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Final battle against Maoist terror – where Indian government stands

Saswat Panigrahi
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Final battle against Maoist terror – where Indian government stands

‘SAMADHAN’ can wipe out the Maoist terror. Two weeks after the deadly Maoist attack snuffed out the lives of 25 CRPF personnel, this is what Home Minister Rajnath Singh said yesterday at a review meeting of the states affected by Left-Wing Extremism (LWE).

As he defines ‘SAMADHAN’, S stands for Smart Leadership, A stands for Aggressive Strategy, M stands for Motivation and Training, A stands for Actionable Intelligence, D stands for Dashboard Based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Result Areas (KRAs), H stands for Harnessing Technology, A stands for Action plan for each threat, N stands for No access to Financing.


Chief Ministers of ten Maoist affected states, Director General of Police of the Maoist infested states, District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police of 35 worst-hit Maoist-affected districts, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Director of Intelligence Bureau and paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies attended the meeting.

e have many such meetings in the past. Therefore only the meetings or new acronyms can’t solve the intractable menace, provided every minutes of meeting be converted into actions. Currently, this is what is being planned:

Integrated strategy

The Home Minister stressed on an integrated strategy, emphasised on “unity of purpose” and spoke of a unified coordination and command to counter the Maoism.

“Along with strategic command, unified command is required at the operational and tactical level, besides intelligence sharing which was equally important,” Singh said.

“We have to bring aggression in our policy, there should be aggression in our thinking, aggression in our strategy, aggression in the deployment of security forces, aggression in operations, aggression in bringing development, aggression in road construction. We will have to be cautious that extremely defensive deployment may result in reduction of operational offensive,” he said.

The Home Minister said the states take the ownership in the anti-Maoist operations where Central Armed Police Force will cooperate fully. But, how many lives of CRPF personnel are lost before we have a single command for anti-Maoist operations across state borders?

Choking finances

In a much needed approach, the Centre is planning to choke the supply of funds to Maoists. A study by Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses estimated that the annual fund raising of the CPI (Maoist) through means such as extortion is a whopping Rs 140 crore annually.

The Maoists raise funds through donations, levy and extortions. No wonder, after the demonetisation drive in November last year, the Maoist funding suffered a severe setback. But, meanwhile, they have cultivated new source of funding. The Centre has identified illegal mining, poppy cultivation and extortion among the activities funding the Maoists.

“Economic resources play an important role in any war. Therefore, choking the financial resources of the left wing extremists is the most basic mantra in this fight,” the Home Minister said.

Maoist violence: Situation improving?

As many as 12,000 citizens had lost their lives in Maoist violence over the last two decades and of these, 2,700 are security personnel and 9,300 are civilians. The list of Maoist attacks is long.

On March 11 this year, the Maoists killed 12 CRPF personnel in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. In May 2013, the Maoists had attacked a Congress convey in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, killing 25 Congress leaders. Senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, the founder of Salwa Judum (a vigilante movement against Maoists), and former Union Minister Vidya Charan Shukla were among those killed. In April 2010, 75 CRPF personnel were killed in a Maoist ambush in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. In February 2010, the Maoists killed 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district. The EFR personnel were in their sleep when the attack happened.

Several such attacks took place in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in the past.

Arguably, since 2014, there is a decline in Maoist attacks, decrease in the killing of security forces, decline in civilian casualty and increase in number of Maoists killed. Available data points to the fact.

Source: Home Ministry

Source: Home Ministry [pdf]
Earlier, there were 106 districts affected by Maoism. It has come down to 68 now. However, there is a long way to go.

The final battle

It is time the nation drew the final battle lines in the war against the Maoists. It is time India fought and won its last battle against the Maoists. There are two ways, the state can fight the war and the both should go in tandem.

One, the government must expedite its development push in the Maoist infested areas. The Maoists, who look for safe sanctuaries to run their activities, are scared of development because they use lack of development as a facade to exploit the innocent tribals and carry out their activities. Once, development reaches deep into the Maoist hinterland, the Left ultra will finally lose their constituency.

The government is precisely working towards it. The Union Home Ministry has given a go ahead for the construction of a whopping 5,412 km-long road connecting 44 Maoist-affected districts in nine states – Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Bengal and MP. In addition, reports suggest that 2,178 mobile towers of 2,199 built are already operational in the red corridor.

