successes with many homeless getting houses and other items of necessity.

“Our economy is startling if you do not want to see its other side. If you see that side, you will see it is schizophrenic. Corporate greed has crossed all bounds, as has corporate tastelessness,” he said.

Holding that money was affecting democracy, he said, “Our democracy is large, vibrant, but is also deeply flawed. Size and scale cannot and do not in themselves validate a democracy. There is something called quality also.”

“The monarch, the voter, is powerful but his power is constantly subverted by blandishment. Money is at our democracy’s throat. Money can and does do worse,” Gandhi said at the function where CBI rank and file led by its Director Ranjit Sinha were present.

The theme of the lecture was “Eclipse at Noon: Shadows over India’s Conscience”.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Tuesday hit out at Sonia Gandhi, a day after the Congress president said the BJP would ruin the essence of “Bharatiyata” and “Hindustaniyat”.

“Messages on paid television time cannot last minute change the electoral agenda. Price rise, mismanagement of the economy, corruption, dilution of the office of the Prime Minister cannot be a part of either ‘Bhartiyata’ or ‘Hindustaniat’. This message will not click,” said Jaitley in his campaign blog on a website.

In a video message posted on the Congress website, Gandhi on Monday said India was at a “crossroads” in this election.

Mocking Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Jaitley said the idea behind Sonia Gandhi’s message was “to change the principle communicator of the party from the son to the mother”.

“This was an expression of lack of confidence in Rahul Gandhi, in as much as his speeches to the people were not working.”

Jaitley further deduced: “The only message yesterday’s speech of Sonia Gandhi telecasted on paid television time is that Congress’s new slogan now is ‘Mein Nahin Mom’”.

The senior BJP leader added that there are two clear “trends in the groundswell” – its anger against the Congress and the hope in Narendra Modi”.

Without naming him, Gandhi had taken a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

“It is this, the very heart and soul of India, that we are fighting to protect in this election, from those who seek to change it, and to divide us. We want unity. They want to impose uniformity. They say, just believe in me,” she added.

As political pitch gets stronger in this city of temples and weavers with the arrival of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, leaders across party lines are fearing a highly polarised scenario on religious lines ahead of Lok Sabha polls next month.

While senior leaders from BJP dismiss the impact of any anti-Modi polarisation among Muslims, who account for about 18 per cent votes here and close to 30 per cent in urban areas, local leaders from various parties including the saffron party said there was a high probability of Muslim votes being polarised towards the strongest candidate against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Local leaders from various parties including Congress, SP and BSP, also accused Kejriwal of trying to influence Muslims by projecting himself as the strongest candidate against Modi.

Soon after arriving here this morning, Kejriwal met Benares Shahar-e-Kazi Ghulam Nasir and sought his support. According to AAP leaders here, Nasir told Kejriwal that he would pray for his success.

Kejriwal also met some Balmiki Samaj leaders and visited areas populated by Dalits to seek their support. He is staying at the house of Viplav Mishra, brother of late Veerbhadra Mishra, who was mahant of Sankat Mochan Mandir, a Hanuman temple which is very popular among locals and people visiting Varanasi.

Kejriwal is likely to file his nomination on April 23, before which he may go to Amethi for a couple of days to campaign for party colleague Kumar Vishwas who is fighting against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

When asked whether BJP was wary of any anti-Modi polarisation among Muslim voters in favour of Kejriwal, party leaders dismissed such claims, saying Modi’s win was a foregone conclusion and the fight was only about margins.

BJP’s Nalin Kohli, who is camping here for elections, said it was not at all concerned about polarisation and the party was fighting the elections with agenda of ‘one India, great India’ and the new government would work for solving the problems faced by people of this country.

However, some other local BJP leaders accepted that there were apprehensions about polarisation of votes against Modi, but the quantum would not be enough to defeat the party’s prime ministerial candidate and the ‘ever-growing’ wave in his favour.

Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy for his comments against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Gandhi, Congress leader Ajay Maken on Tuesday said that Swamy’s statement has crossed all limits.

“Subramanian Swamy’s statement crosses all limits, we condemn it. Use of such words against women is unacceptable,” Maken said.

Commenting on reports that Priyanka Gandhi was willing to contest elections from Varanasi against BJP’s PM nominee Narendra Modi, Swamy had said yesterday that Gandhi would have been thrashed if she had done so as she drinks too much alcohol and has a bad name.

“They saved her. She would have got a thrashing. She is very unpopular, she drinks too much alcohol and she has a bad name, her husband has a bad name,” Swamy said.

On Sunday, Swamy had even called Priyanka an ungrateful daughter for going to see the prisoners in jail who assassinated her own father.

He also said that it was Priyanka Gandhi and not Varun Gandhi who has gone astray and had added that the former and her party were not able to digest the latter’s success.

Maken further said, “We support Priyankaji’s statement, she hasn’t made any personal attacks, it was an ideological statement.”

On Saturday, while accompanying Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi at Amethi while filing nomination papers, Priyanka had said that Varun Gandhi has chosen a wrong path and needed to be led in the right direction.

Meanwhile, Congress party workers today protested outside the residence of Swamy in the national capital due to his alleged derogatory remarks against Priyanka.

Yesterday, Delhi Congress had accused the BJP leader of trying to vitiate the election atmosphere by making such comments.

Swamy had even posted on micro-blogging website twitter – “Good luck to Varun. One Nehru whose blood is 100 percent Hindustaniyat. No wonder Booze and Buddhu jealous (sic).”

Another Congress leader Haroon Yusuf said, “Subramanian Swamy must take back his comments on Priyankaji. We will complain to the EC as well.”

Swamy reacted sharply over this issue and hit back saying, “If they have a problem with what I said, they can approach the court.”

“Gunde badmaasho ke tareeke istmaal karenge to lok tantra kaise chalaenge (If goons tactics will be used then how will they run democracy)?” Swamy said on Congress’ protest at his residence.

He added, “All I said was Priyanka Gandhi should quit smoking and set an example. Why doesn’t she just say she doesn’t drink?”

“There are courts to file defamation case at, what is this protest and all? More ppl showed up than Rahul Gandhi’s meeting,” he said.

Election officials have seized a record $36 million dollars or 217 crores of cash concealed in cars, private planes and even ambulances that they say was destined to buy off voters and pay for expenses over and above the spending limit.

Opinion polls show the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies coming to power thanks to the popularity of its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and widespread disgust with the Congress party, whose last years in power have been dogged by corruption scandals and a sharp economic slowdown.

Cash seized in the three weeks since the staggered election was announced has already surpassed Rs. 190 crores for the whole of the 2009 ballot period, the commission said.

Voting in this year’s election began on April 7 and winds up on May 12.

The Election Commission has also recovered 100 kg of heroin, most of it in Punjab that has long been a transit point for drugs from Afghanistan, but is now itself India’s heaviest consuming opium state.

More than 10 million litres of liquor have been seized, too, over the past 20 days as politicians pour resources into an election that will cost an estimated $5 billion or 3000 crores by the time it ends, second only to the last US presidential election.

“The seizures that we have made of cash, liquor and drugs are far bigger than we had anticipated. The scale of the problem is immense,” PK Dash, who leads the expenditure monitoring effort at the independent Election Commission, told.

He attributed the increase to the growing number of business leaders getting involved in politics, as Asia’s third-largest economy gears up for an expected second generation of reforms to restore rapid growth.

“A couple of elections ago it was not such a game of money,” Dash said. “Now you have business people in politics, whereas earlier they were involved in managing their empires.”

Political funding remains opaque in India, with political parties refusing to disclose fully their sources of finance.

State funding has been mooted in the past to stop illicit spending, but the idea has never taken off.

