BJP general secretary Varun Gandhi has ruled out campaigning against his estranged cousin and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi constituency.
The 34-year-old leader, likely to contest on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket from Sultanpur, told media late Thursday that he believed in political decorum and never harboured any ill will against his opponents.
“I have a positive mindset towards politics and have always believed in certain lines of decency that I would never cross,” he said, adding he will not campaign against Rahul Gandhi in the neighbouring Amethi constituency, where the latter was seeking a re-election.
Varun Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has shifted base to Sultanpur.
Varun Gandhi’s mother Maneka Gandhi, currently a BJP parliamentarian from Aonla in Uttar Pradesh, is likely to contest from Pilibhit in the Lok Sabha 2014 election, a seat she has held in the past.
Armed Maoists torched a petrol pump owned by a BJP MLA, hurled bombs and opened fire at his residence late last night in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, police said on Friday.
Around 15-20 armed Maoists swooped on the petrol pump of BJP MLA Ram Surat Rai in Ahiapur police station area, around 10-km from district headquarters, SSP Saurabh Kumar said, adding, the ultras took the staff hostage and set on fire an oil tanker and portion of the petrol pump.
They mercilessly beat up the petrol pump staff before vandalising the petrol pump and setting it on fire, the SSP said.
After plundering the petrol pump, the Maoists went to Rai’s residence in Bocha police station area and opened fire besides hurling bombs, the SSP said.
The legislator from Aurai was neither at the petrol pump nor at his home during the attack. His wife and children, present at home, however, were unhurt, he added.
The Maoists, against whom the locals put up a brave resistance, escaped as soon the SSP along with a police force reached the spot, Kumar said.
A case has been registered in the Ahiapur police station as well as in the Bocha police station in this connection, the SSP said.
Absence of name of actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha as BJP candidate from Patna Saheb seat on Friday caused hurtburn among his supporters even as a large number of party legislators are angry over selection of “turncoats”.
Former MLA from Bakhtiyarpur Binod Yadav and General Secretary of state BJP Scheduled Caste cell Sanjay Ram said a large number of people were questioning them about the absence of Sinha’s name among the 25 candidates announced on Thursday.
They said the party would suffer if the actor-turned politician was not renominated from Patna Saheb seat in the capital.
Absence of Shatrughan Sinha’s name, popularly known as “Bihari Babu” has set off questions if he has been “punished” for opening mouth against Narendra Modi in the past.
Apart from anxiety among supporters of the cinestar, many BJP legislators are angry over selection of “turncoats.”
BJP MLA from Muzaffarpur Suresh Sharma, credited for the successful conduct of Narendra Modi’s rally there on March 3, said he would resign from the post of state election management committee over ticket to Ajay Nishad, whose father Capt Jainarayan Nishad defected from JD(U) to BJP recently.
“BJP has been fighting against them for long and today he has been made our candidate…It will be difficult for me to convince my supporters…I am going to resign as chief of state party election management committee,” Sharma said.
BJP MLA from Aurangabad Ramadhar Singh is spiting fire over ticket to Sushil Kumar Singh, who crossed over to BJP from JD(U) recently.
“I’ll prefer to die than to seek vote for him,” Ramadhar Singh, who was minister in Nitish Kumar NDA government, said.
He said he has conveyed his feeling to the BJP central and state leadership.
The MLA said the decision would impact BJP prospects not only in Aurangabad but also in neighbouring Lok Sabha seats of Chatra and Palamu in Jharkhand and Karakat in Bihar.
BJP MLA from Mahnar Achutanand Singh is peeved at nomination of Rama Singh from LJP, alliance partner of BJP, from Vaishali and said after consulting supporters, he might contest from there as an Independent candidate.
Five more names will be announced later as the saffron party will contest 30 seats in the state.
A court in Odisha Friday found three men guilty in the gang-rape of a nun in the state’s Kandhamal district during communal clashes in 2008.
The district and session judge at Cuttack, about 26 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, held Mitu Patnaik, Gajendra Digal and Saroj Badhai guilty of the crime. The court would pronounce the quantum of sentence later in the day.