Second and the most crucial and urgent means to fight the Maoist menace is the state must go for an all out war and crush the Maoist terrorists ruthlessly.

Maoists are terrorists and there should not be any further debate about it. There is no difference between the Maoists and their Islamic counterparts in Pakistan. In fact, well-known global intelligence company Stratfor had revealed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) forged an alliance with the Maoists in a bid to destabilise the Indian state.

The Maoists are waging a war against the nation. They are a brute bunch of anti-nationals out to break India. They mock at the Constitution of India. They seek to destroy our republic, the fabric of our democracy and our rule of law.

The Leftist jholawallah noise notwithstanding, it is time to show no mercy to Maoists. Like their Islamist counterpart in Pakistan, Maoists only understand the language of bullets, bombs and drones. India must win the war against Maoists.

CNN-News18 journalist spreads fake news about gang-rape over beef eating in UP

Shantanu
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CNN-News18 journalist spreads fake news about gang-rape over beef eating in UP

In what appears to be an attempt to portray that gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes) are running amok in Uttar Pradesh without any fear of law, Pallavi Ghosh, a journalist with news channel CNN-News18 today tweeted about an alleged incident from UP wherein a woman was apparently gang-raped for eating beef:


The tweet did not provide any other details about the alleged incident e.g. when and where in UP it happened. The journalist did not post any follow up tweet providing more details. The news channel where she works as a senior political editor also did not report any incident of gang-rape form UP today.

By evening, Uttar Prades Police took cognizance of her tweet, investigated about the alleged incident and clarified on Twitter that the said incident was “fictional”:


However even after getting caught for spreading lies, the journalist did not delete her tweet or re-tweet the clarification by UP Police so that her Twitter followers know about the truth. Instead she insinuated that UP Police endorsed ‘abuse’ directed towards her:


The conduct of the journalist shocked common people as she showed no remorse, and rather went on to accuse UP Police. People demanded that she be booked for spreading lies and communal disharmony.

It appears that the journalist picked up bits of her lie from a tweet by another TV journalist named Sagarika Ghose, who had posted a similar tweet yesterday. Sagarika had tweeted a link to a report dated 12 September 2016 in an website named The Independent about an alleged incident of gang-rape in Mewat, Haryana. The said report had quoted another NDTV report, in which the victims of the alleged gang-rape had said that they were raped for eating beef:


However, even back then Haryana police had debunked the beef angle just a day later, i.e. on 13 September 2016.

Why Sagarika tweeted about the incident 8 months later even though the ‘beef’ part of the story is suspect, is a mystery. Similar to Pallavi Ghosh, Sagarika also did not provide any context or clarification. Neither did she clarify that the beef angle was debunked by the police.

These two tweets beg the question whether this is plain incompetence of our some journalists to do basic fact-check before tweeting, or it is part of a larger propaganda to flare communal tensions in the country.

How fake news about ‘RSS-linked org promising fair babies’ was invented by media

rohitagarwal
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How fake news about ‘RSS-linked org promising fair babies’ was invented by media

On Twitter, this particular news article flashed on my timeline – RSS-Linked Organisation Promises Couples Customised, Fair ‘Super Babies’ – it was published on a website called The Wire. People were already making snide comments about RSS, and Hinduism in general, based on the headline.

Such headlines have become so commonplace, and uniformly misleading when it comes to any organisation or event or practice that is purportedly linked to ‘Hindutva’ – even if its merely about traditional healthcare practices without any religious component per se.

So normally one just sighs and ignores them. But once in a while curiosity is piqued, and you decide to do a little deeper digging to find out if things are actually as bad as they sound. And that’s what I did in this case.

I started with reading the The Wire article in detail, and realised that it was merely a re-hash of an NDTV report and an Indian Express article with zero value addition. I went through both of those too, but didn’t find any additional facts (or claims) – it seemed the Wire had done a good job of copying the essentials faithfully.

The essence of the story was that Arogya Bharti, the “medical wing” of the RSS, has been allowed by the Calcutta Hight Court to “carry out a programme on how to conceive children that would be tall and fair provided it adhered to strict conditions.” This was preceded by pointed out that such aspirations pointed to the racial mindsets (of the conducting organisation and attending parents, one presumes).

