2022 saw BJP's victories in state polls, India's G20 presidency, and more

The action-packed year saw BJP’s victories in high-stakes state polls, tussle over CM posts, Congress campaign to “unite the country”, maritime show of strength, and India’s G20 presidency.

Yogi Adityanath with PM Narendra Modi (Photo PTI)
 

In perhaps the most consequential election this year, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath faced a daunting task: beating anti-incumbency in a state with a solid reputation of voting out the ruling dispensation. Task cut out, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s targeted approach and Yogi’s all-out style of campaign turned the otherwise four-cornered contest into a bipolar battle, setting the stage for the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. The BJP not only won Uttar Pradesh, but also retained Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and Gujarat. The Opposition, too, had its fair share of success — the AAP cruised to victory in Punjab, and the Congress won the battle of tradition in Himachal Pradesh.

Photo: PTI

Shoring up India’s maritime strength, the INS Vikrant — the country’s first indigenously designed and built aircraft carrier — was commissioned by PM Narendra Modi on September 2. It took 13 long years for the construction of the 262-metre-long and 62-metre-wide warship, which can carry 30 aircraft and a crew of about 1,700, with specialised cabins for women officers.

Photo: ANI

 

On December 1, India assumed the G20 presidency for a year. The multilateral grouping of developed and developing economies represents around 80% of the world’s GDP, 75% of international trade, and 60% of global population. Although by rotation, the leadership offers India a unique opportunity to influence the platform’s agenda, raise the concerns of the Global South as well as project itself as a favourable destination for investors and multinationals.

Photo: PTI

 

In the very first week of 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy almost ran into a roadblock of protestors while on its way to Firozpur in Punjab. The cavalcade was stranded on a flyover for 15-20 minutes. While politics as usual took over thereafter, the breach of security protocol raised several questions of accountability across layers of the PM’s security apparatus.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Rajasthan Congress Chief Govind Singh Dotasra and others during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, in Bundi, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022. (PTI Photo)

 

The year of crests and troughs began for the Congress with a string of losses in Assembly elections. To add to its woes, G23, the ginger group of senior Congress leaders, threatened to lance the party top-down. An uneasy calm prevailed after a brainstorming conclave in Udaipur. And on September 7, Rahul Gandhi launched the Bharat Jodo Yatra to “unite India”. Then came the desert storm, ratcheted up by Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot over the candidature of Congress presidency. Finally, the election of a first non-Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, to the party’s top post in 24 years, beckoned a semblance of stability.

People block Jalandhar-Delhi National Highway to protest against Centre's Agnipath scheme, in Jalandhar (Photo: PTI)

 

Protests against Agnipath, Centre’s new defence recruitment scheme, turned violent in several states in June, with job-seekers torching trains  and blocking roads and rail lines. Under the scheme, around 45,000 to 50,000 soldiers will be recruited annually, and most will leave the service in four years. Of the total annual recruits, only 25 per cent will be allowed to continue for another 15 years under permanent commission. This angered the aspirants who demanded job security and lifelong pension like the earlier system.

Photo: BBC/EPA

On September 17, his birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released eight cheetahs in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park. The big cats, declared extinct in India in 1952, were translocated from Namibia, Africa. This was the first time a large carnivore was rehabilitated from one continent to another. A total of 50 cheetahs are expected to arrive in India under the Centre’s Project Cheetah over five years.  While some wildlife conservationists expressed concern over the project, saying it would fail in the long run, the government maintains that the cheetahs are adapting well to their new ‘home’. By late November, all the eight cats were released to a larger enclosure in Kuno.

Photo: PTI

On October 30, a British-era pedestrian suspension bridge over the Machchhu river in Gujarat’s Morbi collapsed, killing at least 135 people and injuring more than 180. The civic body blamed Ajanta Manufacturing, which was tasked to repair the bridge, saying its parent company, the Oreva group, had reopened it for the public without fitness approval.

 

In August, The CBI raided Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia  over alleged irregularities in excise policy. Sisodia, among a few political leaders, has been named in the charge sheet filed by ED, which is also probing the matter. Over the year, the ED quizzed several Opposition leaders, including former Congress chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, and arrested Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee and Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut in money-laundering cases.

New signboard bearing Kartavya Path unveiled following the change of Rajpath to Kartavya Path, in New Delhi (Photo: PTI)

Another chapter in history: Erasing the “symbol of slavery”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated New Delhi’s revamped Rajpath and renamed it as Kartavya Path on September 8.  The hologram statue of Subhas Chandra Bose under the canopy at India Gate was also replaced with the freedom fighter’s jet black granite statue.

Photo: PTI

 

All 11 people convicted of the gangrape of Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat riots walked out of jail under the state government’s remission policy. They were welcomed with sweets and garlands, triggering an uproar. Bano moved the Supreme Court challenging the remission of sentence, but the court dismissed her review petition.