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India Today slammed on Twitter for suggestive headline on SRK’s daughter

OpIndia Staff
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India Today slammed on Twitter for suggestive headline on SRK’s daughter

Suhana Khan is just 16 years old. She is not into any form of public life, and is happily living her teenage life. But she is the daughter of Bollywood mega star Shahrukh Khan. And according to Indian media, that is enough for them to objectify a private individual, a teenager, by using pictures of her available on the net.

Earlier in the day, India Today published a story titled: “20 photos of Suhana Khan to spice up your Friday, in case you had other plans“.

Well, there were no direct sexual references, but the message was loud and clear. And that upset many on Twitter:


In the above screenshot, it is ironical than on one hand India Today is insulting a young female, and on the other hand, it is organising a “Woman Summit”. Soon, the outrage spread as more user joined in:


Eventually, India Today decided to take action. No, they did not take down the article, but instead decided to change the headline to: “Flashback Friday: 20 photos of Suhana Khan that will make you look forward to her Bollywood debut“.


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But, the URL to the story still reads: “suhana-khan-photos-wild-party”, which clearly shows the intention of the site. In future, if anyone runs a search with those keywords, he will surely land at this page.

This is not for the first time though that SRK’s daughter has attracted media’s attention in rather sexualised way. India Today itself almost exactly a year back had published her photos and titled it “This photo of Shah Rukh Khan’s daughter Suhana in bikini along with AbRam goes viral“. The article had a photo of hers from her Facebook profile too.

NDTV India refuses to apologize for its coverage of the Pathankot terror Attack

Hemant Bijapurkar
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NDTV India refuses to apologize for its coverage of the Pathankot terror Attack

NDTV India which is embroiled in the Pathankot Attack reportage controversy, today in a Supreme Court hearing declined to apologise for its coverage for which it was doled out a token one day ban by the I&B ministry. It may be noted that even this ban was later put on hold by the I&B Ministry. Now the matter will be heard in detail in the Supreme Court:


As exclusively reported by us here, NDTV India received this ban from the I&B ministry for its live coverage of the anti-terror operations via which the channel gave away sensitive information about the Pathankot airbase, like the details of ammunition stockpiled in the airbase, MIGs, fighter planes, rocket launchers, mortars, helicopters, fuel tanks, etc., which could have been misused by the terrorists to cause grave harm to the airbase and the people inside it.

We had recently reported how NDTV India had moved to the Supreme Court after its Hindi channel received the 1 day ban. As the Supreme Court had decided to hear its case, the ban had to be suspended. In one of the hearings of the case on 24th March,  Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi who was representing the I&B ministry had asked for a clear apology from the NDTV which was represented by eminent lawyer Harish Salve. Had NDTV India agreed to do so, it would have been the end of the story.

The apology templates which Salve had come up with in that hearing like ”NDTV is a very responsible media organization. We regret the unfortunate incident which occurred”, ”we regret the controversy that led to the incident” were deemed too generic by Rohtagi. The case was then adjourned for 31st March, i.e. today when NDTV was supposed to let the court know if it agreed to the modifications suggested by the govt.

Clearly NDTV India has now refused to make the modifications and hence refused to apologize in this case. This will now lead to the Supreme Court to provide a detailed hearing in the matter after which it will provide its judgement.

This manoeuvre by NDTV is a clear gamble as it can now either win or lose a lot more than it would have had it provided an apology. As the legal correspondent of the IE pointed out, ”NDTV India is in the dock for violating the telecast norms.” If the Supreme Court finds it guilty for the same just like the Inter Ministerial Committee of the I&B Ministry had back in Nov ’16 the government might not be keen on letting the channel off with just a simple apology, provided it shows some spine.

NDTV on the other hand might be hoping that the case drags on for some time due to which it might fade from public memory. Though if it is indeed found innocent there might not be a better scenario as had it agreed to apologize today it would have been a clear admission of guilt.