Then I started digging. And found the following:-

  1. Neither the websites of RSS, nor of the conducting organisations Arogya Bharti and Garbh Vigyan mentions any direct link between them, let alone of Arogya Bharti being the “medical wing” of the RSS.
  2. RSS annual report also doesn’t mention the activities of either of these organisations.
  3. “Contact Us” pages of both the organisations had mobile numbers left on them. To be doubly sure, I called up on both the numbers, and I was told the same thing (Remember, this is something the “journalists” of the aforementioned publications should have done). Neither of these organisations has any official connection to the RSS.
  4. Dr. Ramesh Gautam, National General Secretary of the Arogya Bharti, honestly conceded that his ideology might match that of the RSS, but there were no financial, managerial, or operational linkages with the RSS whatsoever. “Ours is an autonomous organisation,” he clarified.
  5. Further, he flatly denied that there was any attempt to get ‘taller and fairer’ babies for the Indian parents. Referring to his ideology that won’t allow him to indulge in something like that, he argued, “We worship a dark Krishna and a short Vamana, so how can we think that being dark or short is a handicap?”
  6. He said that the workshop, allowed by the High Court, was only about educating the expecting mothers and families about various activities that can help them have a healthy and gifted child, and was not at all about ‘tall and fair’ children as has been wrongly claimed in the headlines.
  7. Again, assuming that calling up a few people is too much of a work for modern day journalists, let’s go back to the websites. The Garbh Vigyan Kendra website describes the process as involving prenatal diet, yoga, music, behavioural and thinking process for a healthy pregnancy and child. Specific advantages of the program as quoted on its the website are –
What the website promises to the expecting parents

You can see that there is NO mention of promising prospective “dark-skinned” parents who undergo its workshop and procedures “babies … with fair complexion” or of the babies being “tall” as a result of the program, as was claimed in the articles by the mainstream media publications. So where did this thing come from? The Indian Express quoted someone from Arogya Bharti, which is in conflict with what I was told on phone by the General Secretary of the organisation.

Therefore in a few minutes and after a couple of phone calls, I could figure out that the headline was grossly misleading (I am still giving benefit of doubt to the Indian Express reporter that the quote was not invented, but we know that the media is fully capable of fabricating quotes), the “RSS-link” was tenuous at best (they just share the ideology), and the organisation isn’t the’Medical Wing’ of RSS as reported.

I still wondered whether such a program of prenatal care, involving a spiritual component in addition to the usual dietary and physical ones, was unique to this organisation and thus it was found to be so sensational? So I decided to undertake some further research.

And I found multiple programs from other countries which talk about similar pre-natal programs essentially involving spiritual and physical well-being of the mother during the pregnancy for ensuring a healthier baby, including one being run by the University of Minnesota. There were others from countries like Australia, Canada and South Africa.

So  I concluded that anything with even a faint whiff of ‘saffron’ about it has become a taboo for certain sections, to the extent that even innocuous healthcare programs are being deliberately demonised and projected as part of some grand design to turn the country into a nazi-like racist state.

I wonder where it will all lead to.

But on my part, it has made me completely sceptical and unbelieving of anything I read unless I do my own digging and checking – especially when it comes to RSS or any organisation with alleged connections to it. And the result has been opposite of that presumably intended – instead of developing a fear and distrust for such organisations, I am growing to admire the multitude of service they seem to be doing.

Blow to Lalu as Fodder Scam comes back to haunt him

OpIndia Staff
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Blow to Lalu as Fodder Scam comes back to haunt him

This has come as a huge setback to Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Supreme Court on earlier today revived criminal conspiracy charges against the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief in fodder scam cases. Prasad will be tried separately in each of the four fodder scam cases. The judgement will have big impact on Bihar politics.

The Supreme Court order came at a time when Lalu Prasad is already in a tight spot after he was shown in an audio conversation with Mohammad Shahabuddin. In the audio tape, aired on Republic TV, the mafia don is heard passing on instructions to the RJD chief from the comfort zone of the jail.

The fodder scam dates back to the year 1996 when Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister of the undivided Bihar. The case in which the top court gave its judgement pertains to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 96 lakhs from Chaibasa (now in Jharkhand) treasury during his chief ministerial tenure. This was part of the whopping Rs 900 crores fraudulent withdrawals from Bihar government exchequer by showing fake purchase of fodder for cattle. Former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and former state chief secretary Sajal Chakraborty are among 43 accused in the scam.

