Congress Allowed Loot of Banks : PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today accused the successive Congress governments at the Centre of allowing a handful of people to loot banks while denying loans to poor. 

Begining his election campaign in Karnataka, Modi addressed several public rallies. He said, despite the nationalisation of banks poor remained out of the banking system until his government started helming the country. 

Modi said, there was a time when the poor had no bank accounts, they could not even think of going to a bank. He said, the poor were out of economic mainstream and banking system. 

Modi said, his government started the Jan Dhan scheme for them. 

The Prime Minister told the gathering that 28th April got a momentous day in the history of the country when all un-electrified villages were connected with power lines. 

He said, the NDA government will embark on a task of connecting 4 crore households which do not have electricity even after 70 years of independence.

The Prime Minister dared Congress President Rahul Gandhi to speak in any language for 15 minutes about the achievements of Karnataka's Siddaramaiah government without referring to a piece of paper. 

Mr. Modi said, he is a person from the working class and any criticism by Naamdhar, a person from famous family, will not deter him from taking up the development work. 

He assured people of Karnataka that all the pending projects in the state will be speeded up when BJP comes to power. Mr. Modi claimed over two dozen BJP workers were killed under the Congress government in Karnataka in political violence. 

He also spoke about his government promulgating an ordinance to pave the way for providing stringent punishment, including the death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years.

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Karnataka Election : Amit Shah Ups the Ante

Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah has established himself as a fearsome strategist not for nothing. He comes with newer moves and counter moves with every poll. It is as if he especially relishes the electoral battles that bring to forth his unfathomable mastery in the poll strategies.
The newest salvo comes as he slough it out in the scorching sun of Karnataka. Shah has said that his  party will give account for the money spent during the 2019 election to  the Lok Sabha.
  "NDA Government led by Prime Minister Narendra  Modi will give account for the money spent during its five year term in  office," he said  addressing a  public meeting at Hungund.
In the same breath, he challenged Congress President Rahul Gandhib as well.
"Since it is a Assembly  election, he (Rahul) should give details of Siddaramaiah  government's performance during the last five years in office," he said.
Asserting that the BJP will form  the next government in Karnataka, Mr Shah said that Congress has already  lost Assembly elections in 12 States and in May 12 election also same  thing will happen and Congress will lose power.
The move is a smart one as it allows BJP to project itself as a transparent party. At the same time, it puts Congress in a tight spot as the latter is married by corruption scandals.
With this announcement, Amit Shah has upped the ante and now one waits for the response from Congress camp.

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Will Shiv Sena Benifit from Separation? Hardly!

Even though Shiv Sena has announced that it would fight the coming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections on its own, the challenge is not an easy one for the party. Shiv Sena has a herculean task ahead of it to attract middle-class and urban voters in the state who have turned to Bharatiya Janata Party lately. The party has set for itself an ambitious goal of winning 25 seats (out of a total 48) in Lok Sabha and 150 seats (out of a total 288) in the Assembly elections that are widely expected to happen before the schedule.

The war-cry given by Shiv Sena is not an easy one for the 50-year old party. It has to achieve exceptionally good performance in Mumbai, Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra regions. The party passed a resolution not to align with the BJP and go solo in the polls to be held next year. The National Executive meeting of the party was held coincidng with birth anniversary of Balasaheb Thackeray, the founder of the party.

BJP and Shiv Sena took advantage of resentment against the then ruling Congress and Nationalist Congress Party during the last Lok Sabha elections when they fought together and Assembly elections that they fought separately. However, BJP had made inroads in all regions except Konkan riding on the Modi wave. Vidarbha, especially Nagpur, is BJP's bastion and eroding the party's base there is a gigantic task.

This time around, political observers have placed their bets on Lok Sabha and Assembly elections being held together. So winning Vidarbha being ruled out, Shiv Sena has to focus on Mumbai, Western Maharashtra and Marathwada. In Mumbai, it cannot gain victory relying solely on the Marathi Manus agenda. Besides, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is there, alive and kicking, to eat into its Marathi votes. It has had a glimpse of the reality last year during the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election. On the contrary, north Indians, Gujarati etc. voters seems to vote en masse to BJP.

This is why Uddhav Thackeray spoke about the unadulterated Hindutva during the rally where he announced his decision to go solo. Thackeray has not forgotten how he had to sweat it out while winning back the BMC, the real power house of Shiv Sena. The party, with 63 MLAs and 18 MPs, is an ally of the BJP in the state and Centre but it wants to protect its own identity. That is why it is routinely attacking the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in the state over a variety of issues--from demonetisation and GST to the plight of farmers and cross-border assaults by Pakistan. Thackeray's announcement of contesting elections outside Maharashtra should be seen in this light. 