The silent reforms that are helping transform the once ailing power sector

Hemant Bijapurkar
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The silent reforms that are helping transform the once ailing power sector

India’s power sector has long been struggling for the lack of power, financial or otherwise. The worst faring have been the state government owned power distribution units (DISCOMs) who by March 2015 had been reeling under outstanding debt of approximately Rs. 4.3 lakh crore. Plus they had accumulated losses worth about Rs 3.8 lakh crores.

PM Modi during the run up to the 2014 elections had promised power for all by 2022. That’s a tall ask considering more than 20% of the Indian population still did not have access to power.

To steer the power sector, the PM chose Piyush Goyal who was given a collective charge of Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy, and Mines ministry. He was considered the key man when it came to the NDA’s 2019 fortunes as energy is the cornerstone to every sector’s development.

So here we look how he is silently reforming the India’s power sector:

  • UDAY scheme: In November 2015, the power ministry announced its ambitious scheme to finally set right the debt ridden state distribution units. Just in the financial year 2014-15, the DISCOMs had accumulated losses worth Rs 60,000 crores. The ministry’s answer was UDAY or Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana. It wasn’t a simple bailout package. Under UDAY, the states would be able to take over as much as 75% of their public DISCOM debt. For that the state government would give a one time grant to DISCOMs to eliminate their debt and the state would then issue bonds against its new debt at a rate of interest 4-6% lower than what the DISCOMs were paying. Plus under the scheme, DISCOMs would be made efficient by increasing their operational efficiency and reducing their cost of power generation. This initiative has shown results and in just one year, DISCOMs’ losses were reduced by 50% to about Rs 37,500 crores. Plus thanks to the falling interest rate, the states gained about Rs 11,989 crores.
  • Shrugging off the past: The state DISCOMs which have been under financial stress are cutting off their excess baggage. On 11th Jan 2017 the Rajasthan govt announced its plan to sell its 1000 MW coal based Chhabra power plant to NTPC. It would not just ensure the Rajasthan government trims its debt (Chhabra has Rs 3200 crores worth of debt), it would also get cash of around Rs 700 crores. It is speculated that as a result of the deal, the end consumer might benefit via lower tariffs. Plus Piyush Goyal in the parliament announced that he plans to phase out power plants which are over 25 years old. And as the report mentioned, Piyush Goyal plans to create a thermal power ecosystem which has a high scale, high efficiency, high coal linkage predictability and greater supply visibility for power-consumers which would be a win win for all parties.
  • Pushing for Renewable Energy: Apart from strengthening the conventional power sector, Goyal led ministries are also pushing for adoption of renewable energy sources. The Power Minister along with the Niti Aayog is drawing up a plan to promote electric vehicles in the country. As part of its initiatives, the FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India) seeks to offer incentives of Rs 29,000 and Rs 1.38 lakh for two and four-wheeler electric vehicles. Also in less than three years after the Piyush Goyal-led Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) announced its renewable energy program, India has added about 14.3 Gigawatt of energy via non-conventional sources. The renewable sources are not just growing but they are also getting cheaper. From Rs 14 to Rs 16 a unit, solar power tariffs have dropped to a paltry Rs 2.97 a unit and wind power has dropped from Rs 8 to Rs 10 a unit to Rs 3.46 a unit. Piyush Goyal attributes it to a transparent auction process among others. If this wasn’t enough, just yesterday reports emerged which stated that Goyal was also looking into ways to reduce the hydro electric costs.
  • Adopting digital India:  The Power Ministry has launched GARV and GARV-II mobile Apps in Oct 15 and Dec 16 respectively. Using this one could track the total progress of electrification of villages. Via the GARV App one could track the progress of 18,000 villages which was expanded to over six lakh villages, amounting to 15 lakh habitations of 17 crore people in the GARV-II App. Via this initiative the Power Ministry wished to usher in accountability and transparency in its implementations.
  • India becomes a net-exporter: Lets end this post with the icing on the cake. For the first time, thanks to the Government’s investment in India’s power sector, India became a net exporter of electricity. India’s power export from April to February, at 5,798 million units, surpassed its import from Bhutan by 4 per cent. Also upcoming transmission lines to Nepal, Bangladesh and Mayanmar are only set to increase the export percentage in the future.