A two-judge Supreme Court Bench comprising of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy directed the trial court to complete the proceedings against Yadav and others within a stipulated nine-month period. The Supreme Court Bench held that for each offence there will be a separate trial.

In September 2013, a special CBI court in Ranchi had sentenced Lalu Prasad to five years imprisonment in connection with one of the cases in fodder scam. With that order, Lalu lost his Lok Sabha membership and was barred from contesting elections for six years. In November, 2014, Jharkhand High Court dropped conspiracy charges against Lalu Prasad.

While setting aside the 2014 Jharkhand High Court order, the Supreme Court today said that the High Court should have been consistent in its findings and not have given different views for different sets of accused in a case. The Apex court also pulled up the CBI for delay in filing the appeal against the High Court order in the case.

Of the 55 cases filed in connection with the fodder scam, Lalu Prasad is an accused in five cases. The cases are at their various stages of trail. Lalu is facing simultaneous trails for fraudulent withdrawal – from Chaibasa treasury, Bhagalpur treasury, Doranda treasury, Dumka treasury, Deoghar treasury – for fake fodder purchase during  his tenure as the Bihar Chief Minister.

What is ‘tanker scam’ and what is the alleged role of Kejriwal as per Kapil Mishra

OpIndia Staff
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What is ‘tanker scam’ and what is the alleged role of Kejriwal as per Kapil Mishra

Apart from accusing Arvind Kejriwal of having received a Rs 2 crores bribe for settling a land deal for Kejriwal’s relative, the Delhi Chief Minister is facing another serious allegation of going slow on the probe into the Rs 400 crore Delhi water tanker scam, which allegedly took place during the Sheila Dikshit regime.

What is this ‘tanker scam’ all about:

The alleged scam dates back to 2012 when Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister of Delhi and also the Chairman of Delhi Jal Board. The Delhi Jal Board had awarded tenders for hiring 385 GPS-enabled stainless steel water tankers from private companies to supply water in the areas which lacked regular piped water supply.

All the findings, which are now in the public domain are chiefly as a result of the Delhi Government constituting a 5 member fact-finding committee in June 2015 headed by then Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra. The committee submitted a report regarding the scam in August 2015.

According to the report, the whole process of awarding tenders for hiring water tankers was dodgy. The irregularities were so prevalent that they had resulted in a loss of about Rs 400 crores to the public exchequer.

Of the many irregularities pointed out in the report, those which stand out are:

  • Tender being awarded to a private company despite “exorbitantly higher rates”
  • Appointment of a consultant arbitrarily on a nomination basis causing a loss of Rs 36.5 crores
  • As per norms, tender of one company was rejected on the ground that it was the only applicant, but work was later awarded to another company on the basis of a single tender.
  • There are also allegations that the Sheila Dikshit government had created an artificial water crisis in some parts of Delhi in order to benefit the ‘tanker mafia’.

The Kapil Mishra-led fact finding Committee had recommended an FIR against Sheila Dikshit and a probe by the CBI and the ACB into the scam.

Things went surprisingly dormant after that and almost a year later in mid-June 2016, the AAP government sent the report to the PM and the then Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung. Jung forwarded the recommendations to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for appropriate action.

This delay apparently hadn’t gone unnoticed and the leader of opposition in Delhi assembly, Vijender Gupta had written to the Lieutenant-Governor demanding a probe against Kejriwal for suppressing the fact finding committee report, causing inexplicable delay in taking actions and not cancelling the contract for water tankers.

Scam news revived by Kapil Mishra:

6th May: Kapil Mishra was sacked from the post of Water Minister a day after he alleged in a letter to the ACB chief MK Meena that the probe into the matter was going at a snail’s pace.

7th May: Kapil Mishra hurls a bombshell alleging that he was axed from the Delhi Cabinet for his insistence on bringing those involved in the water tanker scam to justice.

8th May: Kapil Mishra submits “proof” to the ACB regarding the Rs 400-crore scam.

Allegations against Kejriwal:

Kapil Mishra has alleged that Kejriwal and his two associates influenced and delayed the investigation into the scam. Now there are reports coming out in the media which claim that Kejriwal had shielded Sheila Diskhit in regards to the scam.

Also one more reason why the probe might have been delayed was the fact that Mishra in 2015 had allegedly written to Kejriwal claiming that the findings about the scam could also spell trouble not only for Sheila Dikshit and co but also for people in the current AAP government.