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EVMs : The Liberals Are a Loser Lot

Ever since the results for the Uttar Pradesh and four other states were announced, the liberal camp has gone hysterical against the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The EVMs were introduced in India in 2003 and since then, en number of governments have been removed or voted back in power - all with EVMs. At the central level alone, Vajpayee government lost the power in 2004 while Congress-led UPA retained and lost the power each once. It is true that Lal Krishna Advani protested against EVMs in 2009 and asked them to be removed. But wait, who was the adviser of Advani in 2009?
Sudhindra Kulkarni, the same commie Left Rasputin on whose insistence Advani toured Pakistan and made that unfortunate statement praising Jinnah. That brought doom on poor leader's career who had spent decades in serving BJP - nay, the party is seeing today's glory thanks to his untiring crusades against the pseudo-seculars (actually it was he who minted and popularized the term). The point is, in Kulkarni's company, Advani became a loser and cribbed against everything that went against him - a characteristic trait of the liberal imposters; they are always okay with anything until it goes in their stride. Not surprisinly, Advani cribbed even when Narendra Modi was given charge of leading BJP's campaign in 2014 and thereafter too.
When Advani made these allegations against EVMs, the Election Commission of India had put up 100 EVMs in open and challenged all to demonstrate how they could be hacked. Obviously, nobody took up the challenge. It was easier to shoot in the dark and play victim than prove the credentials of one's allegations. However, the issue was meaty enough for some souls to feast on it. Subramanian Swamy, a perpetual litigation-monger, took up the issue. He went to Supreme Court to seek relief with Lady of Irony standing smilingly behind him as hardly anybody remembered him standing in electoral fray ever and winning with a large vote share or say - losing with a thin margin.
Now, the crucial part. The SC, after pondering over the matter and giving due hearings, ordered that EVMs should be supplemented with the printed receipt of the vote being given. The court never said that EVMs were vulnerable or that they were useless. Like Kulkarni and his Red tribe, the entire spectrum of liberal ideology is bereft of any real liberalism or progressivism. This ilk is sustained on an inherited legacy of struggle, strife and sanity. The sustenance on which they survived till now is exhausting very fast and as they say, shallow water is always noisier.
That is why while crying hoarse about the fallibility of EVMs in UP and Uttarakhand, they forget that three states have thrown up results that sounded music to their ears. One only hopes all the best to the selective color-blindness of the liberals because that is the sure shot remedy of their removal.

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Storm In the Session! Really?

Before the advent of each session of legislature, it is a kind of ritual now to carry the stories on possible issues testing government. Accordingly, this time the media is saying that Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance government is said to be pushed to corner over some issues. These are `leakage' of the Pradhan Committee report on 26/11 terror attacks and farmer suicides. The question is : will it really?

The winter session of Maharashtra is beginning at Nagpur on Tuesday. It is expected to be dominated by above issues. The opposition is grinding its axe to attack the government on leakage of the report and reported allegations by former Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor. The top official has pointed four top police officers guilty of 'dereliction of duty' during the attacks. Allegations made by slain IPS officer Ashok Kamte's widow, Vinita, against Mumbai Crime Branch chief Rakesh Maria of mishandling the situation on 26/11 would also be raised in the House.

I suspect any furore will be raised over these issues. Was not it just three months ago that the same issues were predicted to bring a fall in government? Was not it that opposition parties, mainly Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party were betting heavily on farmers' suicides as their main election plank? Is it not futile to think that anything related with 26/11 will create a flutter, let alone a storm even one year after the incident and even when the main alive culprit Ajmal Kasab is yet to receive punishment?

With Maharashtra Navnirman Sena pursuing its own agenda of justice to locals, BJP still basking in the glory of retrieving leader of opposition's post in legislature assembly and Shiv Sena yet to come to terms with its lacklustre performance, who will raise questions and who will create a storm? Hence, even though the seriousness of questions being same, seriousness of any talk regarding serious business in assembly is a distant dream?

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Uddhav’s Brave Front: Too Late, Too Lame

That Uddhav Thackarey, executive president of Shiv Sena spoke over his party’s defeat after full four days after election results were out in itself speaks volume about his preparedness to tackle the situation head on. He might have taken this much time to come out of the shock he received at the hands of his cousin Raj Thackarey. Maharashtra Nanirman Sena has truly emerged as the party to watch during this election with its 13 elected members. Shiv Sena has received the worst drubbing in the sense that it has been relegated to fourth position in terms of number of seats. And worse is that BJP has come out with more seats than Shiv Sena, its alliance partner, even though the situation was other way round since 1984 when the alliance was formed.