Piyush Goel may not get the headlines which some others in the NDA get, but he certainly deserves applause for setting many things right in a sector which is plagued by huge legacy problems. More “power” to him!

CBI probing corruption charges against secret anti-corruption unit of Kejriwal

OpIndia Staff
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CBI probing corruption charges against secret anti-corruption unit of Kejriwal

In March last year, there were reports that the Delhi government had set up a special team to monitor corruption in all offices. This team was supposed to report directly to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. There were source based reports informing how details of this special team were confidential, and that a couple of officials had already been suspended based on team’s feedback.

In August, the then L-G of Delhi, Najeeb Jung constituted a panel comprising former CAG VK Shunglu, former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami, and former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar to look into around 400 files of Kejriwal government, which the L-G suspected were in violations of rules and laws.

The panel is reported to have found setting up of this special team in violation of rules. It was understood that this team was known as “Feedback Unit” and was set up by the Delhi cabinet in September 2015. This panel found the decision of creating such a team in violation of rules as it was not approved by the L-G as required by law.

In October 2016, Open magazine published a report highlighting various incidents of irregularities by the Kejriwal government. This Feedback Unit was mentioned in the report and it was alleged that the Kejriwal government was involved in snooping on people rather than monitoring any corruption charges.

When such allegations became public, the Delhi government apparently disowned the unit. According to a report published by News18 on 10th October 2016, “Delhi Government sources said the unit was never set up and it remained a decision. They also called the news reports about the unit’s formation as totally baseless.”

L-G Najeeb Jung, whose term was ending, nonetheless referred the matters to the CBI, which had started preliminary inquiries in January this year. In the process of investigations, they took away files specific to this Feedback Unit.

On Twitter, Delhi Chief Minister blamed Narendra Modi and informed that the CBI had taken “all files” related to the “Feedback Unit”:



This tweet appears to be contradiction to the report by News18 in October last year, where they quoted Delhi government sources saying such a unit was never set up. Did a unit exist as mentioned in Kejriwal’s tweet or was Delhi CM referring to the files about decision only?

If latest reports are to be believed, such a unit not only existed, but they were allotted a budget of 1 crore rupees as well for carrying out ‘secret services’. According a report published in DNA today, out of this Rs 1 crore, the CBI could find records pertaining to 50,000 rupees only.

These 50,000 rupees are reported to have been spent as a ‘bribery trap’ to expose corruption in a school and were allotted to someone named Kailash Chand in the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), but no such person was found working in the ACB. Not just that, the bribery case was related to a private school, not any government office.

There is no record of where the rest of the money was spent nor could the Vigilance Department, under which this unit was formed though it reported directly to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), locate the office of this unit or details of the employees. However, around 41 lakh rupees were released as salaries, the DNA report says.

The Vigilance Department is reported to have asked the CMO officials about details, but the department didn’t receive meaningful response, reports say. These findings hint at corruption or rampant irregularity and the CBI has now registered a case.

Kenyan ‘racist’ attack: Police claim ‘loopholes’, Kenyan embassy withdraws case

OpIndia Staff
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Kenyan ‘racist’ attack: Police claim ‘loopholes’, Kenyan embassy withdraws case

Yesterday some reports had come out which claimed that a Kenyan woman’s cab was stopped in the wee hours of Wednesday in Sector Omicron of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh. She was then reportedly slapped and thrashed by the people. The reports further stated that she was then taken to a local hospital where she was treated for trauma and placed on oxygen support for a few hours before being released.

This incident also came under intense focus as it followed racist attacks in Greater Noida where a mob reportedly attacked as many as 9 Africans at various locations, which resulted in two getting hospitalized.

The allegations of the Kenyan woman ensured that the police filed a case against 10 unknown assailants under various sections of the IPC. The woman is then supposed to have gone to the nearest police station and was then shifted to the hospital by the authorities present.