Critics say a first-past-the-post system for electing lawmakers means the pressure on candidates to outspend their rivals is intense. And in a country where nearly a third of the population of 1.2 billion is estimated to live on less than $1 a day, relatively little money can go a long way.

Suspended Board of Control for Cricket in India president N. Srinivasan has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Tuesday asking why he has been removed as the Board president. In the wake of the Indian Premier League match-fixing and betting scandal 2013, the Supreme Court, through an interim order on March 28, removed Srinivasan as BCCI chief and appointed Shivlal Yadav and Sunil Gavaskar as joint heads.

In his petition, Srinivasan has requested the apex court to consider its interim order. “I am highly aggrieved by the unfair and unsubstantiated allegations made against me in the course of hearing of the above matter on 27-03-2014. Further, I am personally not aware of the reason why this Hon’ble Court orally expressed that I should not continue as President of BCCI,” Srinivasan said in his affidavit.

The IPL case comes up for hearing on Wednesday, the same day the IPL starts in Abu Dhabi.

In his reply filed in the Supreme Court, Srinivasan says: “I humbly request this Hon’ble court to reconsider the interim order passed 28.3.2014 in so far as it relates to my elected office. My term ends with Sept 2014 and I should be allowed to complete my tenure.”

Srinivasan added that vested interests were behind the petitioner (Aditya Verma of Cricket Association of Bihar). Alleging that Verma was hand-in-glove with ex-BCCI president AC Muthiah, Srinivasan also defended himself for representing BCCI at last week’s ICC Board meeting in Dubai saying: “Even though this Hon’ble Court clearly observed orally as informed to me by counsel that the interim order is restricted to only BCCI activities, a hue and cry was made by vested interests who have been vocal in the media that I should not represent BCCI in the ICC.”

The embattled Srinivasan said he was not under “any inquiry or probe and hence no reason for me to be kept away from my office.” He also said there was no provision for an interim president according to the Board constitution.

Srinivasan has also slammed suspended IPS officer G. Sampath Kumar’s for making unsubstantiated allegations against him. Sampath Kumar, who first investigated the IPL scam as part of Tamil Nadu police’s intelligence division, has also filed a petition in the Supreme Court alleging how powerful people were trying to cover-up the betting and match-fixing scam. Srinivasan wants the Supreme Court to direct the Tamil Nadu government to probe Sampath Kumar and state the reasons for his transfer and suspension.

In a case of cyber crime, a girl’s engagement has been called off after an unknown person put up objectionable pictures of her on Facebook.

The girl hails from Jhansi and was doing her PhD from Jiwaji University in Gwalior. She got engaged in March.
About a week ago, an unknown assailant allegedly created a fake Facebook account, using the girl’s name and information. He then reportedly morphed the girl’s pictures using objectionable content and put them up on the fake Facebook profile. In addition he added her family and the family of her in-laws as Facebook friends.

As a result of this, the in-laws called the engagement off and also her parents forced her to move back to Jhansi, due to which she had to leave her education.

The victim has filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Police Station, but the police has no leads so far.

A woman in Dhanbad was duped of Rs. 1 lakh by an imposter who made her believe that he was her missing son and stayed in her house of over 10 months.

Layasa Devi’s son Sanjay Pasi left the house 15 years ago, but never returned. She had been waiting for him but to no gain.

10 months ago, she had gone to Allahabad’s Phulpur village where she met a saint Sagru whose face resembled with that of her son. She narrated the entire story to him.

He broke down and told her he was his son. She believed him and he started vising her quite often. In the name of organising bhandaras and pujas, he duped her of Rs. 1 lakh.

On Monday, on suspicion, the woman picked up a call on his phone when he was away and claimed that he was his wife. The girl on the line panicked and said that she was Sagru’s real wife.

That’s when the woman realised that the imposter was trying to fool her as he has posed as a saint who is a holy man and who is not married.

On being confronted, he tried to run away but was caught with the help of other villagers.