The 29-year-old Catholic nun was attacked by a mob and raped at Nuagaon village in Kandhamal district Aug 24, 2008, when communal violence in the region was at its peak.
The district, about 200 km from here, witnessed widespread violence after the murder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his aides at his ashram. Police initially blamed Maoists for the killings.
At least 38 people were killed in the state and thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes.
The nun’s gang-rape sparked an international outcry and drew strong condemnation. The court, however, acquitted six others for lack of evidence.
Long known as an avid proponent of the “Modi wave”, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev on Friday made a spectacular U-turn, saying that he is nobody’s slave and may rethink on his support to the NDA and the BJP.
“We are nobody’s slave; there is no lack of options in politics. We have always said that our support is issue-based. Now there is a lot of gadbad in the NDA,” Ramdev said.
The founder of Haridwar-based Patanjali Yog Peeth, who has been spearheading a nationwide campaign against black money and corruption, said the NDA will have to “swear” that they will support him on the issue.
Among his other demands are single transaction tax and payment of a minimum income to farmers before the start of sowing.
“All this while they have only offered verbal support, they will now have to give in writing that they will act on our issues,” he added.
Ramdev’s sudden outburst is surprising, to say the least, given the penchant with which he had been chanting “NaMo NaMo”.
A force in itself, the Patanjali Trust has lakhs, if not crores, of avid followers across the country. Ramdev had vowed to mobilise 50 crore voters across the country. This Yoga guru said was to ensure that the BJP could get 300 seats.
Interestingly, Narendra Modi had accepted Ramdev’s terms for support in January.
Baba Ramdev had then declared that an agreement was reached on various issues. In return, the Yoga guru had promised that he would send his followers to each home across the country to canvass support for the BJP.
The Gujarat police has lodged two separate complaints against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal’s convoy in connection with alleged non-payment of toll tax. Mr. Kejriwal visited Gujarat for four days last week for what he called an audit of Chief Minister Narendra Mr. Modi’s governance in the state.
The first complaint is lodged in the Patan district by a toll booth employee Mukesh Gadhvi who has alleged that an AAP convoy of around 20 cars and other vehicles passed through without paying any toll.
“While heading towards Kutch from Radhanpur on March 5, it is alleged that none of the cars in the AAP convoy paid tax at Varahi toll plaza,” said N J Jadeja, sub-inspector at Varahi police station.
“We booked a case under IPC 188 last night for not adhering to notification about toll tax. However, no specific names were mentioned in the FIR. We are now taking statements and checking CCTV footages of toll booth to identify the drivers of these cars,” Mr. Jadeja added.
The second complaint was lodged on Thursday night at Samkhiali police station in Kutch district by Dipendrasinh Tomar, security in-charge of Samkhilai toll plaza.
Mr. Tomar too has said that an AAP convoy of around 15 cars passed through the toll plaza at 4:30 pm on March 6 without paying tax.
“We have taken Tomar’s complaint and booked a case against drivers of AAP convoy for not following the notification of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI)” said the police.
Mr. Kejriwal had travelled to Patan and Kutch districts during his Gujarat visit on March 5 and 6.
A low-intensity crude bomb, planted on a two-wheeler in front of a mosque at Nelpettai in Madurai, exploded early today.
No casualty was reported, police said, adding, the two-wheeler was completely damaged in the explosion.
The explosion took place before the “Fazar” prayer at 5 am, police said.
The bomb, packed with potassium nitrate, was planted near the silencer of the two-wheeler of Haja Mohideen, Secretary of the Mosque.
Police said some persons were unhappy with Mohideen as he was instrumental in putting up a check post near the mosque.
He had also helped the police install CCTV camera in the area to monitor public movement.
The bomb was such that it could blast with the heat generated by the silencer of a vehicle, police said, adding potassium nitrate had been tightly packed using jute and had been linked to a nine volt battery.
Two students of Dehradun’s Graphic Era University have invented a helicopter which can carry a load double the time of its own weight.
The helicopter resembles a UFO and weighs just 1.870 kg. It is operated by a remote control and can fly continuosly for 10 minutes at a height of 300 metres.