In what now appears as a twist in the tale, ASP Dharmendra Chavan of the UP police, who had investigated the matter, has now claimed that case was fake. DGP UP Javeed Ahmad too tweeted the same:


As revealed by the police, they managed to track the cab driver who refuted all claims of the incident and stated that he dropped her at 5:47 AM and left. Police has also claimed that the location mentioned by the girl was false, as they tallied it with the GPS location data. Reports say the girl had a fight with her friends, but ended up reporting it as racist attack. Plus reports also claimed that the girl’s friends also stole Rs 500 from the cab driver.

All this though doesn’t negate the fact that racism is an issue in the Indian society. The recent incidents of assault on Africans by the mob are an indication of that. Plus it has long been in public knowledge about how our own countrymen from the North Eastern States are reported to have been a victim of racism in their own country.

However, such false claims only ensures that the fight against real racism gets a setback. Realising that this could hurt the wider cause, the Association of the African Students in India have said that they were “embarrassed” by the incident and that girl was going through a mental trauma due to “family issues”. The association further claimed that the Kenyan girl gave false information to police,

It has also been reported that the Kenyan embassy too has decided to withdraw the case. Embassy officials revealed that the police has assured that they will not file a case against the girl for lodging a false case.

AAP asked to pay 97 crores from party fund for Ads put out using taxpayer’s money

Hemant Bijapurkar
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AAP asked to pay 97 crores from party fund for Ads put out using taxpayer’s money

In a setback to the AAP Government, Anil Baijal, the L-G of Delhi, has directed that 97 crores of taxpayer’s money, which the Delhi Government spent on advertisements, are to be now recovered from the party’s funds within 30 days.

This spending by the Delhi Government was found to be in violation of the Supreme Court’s guidelines put out regarding government advertising. These advertisement guidelines were formulated by the Supreme Court in an order dated 13th May 2015.

According to the report, of the 97 crores in question, the AAP Government has already paid 42 crores to the ad agencies using the public exchequer. This would be reimbursed from the party and the rest of the due amount would be paid by the party itself in its own capacity.

The AAP Government has been under the scanner for long when it comes to its advertisement spending. We had put out a report in July 2016 that examined the legality of the whole exercise, and we found enough examples of them being in violation of the rules.

The report talked about how the Delhi govt’s advertisements had appeared in all corners of the country and even in vernacular languages like Odia and Gujarati. Plus the advertisements were not in form of old fashioned posters or banners but were cheekily placed as advertorials, marketing solutions, Vigyapan Parishish, etc., which could have easily passed off as news reports for the untrained eye.

The objectives of the guidelines which the AAP government was clearly violating were:

  • The guidelines wished to clearly prevent arbitrary use of public funds without any attended pubic interest. Plus the government’s message has to be well coordinated and effectively managed. This was reportedly violated by the AAP govt when it put out advertorials, that too in far flung areas of the country.
  • The advertisements should not be promoting the political interest of the ruling party but the AAP govt had put out ads, which claimed how the center had withheld 14 of its bills or mentioned phrases like “they kept troubling us, we kept working” among others.
  • The govt should just inform people its constitutionally obligated to. Hence the AAP govt of Delhi had no business making people all over India aware about its achievements.
  • The guidelines also mention that money should not be spent to receive “favorable” reporting from media houses. But there have been reports which point towards AAP misusing its position.

Based on all the allegations of wrongdoing, the Center had set up a three member committee headed by former Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon to look into the advertising fiasco. This committee had in September 2016 indicted the Delhi govt for misusing public funds. The commission had recommended that entire amount be recovered from the Aam Aadmi Party.

Recently a CAG report too had found the AAP govt in violation of SC norms based on the govt’s decision to spend about 33 crores on releasing advertisements outside Delhi.

GST: Past, Present and Future

OpIndia Staff
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Inception

In 2000, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set up a committee which was mandated with facilitating the states to switch from sales tax to the value-added tax (VAT) regime. On April 1, 2005, state-level VAT replaced sales tax in many states. Subsequently, the committee was mandated with facilitating states to switch to Goods & Service Tax (GST), in consultation with the Centre. GST works on the exact same principles as VAT, hence in many countries it is in fact called VAT. Under the UPA, successive finance ministers promised GST in successive years, with the deadline being extended year on year without any headway.

