Page 237 - Bjp

Bawankule accuses Sharad Pawar of spreading rumours, calls it unfortunate

Bharatiya Janata Party's Maharashtra chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Sunday said it was unfortunate that senior leaders like Sharad Pawar were part of the group spreading rumours that the BJP intended to change the Constitution. The country's Constitution is very strong and no one can change it, the BJP leader said, adding that people should not fall prey to the "false narratives" of leaders, including NCP (SP) head Pawar. In a social media post, Bawankule said, "Rumours are being spread about BJP's intentions to change the Constitution because of the various guarantees offered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is unfortunate to see senior leaders like Sharad Pawar joining the herd." "No one can change the Constitution of the country. It is very strong. Sharad Pawar would definitely know the number of times the Congress party amended the Constitution," he said. Contrary to such record, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government always respected and honoured the Constitutio

BJP spreading lies against Rahul Gandhi over his 'shakti' remark: Raut

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday claimed the BJP was spreading a false narrative against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi while targeting him over his "shakti" remark. In his weekly column "rokhthok" in the party mouthpiece Saamana, Raut said during his Mumbai rally, Gandhi had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is just a mask and the opposition has to fight the "shakti" behind it. "Gandhi meant 'dhan shakti' (money power) against which the opposition has to fight. PM Modi immediately said this was an attack on Hindutva and women power. People who consider themselves as the avatar of Lord Vishnu were shocked by Gandhi's 'shakti' attack and started spreading a false narrative against him. There is also a shakti behind this false propaganda machinery," the Rajya Sabha claimed. "The BJP has become a mental illness patient," he alleged. Raut also wondered why a hospital whose income is generated from patients should purchase electoral bonds. "The Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital .

LS polls: Discontent grows in TMC, BJP in Bengal over ticket distribution

Discontentment seems to be increasing by the day in sections of the BJP and the TMC in West Bengal with several leaders of both camps expressing displeasure over the selection of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Several TMC leaders aspiring for tickets have openly voiced their unhappiness over not being nominated for the seats they eyed. The BJP has witnessed similar dissatisfaction among some influential leaders over candidate selection. At least five senior TMC leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Mausam Benazir Noor and party spokesperson Santanu Sen, who were seeking nomination from Malda North and Dum Dum seats respectively, have expressed dissatisfaction after being denied tickets. Even Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's younger brother, Babun Banerjee, voiced his displeasure after not being nominated for the Howrah seat, in which the TMC gave its ticket to sitting MP Prasun Banerjee. The CM disowned her brother following his outburst. Sitting BJP MP from Barrackpo

LS elections: Congress, AAP come together to put up tough fight in Gujarat

The Congress-Aam Aadmi Party tie-up in Gujarat is hoping to challenge the electoral hegemony of the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, while the ruling party is confident the opposition alliance will not affect its prospects. The Congress-AAP alliance this time aims to give a tough fight and stop the division of anti-BJP votes. In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won all 26 seats parliamentary seats in Gujarat, which is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, garnering more than 60 per cent of the vote share in both the elections. In the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections, the Congress and the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP contested separately, resulting in the division of opposition votes and leading the BJP to a huge win by bagging 156 out of the 182 seats in the state. The BJP received around 51 per cent of the votes, the Congress secured 27.5 per cent votes and 17 seats, while the AAP got around 13 per cent votes and five seats. A .

Barring agony, fear, nothing done by Owaisi for Hyderabad: BJP candidate

BJP's rookie contestant, 49-year-old K Madhavi Latha, is unperturbed by sitting Hyderabad MP and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi's "larger than life image," and claims all he has given to the constituency is agony, fear and injustice. A classical dancer and entrepreneur, the 49 year-old Latha is set to take on Owaisi in his stronghold in the May 13 General Elections. In an interview to PTI, she lambasted the AIMIM chief for the alleged lack of development in the constituency though he has been representing it since 2004. She is not perturbed by the larger than life image of the strident BJP critic in the constituency. Asked how she takes on her main rival Owaisi as she is a new entrant into politics, she shot back, asking what kind of an image does Owaisi have. "You say larger than life image. It matters what kind of an image. If you have a larger than life, a negative image, it doesn't require more than a pebble to shatter it. For example, if you have made a cascade with playing

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's wife Sunita meets him at ED office

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's wife Sunita Kejriwal on Saturday evening met him at the ED office where he is lodged under custody in connection with the excise policy-linked money laundering case. A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) had allowed Sunita Kejriwal and Bibhav Kumar (Kejriwal's personal assistant) to meet him every day for half an hour between 6-7 pm, apart from his lawyers. Sunita Kejriwal met her husband at the ED office at A P J Abdul Kalam Road as per the court's order, officials said. Wearing a salwar suit and holding some papers, she was captured by news cameras while exiting the ED office and boarding a car with some staff. Arvind Kejriwal, also the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was arrested by the ED on March 21 under the anti-money laundering law after conducting searches at his official residence in the Civil Lines area of the national capital. Sunita Kejriwal (58), a 1993-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of