Yogi Adityanath’s government has done no wrong till date: Mulayam’s daughter-in-law

OpIndia Staff
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Yogi Adityanath’s government has done no wrong till date: Mulayam’s daughter-in-law

The family feud in Samajwadi Party is refusing to die down. Last week, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger brother Shivpal Yadav announced a new political outfit Samajwadi Secular Morcha to be headed by Mulayam, even though Akhilesh Yadav is the national president of Samajwadi Party. Shivpal is known to not like Akhilesh and has been demanding that Mulayam should be handed back the rein of the party.

Now Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav too has supported this demand and reminded Akhilesh Yadav that he had promised to give the rein of the party back to Mulayam Singh Yadav after the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, which concluded in March this year where BJP scored a massive victory.

Aparna Yadav too had lost the assembly elections to a BJP candidate, but she was all praise for the new government under Yogi Adityanath. She expressed her opinions in an interview to Dainik Bhaskar.

Aparna, who is the wife of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger son Prateek Yadav, praised Yogi for working as a team and in a veiled reference to Akhilesh Yadav’s working, she rued that regional parties ‘work like Hitler’.

“Yogi government is not a one man show. They are taking decisions only after consulting a few people. Whereas everyone has to accept decisions of one man in a regional party,” she was quoted as saying.

She further said that the Yogi government has been doing good work ever since taking over and there was no decision for which she could attack the government. She defended setting up of the ‘Anti-Romeo Squad’ by the government saying it has benefitted women.

“Yogi ji has taken strong action in cases where some wrongs were committed (by the Anti-Romeo Squads),” Aparna Yadav reportedly said.

She even defended the nomenclature saying that while “Romeo” might be a great lover in Shakespearean plays, the term “Roadside Romeo” was also a phrase in English that has different connotation altogether.

Aparna further defended Yogi government putting Samajwadi Party government’s decision under scanner, saying this was ‘routine process’ in every state after regime change.

“When Samajwadi Party came to power, work done by the earlier BSP government was probed, which revealed the money spent on statues and parks,” she reminded.

Aparna Yadav not only praised the Yogi government’s work, she also rubbished theories about BJP winning the assembly elections due to EVM tampering – a charge BSP and Kejriwal are championing, with indirect support from the Samajwadi Party and Congress.

“We lost the elections due to our won deeds,” she said, rejecting the conspiracy theories.

It is to be seen how Akhilesh Yadav reacts to this latest ‘rebel’ in the family. Earlier today, he expelled 5 members of the party who were close to uncle Shivpal Yadav.

Mamata Banerjee in a tizzy as BJP rises in West Bengal

Saswat Panigrahi
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Mamata Banerjee in a tizzy as BJP rises in West Bengal

Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in an utter panic. The two recent developments have proved so. One, in a sudden rush, her party allegedly forcibly inducted the Naxalbari tribal couple, who had hosted BJP president Amit Shah during his visit to the area. Two, Banerjee has threatened to send one lakh BJP members to jail if CBI arrests any of his leaders accused in Narada Sting.

The Naxalbari tribal couple – Geeta and Raju Mahali – who went missing on 2 May, emerged the next day sitting beside West Bengal Tourism Minister Gautam Deb and local TMC leaders outside their home in the presence of a huge police force. Deb announced that the tribal couple were joining the TMC as per their “own volition”.

“Mahalis have willingly joined the TMC. There was no pressure on them. They have decided to join the party after being convinced with Mamata Banerjee’s ‘immense developmental’ work in the state.” Deb said.

The Naxalbari tribal couple was seen crying as they accepted TMC membership at a local party office later. “I like Trinamool Congress and have therefore joined the party,” Geeta read out a one-line statement. The couple accepted a Trinamool flag from Deb.

These reports led people to conclude that the Naxalbari tribal couple were living under fear after hosting Amit Shah on 26 April. They were allegedly abducted and then made to join the Trinamool Congress under the duress. BJP’s Naxalbari block president Dilip Barui had lodged a complaint at the Naxalbari police station stating that the couple were kidnapped.

“It looks like they had to join Trinamool under duress. Else, why would Geeta read out a written statement at the Trinamool party office? But we can’t say anything unless the couple speaks up,” one of Mahalis’ neighbours was quoted as saying in this report.