Why the delay for so many years?

GST subsumes many state and central taxes. In effect, it reduces the power of states to tax their citizens. Hence it was essential that all the states and the centre were on the same page at every stage of the GST Act. This did not happen during the UPA rule. Expectedly, states were worried that they would lose a big pie of their revenue by getting into GST.

Even till the fag end of 2013, nearing the end of UPA’s tenure, along with BJP states, few Congress states and few other states with Non-Congress Non-BJP Governments, were opposed to certain provisions in the UPA’s version of GST. Till the last discussion of GST under UPA in November 2013, the states had some major demands:

1. Keeping Petroleum out of GST ambit
2. Keeping Alcohol out of GST ambit
3. Keeping Entry Tax out of GST ambit
4. Some sort of guarantee from Centre for potential revenue loss

The UPA could not negotiate with the states on the above demands and hence even after being 10 years in power, GST could not be brought under the UPA rule.

What changed?

The new BJP Government was desperate to get GST rolled out as soon as possible. So, it decided to accept some of the states demands, and give them some comfort, so that they can agree with the centre at other places. Out of the above 4 demands, 3 were accepted, and a bonus benefit was passed on to the state:

1. Petroleum was kept out of GST
2. Alcohol was kept out of GST
3. A proposal was sent to law ministry to work out a “Constitutional Guarantee” to compensate states
4. And the Bonus: The power to states of levying additional 1% tax levy, for maximum 2 years, to help augment state revenues (Eventually even this levy was dropped)

In exchange for this, the Centre convinced the states to allow Entry Tax to be subsumed into the GST ambit. All this was achieved some time in late 2014, barely 6 months into the tenure of the new Government.

Legislative processes

With the states on board, the GST bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, where BJP had an absolute majority, in May 2015 itself. At that stage Congress walked out of the house before voting, demanding that the Bill be sent to the standing committee.

Later, although Congress states were on board, the Central leaders of Congress came up with new demands for GST, among which were the demand to scrap the additional 1% tax levy, and to peg the GST rate at 18%, that too in the Constitution Amendment Bill. Next, the bill had to be passed by a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP did not have the numbers.

Eventually the 1% tax levy was dropped and other demands were met, paving the way for GST. Rajya Sabha passed the GST Constitution Amendment Bill, and half of the state assemblies also approved the Constitution Amendments.

The draft GST laws were discussed and deliberated by the GST Council, which has representatives from both the Centre and all States. Finally yesterday, after extensive public consultation, the four items of legislation — central GST, integrated-GST, union territory-GST and the compensation Bill were passed in the Lok Sabha. Next, the Rajya Sabha will have to pass these laws, which should be easy since they are money bills.

After this the GST Council has to approve the GST rules, set the schedules determining tax rates, and all states have to enact the state GST laws. All this has to be done before 1st July 2017 to ensure a timely roll-out

What will change under GST?

Think of it as a super-all-inclusive tax, which will eliminate most other Indirect taxes. Its aim is to standardise taxation across the country and remove cascading effect of taxes i.e. Tax on tax egs: VAT is charged on Excise too. GST is already in place in over 160 countries world wide, so India is late to the party. Experts say, GST could increase GDP by 1-2% and reduce costs of inputs by around 10%.

Untitled

Taxes to be subsumed

With this, compliance will ease out, free flow of goods over state boundaries will increase. Credits for inputs will be more easily available, paving the way for reduction in costs. A common national market will emerge, where in less developed, but consumer driven states will benefit. Make in India will get a huge push, as also Ease of Doing Business.

For a simpler explanation of GST, watch this video:

 

Twitterati slam Shiv Sena for its meat banning exercise in Gurgaon

OpIndia Staff
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Twitterati slam Shiv Sena for its meat banning exercise in Gurgaon

The recent incidents perpetrated by Shiv Sena threaten to portray it less as political party and more as fringe group which brawls with people as a pastime.

