Saturday, May 12, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
The three-day national convention of India’s largest opposition party started in this Madhya Pradesh city Wednesday with a meeting of its national executive.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The West Bengal state BJP has written a letter to chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi, protesting against the appointment of state industries minister Partha Chatterjee as the chairperson of Haldia Petrochemicals and requesting the CEC to disqualify the minister as a member of the assembly.
BJP leader Tapan Sikdar said in Kolkata on Wednesday that the state assembly in a recent legislation had granted exemption to ministers and legislators so that they could become chairpersons and directors of companies.
"This legislation could be seen as a pre-emptive measure against legal challenges to its industry minister Partha Chatterjee's new role" as chairman of HPL, a joint venture between the Chatterjee Group and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. Sikdar said he had already met governor M K Narayanan and requested him to withhold assent to the amendment bill of the assembly. If necessary, BJP would also explore legal steps against the amendment. According to Sikdar, only Parliament could bring about such a legislation, a state legislature did not have the power to do so. Such a law, according to him, would against constitutional norms and moral principles. If ministers were given charge of running companies, it would not be possible for these companies to be run independently. They would also become vulnerable to political pressures. Already another minister had been made chairman of a state-run transport corporation.
Sikdar said, the Congress government at the Centre was powerless to stop the West Bengal government from indulging in such an irregularity as it was dependent on support fromTrinamool Congress for survival.
"Of late, the Trinamool government is indulging in irregular acts, without paying heeds to legal, constitutional and moral principles." He mentioned of a few instances in the past where MPs accepting offices of profit had to choose between either of the two.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The BJP believes that its traditional supporters - the elite upper class, businessmen and trading community - does not go out and vote en bloc and any increase in the voting percentage is a sure sign of their increased participation in elections and thereby increased support for the BJP.
Before the elections took place, the BJP Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, V K Malhotra, appealed to the people to come out and vote in large numbers. Speaking to Deccan Herald then, Malhotra had� opined that the Congress support base – Muslims, scheduled castes etc - always voted in large numbers and hence, any increase in voting percentage would be to the BJP’s advantage. As a result of this increase, the BJP has been buoyant since the polling.
Reacting to the increased poll percentage, BJP Delhi Pradesh President Vijender Gupta said on Monday that the increased polling was expected as people were fed-up of the Congress-ruled Delhi government and they had vented their anger by voting for the BJP.
“Issues of corruption, price spiral were bound to take its toll on the Congress. This government has broken the back of Delhiites and they are not going to spare it. The 13 per cent increase in polling per centage is positive vote for BJP,” Gupta told Deccan Herald.
He pointed out the increased polling percentage of 53 per cent in South Delhi and said that the BJP was winning all the three municipalities. Less than 40 per cent polling was recorded here in 2007, with some areas recording as low as 30 per cent.� Interestingly, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief and MP J P Aggarwal considers the increased percentage to as his party’s advantage.
He rubbished the BJP claims and said that the BJP was ruling the MCD in Delhi and if there was any increase in polling, it had to go against the BJP and not against the Congress.
“These elections are for the civic bodies and not the Delhi government. Now, the BJP has been running the MCD for last five years and the people have come out in large numbers to vote, it can only mean one thing and that is anti-BJP voting,” said Agarwal.
Friday, April 13, 2012
"Inspite of 2G decisions being clearly above board, clearly as per norms and principles, it is also being made part of the reference," party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said here.
"...this shows how an indecisive government is seeking the advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court even on matters which have to be executive decisions only," she said.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajnath Singh Tuesday termed as 'undemocratic' the government efforts to stop the party's youth wing from hoisting the national flag in Srinagar on Republic Day, saying it was their fundamental right.
'It is the fundamental right given to the people of India to hoist the (national) flag and it is very unfortunate and undemocratic that the central government, along with the state government, is not allowing people to hoist the flag at Lal Chowk (in Srinagar),' Singh told reporters here.
Rajnath Singh has been sitting on a hunger strike at Rajghat here since Monday 8 p.m. to 'protest against the government decision to prevent hoisting of national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar'.
Announcing that he will continue his hunger strike till Jan 26, Singh said: 'I have already requested the prime minister and the president to allow people to hoist the tricolour.'
'Stopping countrymen from hoisting the (national) flag will send a wrong message in the country and will be a moral victory for separatist forces in the state,' he said.
BJP leaders had planned to address a public meeting in Jammu Tuesday to coincide with the arrival of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's Ekta Yatra (unity march) that plans to hoist the national flag in Srinagar's Lal Chowk Jan 26 on the occasion of Republic Day.
BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar were not allowed to move out of Jammu airport after they landed there by a special flight Monday afternoon. They were later taken into custody by the Jammu and Kashmir police and sent to Punjab.
Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram Monday phoned Jaitley and asked him to return to Delhi, but the BJP leaders did not agree.
The prime minister had issued a statement Saturday saying that Republic Day was not an occasion to score political points, to embarrass state and local administrations or to promote divisive agendas.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Meanwhile, the Congress led by its state president Captain Amarinder Singh with the help of Congress President Sonia Gandhi [ Images ], Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi [ Images ] and other senior leaders are leaving no stone unturned to topple the Akali-BJP combine.
The BJP is making desperate attempts to save its face in Punjab [ Images ] after its ministers had to resign from the Cabinet on charges of corruption. Five years ago, Prakash Singh Badal and the BJP joined hands to throw Captain Amarinder Singh out of power. Now, they find the tables turned on them.
For Rediff Realtime News on the Punjab elections, click here!
"We are winning the elections and the Captain seems to be buying time from the Congress party. We will get more seats this time than we did last time. The BJP should also do well," Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal told a crowd of 7,000 in Patiala district.
He denied that he was being pitched for the post of CM. "One thing that I have been making clear is that once we regain power Sardar Prakash Singh Badal would continue to be the chief minister, as we need his experience in adminisstration. After all he is the tallest leader of the state," he told rediff.com.
However, the Congress seems to have an edge in Punjab.
Gandhi who addressed several public meetings in the state this past week has asked pointed questions on the development claims made by the Akali Dal-BJP alliance. "Explain what development the Akali-BJP government had carried out in the state in the past five years. This government had proved to be most inefficient one and Punjab had seen total decline on all fronts during the last five years," she said.
She charged the state government with using only Rs 526 crore out of Rs 5,000 crore sent to the state for distribution under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. She called the bluff of the ruling alliance by telling the crowd the 'atta-daal scheme' of the state government was 100 per cent financed by the Centre. And still the Akali-BJP government was trying to claim credit for it".
Meanwhile, Captain Amarinder Singh is striving hard and hopping from constituency to constituency to ensure that the edge the Congress has over the Akali Dal-BJP alliance is not lost because of weak management of the polls by party workers. He has been in touch with the party high command to chalk out the election schedule.
He hopes to bag at least 60-plus seats to ensure that the Congress has a smooth victory.
However, the Congress too has a problem at hand. It has to deal with substantial number of rebels who were denied tickets. Leading the bandwagon of rebels is Malvinder Singh, the brother of Captain Amarinder Singh.
"In the 117-seat assembly to get a clear verdict you need to have 60 seats. At the moment, neither the Congress nor the Akali Dal-BJP seems to be getting a clear majority. There are 35 seats that are decided under a margin of 1,000 votes.