The chopper was able to carry 4.5 kg water bottles upto a height of 300 metre at the exhibition.
The innovators, Ayush Dua and Akshay Bharadwaj, both third year Computer Science students, claimed they took around 45 days to invent this object which helped them win an award at IIT-Kanpur’s fest-Techkriti.
“In our invention, we have used Lithium Polymer 4S battery. If more powerful battery is used then we can make it fly for about half-an-hour”, said Ayush.
Director of Graphic Era University Prof. Kamal Ghanshala has congratulated the two young inventors. In the past, students of the institution have also successfully invented a bomb detector.
Five years after a man eloped with a girl, married her and had two children with her, has been arrested for her abduction and rape.
Kolar policemen told that Balram Bhagat (25) had abducted the minor girl from Kolar in 2009. She was just 17-year-old then.
The two were native of Khandwa and worked as labourers in Kolar. With an intention to marry, the two had eloped to Khandwa after which the girl’s family had lodged an abduction report against the youth at Kolar police station.
By the time police nabbed them, they had two kids – a three-year-old girl and a one year old boy, the report said.
Police has arrested the youth five years after he was booked. The girl is around 22 years now and has been brought back along with her kids and handed over to her family.
“It is now up to the court to decide future of the two. The verdict will mainly depend on the statement of the family members of the girl,” Station house officer of Kolar police station, Akhilesh Mishra told.
Arvind Kejriwal’s Mumbai trip, similar to his Gujarat trip, was marred with controversy. In Gujarat, Kejriwal being detained by the police and having the front side of the glass broken by a ruthless mob while sitting in the front seat opposite to the driver was not well received by his party men who in Delhi, voiced out a protest outside the BJP office which led to physical fights, throwing of chairs and beating with sticks, using perhaps all undemocratic means to attack the ‘opponent’ as if in a war.
Extreme ruckus was created which made the police to intervene (who also got beaten up thanks to human savagery) and the crowd had to be pacified using water cannons. While both the sides are to blame for indulging in a spat, the media blamed AAP outrightly which came as a bit of a shock as even BJP workers used chairs to attack them (surely AAP members were not marching with chairs).
The truth is, people get influenced with media easily. This very media which once went gaga with Kejriwal’s ‘aam aadmi’ ideology and highlighted his good work, left no stones unturned to topple him from the position of a hero and made him as a trouble monger, a man who seeks publicity for himself from the media. On one hand, he used media as a tool to expose corruption and communalism practiced by the politicians, his relationship with the same media has turned sour due to his and his party’s recent actions or misdeeds.
His recent trip to Mumbai was no different. Some criticised him of violating the order promulgated by the police that not more than five persons can assemble in one place. Others criticised him of accommodating more than three persons in the auto-rickshaw for which his driver was fined. Then he boarded a train for Churchgate in a compartment filled with media persons and supporters. It is needless to say that he caused great hassle to commuters trying to rush to their respective offices during that peak hour. To add to it, the rush of supporters led to three metal detectors at the station to be toppled. He has been booked along with his supporters under Section 188 (Disobedience to order promulgated by public servant) and Section 143 (Unlawful assembly).
The question which arises here is why Kejriwal is inviting controversy wherever he goes? Is it a ploy of the other parties and media as he and his party states? Surely he is not naïve enough to commit such grave mistakes having the back up of a good education and a powerful position in job. Besides, he doesn’t even want to tarnish his image by creating such controversies. So what is the real reason?
There remains many questions unanswered. One is why did Kejriwal resign after governing for 49 days when he was so sure that his government had done the best work in such a short span? Besides, what about leaking of a video in which he is seen saying off record to a popular journalist to emphasise on certain parts of his conversation? Is he using media for his own convenience? Why did he shift his gear to communalism when his actual battle was for eliminating corruption? After resigning from the chief minister’s post, why is he still involved in political rallies?
The truth is for the people to judge. They should use their discretion and not blindly believe any rhetoric by political parties or the angle as presented, debated and discussed upon by the media. We urban citizens are an educated lot and we should be aware of the happenings and use our own logic to choose a suitable candidate for the 2014 general election.