Recently Ravindra Gaikwad, its MP from Osmanabad had boldly claimed on camera how he had beaten up a 60 year old Air India official 25 times with his slippers. This ensured a boycott of Gaikwad from both Air India and the federation of Indian Airlines which rendered him unable to travel by plane. He now a days is making the Mumbai Delhi Journey by a train or a car.

The Shiv Sena workers though seem to be giving a good competition to Gaikwad when it comes to shaming the party and the country’s political system.

Today the Gurgaon unit of the party claimed that it had shut more than 500 shops which sell meat and meat based product for nine days owing to the ongoing festival of Navratri. They also managed to close a KFC outlet. This feat was achieved by the efforts of about 200 Shiv Sainiks. Gautam Saini, the president of Shiv Sena Gurgaon also claimed that they have instructed meat shop owners to keep their establishments shut every Tuesday.

Shop owners claimed that they had no choice but to comply owing to the sheer strength of the Sainiks, but were mulling a police complaint.

This arm twisting tactic by the Shiv Sena irked many on social media, as not just is selling meat perfectly legal during Navratri but such an act was depriving supposedly legal enterprises from going about their businesses.

Here are a few reactions:


One had a sarcastic take on the issue:


People pointed out the hypocrisy of Shiv Sena which in 2015 had sold meat on the streets of Mumbai to defy the four day meat ban in the city owing to the Jain ritual of Paryushan.

‘YoAurangzebSoNoble’ – Huffpost gets mocked for its effort to whitewash Aurangzeb’s crimes

Hemant Bijapurkar
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‘YoAurangzebSoNoble’ – Huffpost gets mocked for its effort to whitewash Aurangzeb’s crimes

Aurangzeb, probably the most brutal and fanatical of all the Mughals has long enjoyed an infatuation by a section of the left-liberal brigade who regularly try hard to paint him as a misunderstood ruler. We had reported in the past about Aurangzeb’s crimes and how apologists were trying hard to whitewash his crimes.

Today people again witnessed one such effort by the Aurangzeb apologists when Huffpost carried an article about how Aurangzeb was actually a victim of character assassination by Right Wingers on the social media:


The article titled, ”Why Aurangzeb’s Reputation As A Tyrant And Bigot Doesn’t Stand The Test Of History” quotes Audrey Truschke’s book about Aurangzeb called ‘The man and the myth’ to reach that conclusion.

Audrey Truschke herself indulges in regular humanization of Aurangzeb which includes mentioning how he enjoyed mangoes, liked Rumi among others.

Though this depiction of Huffpost irked many, they decided not to outrage over it but to sarcastically put forth the atrocities by trending #YoAurangzebSoNoble .

Even though we had many good reactions to choose from, we have compiled what we felt were the best:


People also put out serious questions about the Huffpost’s decision to publish such an article:


This form of protest is much better than the bouts of violence from fringe groups, belonging to all sides of the spectrum. Free speech is best countered with free speech.

Odisha politics: Naveen Patnaik facing heat from BJP’s growth and internal feud

Sambit Nayak
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Odisha politics: Naveen Patnaik facing heat from BJP’s growth and internal feud

A political storm has been brewing in Odisha for last couple of months, intensity of which increased after BJP surprised everyone with its performance in panchayat polls last month. The storm has now gained enough momentum to form into a category 5 cyclone, something this part of the country is famous for.

On Monday, Party MP Mr. Tathagata Satpathy sent out this series of tweets, claiming that BJP was trying to split BJD. He hinted at one MP (of BJD) helping BJP in this mission:

Something similar was suggested by one of the party veteran and a motormouth, Mr. Damodar Rout, who is also a state minister, when he blamed “Bibhisans” in the party for BJD’s loss and BJP’s gains in the panchayat polls.

However, Mr. Satpathy hinted at one certain Bibhishan (as against many Bibhisans) in his series of tweets.