Rajinder Rana hints at more Congress MLAs joining BJP in Himachal Pradesh

More legislators are feeling suffocated in the Congress and would also show courage to leave the party in the coming days, said Rajinder Rana, one of the six disqualified MLAs who switched to the BJP on Saturday. The Congress rebels and three independent MLAs, who had voted in favour of the BJP in recently concluded Rajya Sabha polls, were given a rousing welcome by the BJP on their arrival here after joining the party in New Delhi. "More legislators are feeling suffocated in Congress and are in contact with us. They would also show courage to leave Congress in the coming days," Rana told reporters here. He blamed the Congress leadership for the "political disaster" in the hill state and claimed the state government 'is on a ventilator". The BJP workers and supporters of these leaders danced to the traditional folk tunes while welcoming them here on Saturday night. The three independents are Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur constituency), Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh) ha

Highlights: PM Modi, other BJP leaders meet to pick candidates for LS polls

From Kejriwal's arrest to portfolio allocation in Haryana govt, catch all the latest news from around the world here

AAP asks ED to file case against BJP, alleges it received crores in scam

The AAP asked the ED on Saturday to file a case against the BJP, alleging that the saffron party received crores of rupees from an accused in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam through electoral bonds. Addressing a press conference, Delhi minister Atishi asserted that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has not been able to establish a money trail against any Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader despite multiple raids, arrests and two-year-long investigations in the alleged liquor scam. "Two days ago, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested in connection with the alleged liquor scam on the basis of Sarath Reddy's statement. On November 9, 2022, Reddy had said he did not know Kejriwal. After the ED arrested him, he changed his statement, saying he knew Kejriwal," Atishi said. Reddy of Aurobindo Pharma was arrested by the federal agency in November last year in connection with the excise policy case. Atishi alleged that Reddy donated crores of rupees to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJ

PM Modi, other BJP leaders meet in Delhi to pick candidates for LS polls

The BJP's Central Election Committee met here on Saturday to finalise the party's candidates in several states for the Lok Sabha polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda were joined by other CEC members as they went over the list of probables to take a final call. The states for which candidates were tipped to be discussed include Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The CEC has met twice earlier and has named candidates for 291 Lok Sabha seats so far, including in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Telangana among others. The BJP is yet to announces candidates for many seats in some of these states. At least three of the declared candidates, including Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh, have withdrawn from the fray after their names drew some controversy or other. The names of the leading figures of the party, including Modi, Shah, Rajn

Opaque electoral bond scheme ensured bribes through banks, says Congress

Stepping up its attack on the BJP-led government over the electoral bonds issue, the Congress on Saturday said the "opaque scheme" ensured that prepaid, postpaid and even post-raid bribes could be routed through the banking channel. The opposition party also reiterated its demand that there should be a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry into the issue. At a press conference, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that this is the prime minister who gave a guarantee of 'bringing back black money' and instead "legalized corruption and is then desperately trying to hide it". The opposition party also released a "python code" due to which, it claimed, it took less than 15 seconds to match the donors with political parties, "exposing the brazen and ridiculous claim of the SBI that it would take months to provide the data asked by the Supreme Court". The Congress has highlighted four patterns of "blatant corruption" in the electoral bonds scam -? "Chanda Do, Dhanda Lo i.e. Prepaid

Uttarakhand govt to translocate four tigers to Rajasthan, says official

The Uttarakhand government has agreed to translocate four tigers to Rajasthan following a request from the authorities of the western state. The process of selecting the tigers for relocation to Rajasthan has already begun, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) Sameer Sinha told PTI on Saturday. The tigers to be sent to Rajasthan will not be captured from the protected forest area but from the buffer zone, according to guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), he said A similar request for the relocation of three tigers to Odisha has also been received and it is under consideration, Sinha said. The requests from the Rajasthan and the Odisha governments for the translocation of tigers were received following the successful operation of the tiger relocation project in Uttarakhand under which four big cats were translocated from the Corbett Tiger Reserve to Rajaji Tiger Reserve, the official said. A fifth tiger can be brought from Corbett to the Motic

Union minister Pramanik has 14 criminal cases against him: Affidavit

Union minister Nisith Pramanik, who has been renominated by the BJP in Cooch Behar seat for the Lok Sabha elections, has 14 criminal cases pending against him, according to an affidavit filed by him along with his nomination paper. Of the 14 cases pending against the Union Minister of State for Home, nine were registered between 2018 and 2020. The other cases were filed between 2009 and 2014, as per the affidavit. He joined the BJP in 2019 after he was expelled from the Trinamool Congress in 2018 over allegedly putting up several independents in that year's panchayat polls in the state against party-nominated contestants in Cooch Behar district. Claiming that the criminal cases were politically motivated, a district functionary of the BJP said that most of the FIRs against Pramanik were registered after he cut off ties with the ruling TMC in West Bengal and thereafter joined the saffron party. The cases registered against the Union minister range from attempt to murder and rioting

Cong like well-established firm with fluctuating mcap; BJP startup: Jairam

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh likened his party to a "well-established company" whose market capitalisation keeps fluctuating and asserted that it will stage a comeback. In an interaction at the PTI office here, Ramesh also dismissed suggestions that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charisma that was responsible for the BJP's electoral performance and stressed on the importance of organisational strength. The idea of a charismatic leader was a "dangerous concept" to believe in as one doing so, automatically believes in a "demagogue", the Congress general secretary in charge communications asserted. Talking about the need for bringing in new faces, Ramesh, however, noted that this was difficult in the Congress because people have been in the party for long. "It's easier for the BJP. Because, you know, the BJP is a startup in many states. You look upon the BJP as a startup. The Congress is not a startup. The Congress is a well-established ...