What Uddhav has said shows that he is not ready to read the situation in its true sense. It was never a characteristic of Thackarey family, be it Balasaheb or Raj or Uddhav, to acknowledge own follies. The latest rhetoric from Uddhav goes on the same line. He is saying that MNS factor, which was key in losses suffered by Shiv Sena will be washed  out within two years. On the contrary, political analysts and observers, majority of whom constitute the detractors of MNS, are unanimous that it is MNS which is sure to play the role of main opposition party in next elections, unless some drastic measures are adopted by Shiv Sena.

Those measures are still to be seen. Uddhav missed to be a brave man in facing the loss generously. Instead, he hid himself and came out when his statement mattered too little. His analysis also did not show any hard hitting retrospection which could have helped the sinking fortunes of the party. It was a lacklustre statement and going by the common Shiv Sainik’s natural instincts, it was a lame excuse for the defeat.

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Anna Leaves BJP! What is the difference?

 Will  desertion by Anna Joshi be a jolt to Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of Maharashtra Assembly polls? The answer is no, it is relatively a minor set back. It is nothing extra-ordinary what with large scale desertions and defection in all political parties in the state.
Even though Anna Joshi is a a senior leader of the party and former MP of BJP. Yesterday, he announced that he is quitting the party and joining  NCP. He will be a candidate from Kothrud assembly constituency on NCP ticket.

Joshi, was MP from Pune in 1989 and 1991. his candidacy from Kothrud was declared by Nationalist Congress Party spokesman
Ankush Kakde yesterday. He will take on Chandrakant Mokate of Shiv Sena, alliance partner of BJP.

Joshi, who had also held the post of Deputy Speaker of Maharashtra Assembly, was licking his wounds for many days in BJP after he was sidelined twice. He was denied ticket in the last Lok Sabha polls and again for the Assembly elections from Pune. Joshi was known for his rivalry with late Viththal Gadgil, congress party veteran from Pune. He was helped by Sharad Pawar, who was in Congress at that time but was heading rival faction against Gadgil. Interestingly, Pawar had a man friday in Suresh Kalmadi at that time. The equations have changed a lot since then.

Born on April 3, 1935 at Varangaon, Jalgaon, Joshi has done a lot of work for Pune. He was a corporator in Pune Municipal Corporation during 1968 to 1979 and went on to become deputy mayor of city during 78-79. He was responsible to give BJP three consecutive wins in the Lok Sabha elections. He comes from the Brahmin community and started his career in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The voter base of the BJP came mainly from these two sectors. People of these sectors have significantly reduced in numbers. Therefore Joshi is hardly a winning candidate anymore for the party. Still to be fair, Joshi deserves honour as he stuck to his party even 13 years after losing his position. But Pawar's friendship with him has earned him the candidacy.

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The Talks for The Seats

Poltical parties in Maharashtra are entangled in the parleys for seat sharing. Can this be a reason for the deadlock?

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Voices of Dissent in Congress

Are They Serious Enough?

The voices of dissent have started to rise from the Congress party in Maharashtra. One of the first leader to raise the tone is Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, who is enraged over non-inclusion in the candidates selection committee. Nilangekar is the former chief minister of Maharashtra and comes from Nilanga in the Latur district.

PTI quotes him as saying : I met Congress president Sonia Gandhi recently and apprised her of the situation. I pointed out that neither myself nor former MPCC president N M Kamble were appointed to the panel, which has several less deserving people on board.

Nilangekar is one of those old breeds in Congress who still avow Indira Gandhi's name. He was the chief minister of Maharashtra in 1985-86. He had to resign after a scam in which he was accused of influencing the results of MBBS examination in which his daughter was a candidate. Since then, he was relegated to oblivion and could never make a comeback in the state politics. In the new age of professional politics, he is a rare type of leader. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, he fought against his daughter-in-law, who was contesting from a BJP ticket. And he lost it! So it is surprising that he is returning and even more surprising is the fact that media is taking him seriously!

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Elections Bring Respite

Thank god election commission has announced the date for election to Maharashtra state assembly. For the last many days, in fact about two months, every minister and politician made it sure that his photo and statement appear in the media each alternate day.

Even yesterday, when the news of the election commission's announcement came by, many programs were scheduled in the city. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan had to cancel an inauguration program in the state reserve police force while guardian minister Ajit Pawar had to cancel his press conference in view of the code of conduct.

District collector Chandrakan Dalvi has announced that all the official vehicles given to the functionaries of locla bodies, including Pune Municipal Corporation and Zill Parishad are to be taken back.
The code of conduct prohibits the administration to publish any advertise announcing achievement of the ruling party with government expense. It also prohibits new appointments in the government bodies. This will also affect the ad spending of government. But after all, this has brought a respite for many like me who were bored with the propaganda going on till now.

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