The incident has triggered sharp reactions from the BJP. “The kidnapping of the Mahali family and forcing them to join the TMC only shows that the TMC is afraid about the growth of BJP and that is why they are behaving in such a way. Such kind of heinous act is a reflection of a dirty, vindictive mentality, which TMC represents,” West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.

In Delhi, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called the incident a “textbook case of revenge politics” as he lashed out at the TMC for carrying out such “tactics of intimidation”.

“Why should a tribal family be under such pressure? We condemn it outright. The BJP cannot be stopped like this,” Prasad told reporters in the national capital.

The BJP on 4 May organised massive protest rallies in Kolkata, Naxalbari, Siliguri, north and south 24 Parganas on this issue.  A party delegation has met West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and presented the issue as an “affront on a tribal woman”.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Tourism Minister Gautam Deb, however, rubbished the BJP’s charges saying that the tribal couple have joined the TMC because “they believe in secularism.”

It is not just the tribals in Naxalbari, there is fear lurking among the residents of Bhawanipore, the Assembly constituency of the TMC chief, and Gourangapur in Kolkata suburb those who hosted the BJP national president during his visit to the state last month. This report suggests that local Trinamool leaders are trying to figure out which local BJP supporters brought and hosted Shah.

The reason that prompted the Trinamool Congress to bay for BJP’s blood is Amit Shah launching the BJP expansion plan from Naxalbari, his huge rally in Bhowanipore and his new clarion call ‘Ebar Bangla’ (Now Bengal). Moreover, Shah started his 110-day-long whirlwind tour across the nation from West Bengal and the state is on special focus in BJP’s scheme of things.

It appears that the aggressive plans of BJP is making Mamata Banerjee feel insecured and threatened by the saffron surge. Speaking at a public meeting in Malda, Banerjee said, “Pick one Trinamool Congress leader in Narada case, at least on lakh BJP members will land in jail. I have cases ready for them.”

The sting operation carried out by a local news channel shows 12 Trinamool Congress leaders – including some Ministers – accepting wads of notes in exchange for political favours. The Calcutta High Court had ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct an inquiry. The CBI has filed FIRs against the accused. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also booked the accused.

After the Saradha chit fund scam, Narada sting has pushed the Mamata-led government and the party into a further corner. Both the scams have large scale implications on Bengal politics. With BJP deciding to raise this issues, the Bengal politics is now heating up.

How media elites moved swiftly to cover for Kejriwal

Abhishek Banerjee
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How media elites moved swiftly to cover for Kejriwal

It may be said safely that India’s liberals have had a bad weekend. First, Arnab resurfaced on Saturday with his new channel Republic TV, bearing with him a tape of Lalu Yadav taking orders from dreaded don Shahabuddin. By Saturday night, AAP was going up in flames with Arvind Kejriwal accused of taking ‘bribes’.

With two big secular superstars under siege at the same time, the battered liberal defenses on Sunday were a picture of despair. In their counter operations, it seems that the media made a tactical decision that Kejriwal was the more valuable asset and proceeded to throw a defensive ring around him.

Rajdeep saving Kejriwal

Well, Rajdeep just looks pathetic playing “defense”. We have all seen the video of him when he is in his element as an “offensive” player.

The bitterness was more visible in this tweet from Hindustan Times’ Harinder Baweja.

HT journo saving Kejriwal

In desperate times, even the most respectable of liberals will not shrink from “whataboutism”. Here is what Siddharth Varadarajan is reduced to.

Wire journo saving Kejriwal

What probe? The Supreme Court has already dismissed the case. Look Mr. Varadarajan sir, I read that in on a website you edit:

Report by Wire

Maybe perhaps Sid Varadarajan does not read The Wire on principle, not wishing to get high on his own supply? That would explain a lot, actually.

Anyway, the same whataboutist approach appeared at the top of leftist propaganda blog Scroll:

Scroll saving Kejriwal

Again, what probe? It’s already dismissed by the Supreme Court. So now we know that those who write for the Scroll don’t read The Wire either.

Also worth noticing here is that “whataboutism” is quintessentially “liberal” quality. Remember they indulged in the same even over the Delhi gangrape verdict by the SC.

Nonetheless, by Sunday night, Kejriwal’s minions were trending #IncorruptibleArvind on Twitter. No surprise there. But here is a tweet that caught my eye.