INDIA bloc like 'filtered coffee'; Cong can win elections: Shatrughan Sinha

Senior TMC leader and MP Shatrughan Sinha has dubbed opposition bloc INDIA as "filtered coffee" which is gaining momentum ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and emphasised the importance of not discounting the Congress, citing its track record of comebacks in politics. Lauding Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for conducting "krantikari (revolutionary) yatras" across the country, the Asansol MP, however, asserted that TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would be a "game-changer" after the results are announced. In an interview with PTI, the actor-turned-politician termed the electoral bond as a "major scam and extortion racket" of the BJP and said the "seven-phase elections are a boon for the opposition parties to expose the saffron camp's extortion and blackmail racket in the form of electoral bonds." "The BJP will be defeated in this election. If the NDA has the support of the CBI, ED, and Income Tax, INDIA has the support of the masses. Many think that INDIA doesn't .

BJP MP, Vadodara LS seat candidate Ranjan Bhatt pulls out of poll race

The Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha member from Vadodara, Ranjan Bhatt, who was renominated by the party from the same seat for the upcoming parliamentary elections, on Saturday pulled out of the poll race citing personal reasons. "I, Ranjanben Dhananjay Bhatt, am unwilling to contest the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 due to my personal reasons," she announced on X. Her move comes days after banners criticising the BJP's decision to renominate her from the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat came up at different spots in the city. Some local BJP leaders had also expressed their displeasure over Bhatt's nomination. BJP national women's wing vice president Jyotiben Pandya resigned from the party and all posts after Bhatt's name was announced as a candidate for the third time from Vadodara. Bhatt had won the 2014 by-election after Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated the seat. She also won the Lok Sabha election in 2019, and was announced as BJP's candidate for the upcoming poll.

Disqualified Congress MLAs, Independents in Himachal likely to join BJP

Several former MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly are expected to join the BJP and contest the upcoming bypolls on its ticket, sources said on Saturday, as the political crisis plaguing the state continues to rumble on. Six rebel Congress MLAs -- Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto -- were disqualified on February 29 for defying a party whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh government during a cut motion and budget. The Election Commission has announced bypolls for their constituencies. Three Independent MLAs -- Ashish Sharma, Hoshiyar Singh and KL Thakur -- submitted their resignations on Friday. Bypolls are expected to be held for their seats as well. "We have submitted our resignations. We will join the BJP and contest the elections on its ticket," Singh had later told reporters. The Congress government led by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was last month plunge

Intention behind electoral bonds was good, all parties need funds: Gadkari

Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said it was not possible to run a political party without funds, and added that the Centre had introduced the electoral bonds scheme, now struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, in 2017 with a "good intention". The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said all political parties need to sit together and deliberate if the Supreme Court gives any further direction on the matter. He made the comments at an event organised by a media house in GIFT City near Gandhinagar on Friday. "When Arun Jaitely was (Union finance) minister, I was part of that discussion (regarding electoral bonds). No party can survive without resources. In some countries, governments fund political parties. There is no such system in India. Thus, we chose this system of financing political parties," said Gadkari on a question about electoral bonds. He noted the main intention behind introducing electoral bonds was that political parties get funds directly, but th

Haryana CM Saini allocates portfolios, keeps home ministry with himself

Over a week after Nayab Singh Saini took oath as the chief minister and days after he expanded his cabinet, Haryana Council of Ministers on Friday were allocated portfolios, with Saini keeping the key Home Department. The portfolios were allocated late Friday night. According to a government order, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini will keep the Home, Revenue and Disaster Management, Youth Empowerment, Information and Public Relations and Languages and Culture, Mines and Geology and Foreign Cooperation departments. Cabinet Minister Kanwar Pal has also got key Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Heritage and Tourism, Parliamentary Affairs department.

UP Assembly bypolls: Samajwadi Party announces candidates for three seats

The Samajwadi Party on Friday declared its three candidates for the bypolls, which will be held on four assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha elections. In a post in Hindi on X, the Samajwadi Party declared Avadhesh Kumar Verma as its candidate for the Dadraul assembly constituency, Rakesh Yadav from Gainsari assembly constituency and Vijay Singh Gond from Duddhi assembly constituency. The party is yet to announce its candidate for the Lucknow East assembly constituency, SP's chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI on Friday. Bypoll to four assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held in four phases simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections. The four assembly constituencies where bypolls will be held are Lucknow East, Dadraul in Shahjahanpur district, Gainsari in Balrampur district and Duddhi in Sonbhadra district. On Saturday, while announcing the schedule of the assembly bypolls, Uttar Pradesh's Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa had said