Any person remotely familiar with Odisha politics will know whom he was hinting at. So when a Twitter user asked for Mr. Baijayant Jay Panda’s comment on it, this was his reply:


Clearly, Panda babu didn’t take it lightly. After all, he has been a disciplined soldier of the party since its formation in 1997. In fact, he was one of the founding members along with other party veterans, some of whom have now been sidelined.

But there have been a lot of rumours in Odisha political circle about him switching sides to BJP, primarily because he is not seen as a vocal critic of the Narendra Modi government. So much so that even if he says something about BJP’s victory in Uttar Pradesh, media channels owned by rival parties publish headlines like “Jay Panda praising Shatru Pakshya (enemy side in Odia)”, which adds fuel to the infighting within BJD.

Yesterday, Mr. Panda wrote an op-ed titled “BJD – Atmasamikhya ra samaya” in an Odia daily, which in English, translates to “BJD – Time for introspection”. Incidentally, BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik had called for introspection after the panchayat poll results surprised many.

This op-ed is being seen as further proof of internal feud in the party. Although worded very well, one can’t miss the undertones of the op-ed, which virtually puts the onus of decline in BJD’s popularity at Naveen Patnaik’s doorstep. The article recalls how BJD grew because Congress in the state was seen as corrupt party infested with criminal elements, but cautions that the same allegations were now being levelled against the BJD.

The op-ed by Mr. Panda further highlights concerns like opportunists being rewarded by BJD and the party being run by bureaucrats. He further says that the young generation may not remember about injustices during the Congress rule, but remembers those faced today under the BJD regime. The article finally concludes that unless Naveen Patnaik urgently deals with these issues, the party will struggle.

While one may argue over the intention or timing of this ‘public introspection’, but not much is there to disagree. One of the USPs of Naveen Patnaik was his clean image and no-nonsense attitude towards acting against corruption. However, since 2014, that image has taken a beating. The chit fund scam saw his personal assistant being caught grilled by CBI in the scam.

Although the op-ed doesn’t directly identify it as a problem, there is a mention of senior leaders being ignored. It is true that founding members like Dilip Ray and Bijay Mohapatra are now no longer in the party. A senior member like Damodar Rout been given Cooperation and Excise ministry is also seen as a snub. For the uninitiated, imagine Arun Jaitley being given food processing ministry. Second generation leaders and party hoppers have been given cabinet berths or Rajya Sabha nominations. Party members may not speak this in media, but from time to time, their frustration does come out in one form or the other.

So what is BJD’s official reaction to these concerns raised by Mr. Panda? Party spokesperson, Mr. Pratap Keshari Deb, former MLA from Aali assembly constituency, has termed it as indiscipline. He said this in a panel discussion on a channel owned by Mr. Panda. When asked, if Panda babu has said anything untrue, he replied, “If you have an advice for the party, media is not the forum. Discuss it among the party members. This is a clear case of indiscipline”.

However, in the heat of the debate, he agreed that what Panda babu had written was “Apriya Satya” – Truth which nobody likes to hear. Today, Mr. Panda reiterated that all he wanted was that Naveen Patnaik should recognise the current challenges and take corrective steps:



So how is Naveen babu going to take all this? Will he be miffed that this is being discussed in public, or will he take it as constructive criticism? Is “internal feud” in BJD going to get worse, or we are going to see a revival?

For those who have followed Naveen Patnaik, he shares some similarities with Sonia Gandhi. He rarely gives interviews to media and is not so accessible to the public. He is the supreme boss of his party. But since last few days, he is going out of his ways to interact with public. Be it a surprise visit to a bookstore or selfie with agricultural students, he is certainly trying an image makeover.

However, dealing with intra-party politics is different. Even if he doesn’t take the op-ed of Mr. Panda as a personal criticism or indiscipline, it is now not a secret that a political storm is brewing inside his party and he needs to fight it.

I will like to conclude by reminding readers that Naveen Patnaik was felicitated by the UN for efficient disaster management after cyclone Phailin hit coast of Odisha in 2013. He needs to showcase similar disaster management skills once again.

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