AAPtars saving Kejriwal

That’s a typical AAP handle, presumably run by some poor sap called Rohit. But “donate”? Interesting choice of words there, possibly indicating the level of despair in the secular camp.

Now I leave it to your imagination how many of the people above have had to “donate” their tweets over the last 2 days.

Hug a liberal. They have had a terrible weekend.

Senior AAP leader accuses Arvind Kejriwal of taking ₹ 2 crore ‘bribe’

OpIndia Staff
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Senior AAP leader accuses Arvind Kejriwal of taking ₹ 2 crore ‘bribe’

Rather than having a quiet morning, Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters were in for a shock on Sunday when their party leader and erstwhile cabinet minister Kapil Mishra in a press conference shockingly alleged that he had personally seen Kejriwal receiving Rs 2 crores in cash from Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain at the former’s official residence.

This incident of Kejriwal accepting cash is supposed to have happened day before yesterday. Kapil Mishra claims that he asked Kejriwal about the cash, but the AAP supremo told him that it was part of politics and he will explain things later. Mishra didn’t find this a satisfactory answer and decided to take the matters further.

He claims that he met Kejriwal again and told him that he will report it to the LG Anil Baijal and also to the Anti-Corruption bureau. He claims that he was removed as a cabinet minister after he disclosed his intentions of exposing corruption within the party.

AAP maintains that Kapil Mishra was removed from the cabinet because he was not performing well. But Mishra says that this is an excuse to hid corruption. He asked that if he indeed was under-performing and people were unhappy with his department (water), why was the party and senior leaders claiming water distribution as one of the chief achievements of the Kejriwal government.

Although it is not yet clear why 2 crore rupees were given to Kejriwal by Jain, Mishra made accusation that Jain had allegedly told him that he had settled land deals worth 50 crores for Kejriwal’s relatives.

After making the allegations, Kapil announced that he will provide details and make a statement in front of the CBI and the Anti-corruption bureau tomorrow.

Even though Kejriwal had so far remained free of any such accusations, the same can’t be said of Satyender Jain. In the past we had reported how he has allegedly been involved in buying about 200 acres of land in and around Delhi via Hawala money.

Mishra has said that he is confident that Jain will go to jail. He said the same to another senior leader Kumar Vishwas, who is supposed to be close to Mishra:


Mishra’s allegations are not the only thing that the party has to fight at this moment, there is another matter of the Union Home Ministry seeking information about the party’s foreign funding.

West Bengal the only state that refused to participate in Modi govt’s cleanliness survey

OpIndia Staff
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West Bengal the only state that refused to participate in Modi govt’s cleanliness survey

Recently Indore was declared the cleanest city in India and Bhopal, Visakhapatnam and Surat followed it in the rankings. The rankings were based on the Swacha Survekshan Survey-2017 which was carried out by the government which covered 434 cities. This survey also let to the conclusion that Gonda in Uttar Pradesh was the dirtiest city in the country.

These rankings were a good source of information for both the citizens and authorities of various cities to gauge as to where did their city stand with respect to the rest of the nation in terms of cleanliness, and thus what more should be done to make their city better. This information though would sadly not be available for the people in West Bengal as it was the only state in the country which had not participated in the survey.

Reportedly according to the West Bengal’s Urban Development Department, the Mamata led government had shown no interest in participating in this survey as it has apparently launched its own spin-off of the Swacha Bharat Abhiyan in form of Mission Nirmal Bangla. Hence it thought there was no point in participating in the survey. Had the West Bengal government given a go ahead for the survey, as many as 60 cities in West Bengal would have been eligible for participation.

This isn’t the only time the Mamata led Bengal government has been lukewarm to the center’s initiatives. It was pointed out by our columnist Ashutosh Muglikar that the pilot Direct Benefit Transfer scheme in fertilizers could not be implemented in Malda and South 24 Parganas district in West Bengal as the state government had not shown any interest for the same. He also pointed out that the Bengal government was also lacking in Direct Benefit Transfer when it came to Public Distribution System. Incidentally Mamata Banerjee had also skipped the Niti Aayog meeting in April.

Mamata has also been averse to letting the center’s schemes operate in her state under their original names. We had reported in March about how the Mamata government was renaming the center’s schemes like Swacha Bharat Abhiyan, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Antyodaya Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana(Pradhan Mantri was struck off) as she wasn’t happy with the 60:40 expense share between the center and the state for these schemes.

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