Jharkhand Election: BJP faces an uphill battle

The on-going elections in Jharkhand will prove to be a huge test for the BJP. The five-phase Jharkhand assembly elections are taking place at an interesting juncture. Despite the BJP’s dominance in Lok Sabha elections in 2019, it appears to be losing ground in state elections.

The phenomenon can be traced back to Gujarat in 2017 where the Congress ran it close and has since then repeated in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Haryana. Congress and regional parties have sensed an opening and are making Jharkhand elections a hard fought battle.

A friendless BJP finds itself ranged against a potent Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance and smaller parties like ex-ally All Jharkhand Students Union, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), CPI, Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party, the last two being BJP’s partners in Bihar.

National, Politics

By Harihar Swarup

December 2, 2019

When the Chowkidar stole Democracy

What happened in Maharashtra should shame every Indian. The craven and amoralistic grab of power in the dead of the night by the ruling party, and the meek surrender and acquiescence of the highest constitutional offices will be a dark spot in India’s political history. But one might ask how this is different from many such instances in the past.

The fundamental difference between the gross abuse of the Constitution, especially witnessed under Indira Gandhi, and that is being seen under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the last five years is that while the former was seen with anger and revulsion, the latter is adoringly termed as Chanakya Neeti. It is this shift in language and discourse that is the most dangerous for Indian democracy. For, every act of brazen challenge to the Constitution is normalised and projected as brilliant masterstrokes in politics. That is why Amit Shah is eulogised in the mainstream television media.

Along with the normalisation of illegalities and the rampant use of money power to subvert democracy (the figures cited for the “purchase” of MLAs in Karnataka and Maharashtra range from Rs 50 crores to Rs 100 crores!), the other development is the resorting to a shamefaced whataboutery to explain away the decimation of institutions in the present by the BJP. The argument goes, “Indira Gandhi and the Congress did the same.”

National, Opinion, Politics

By Nissim Mannathukkaren

November 27, 2019

Jharkhand Elections: Saryu Roy’s rebellion has BJP in trouble

Senior Jharkhand BJP leader Saryu Roy will contest against incumbent Chief Minister Raghubar Das in the ensuing Jharkhand assembly polls. This decision of Roy to oppose Das has not come a surprise. The differences had reached to such a level that they were not even on the talking terms. In fact, Das had requested the central leadership not to re-nominate Roy.

Both Das and Roy were having an edgy relation for a pretty long time, but put up with each other for the sake of the party. Roy’s move comes in the wake of his name not finding a place in the first four lists of 72 candidates released by the BJP for the 81-member assembly in Jharkhand, which is going to polls in five phases between November 30 and December 20.

Roy is the incumbent MLA from the Jamshedpur (West) seat, which he had won in the 2014 polls. Das holds the Jamshedpur (East) seat. The candidate of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress-RJD opposition alliance for Jharkhand (East) is Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh, who shot to fame with a viral TV clip with BJP’s Sambit Patra.

Corruption, Election, National, Opinion, Politics

By Arun Srivastava

November 25, 2019

BJP’s surgical strike will cement Maha Aghadi ties

More than any other state—Karnataka, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh— where the BJP’s “Operation Lotus” succeeded in winning over opposition legislators, Maharashtra is a prize which the party is loath to lose.

Hence, the unseemly haste in swearing-in a government of its own when only a few weeks ago, the party had expressed its inability to do so. What made the BJP change its mind was the apparent success of the three unlikely allies—the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress—in being able to cobble together a Maharashtra Aghadi and come within striking distance of forming a government.

For the BJP, such a turn of events was unacceptable for two reasons. One was the message the new combine would send out that the mighty electoral machine of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah was not invulnerable. This could not but have an adverse impact on the party’s prospects on the eve of the Jharkhand elections, which have assumed extra importance in the aftermath of the BJP’s lack lustre showing in Maharashtra and Haryana.

National, Opinion, Politics

By Amulya Ganguli

November 18, 2019

Survey shows PMMVY not reaching rural expectant mothers in five states

The Jaccha-Baccha survey (JABS), of pregnant and nursing women in rural India by student volunteers, coordinated by economists Jean Dreze, Reetika Khera and Anmol Somanchi, in June 2019 and released today found that expectant mothers in six states where the survey was held—Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh—were underweight (as low as 40 kg) even by the end of their pregnancy. One of the key findings of the JABS Survey was that the much-touted Pradhan Mantri Mathru Vandana Yojna (PMMVY) was restricting the maternity benefits to just one child per woman. Shockingly, the government’s own data shows that less than a fourth of eligible expectant women have received the benefits.

On December 31, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that women would be entitled to maternity benefits of Rs 6000 each after delivery. A budget allocation of Rs 2,700 crore was made in Union budget 2017-18 for the purpose. However, to cover 90 percent of all deliveries, on an assumption of a birth rate of 20 per thousand, Rs 15,000 crore would be necessary. Moreover, while drafting rules for the distribution of this maternity benefit, the Centre restricted it to just the “first live birth” and reduced the amount to Rs 5000.

Under the National Food Security Act 2013, all women are entitled to a maternity benefit of Rs 6000 for the birth of a child, unless they avail benefits as organized sector employees. The PMMVY was introduced in 2017 to implement this provision of the 2013 Act. In violation of the NFSA Act, the PMMVY restricted the benefit to just one child per woman.

Daily, Development, Economy, Gender, Health, Life, People

By Rosamma Thomas

November 17, 2019

Not a smooth ride for Modi 2.0

With the executive, legislature and judiciary more or less on the same page, the BJP can be said to be on a dream run. But the oddity is that it isn’t. The reason is that democracy allows hoi polloi to follow a line of thinking which may not tally with the views of the powers-that-be. Hence, the BJP’s setbacks in Maharashtra and Haryana.

The party appears to have made a mistake by interpreting its massive success in the parliamentary polls as a carte blanche for pursuing the key items on its Hindutva agenda which had been shelved by one of its tallest leaders, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in 1996.

The revocation of Article 370 was one of these items, but the BJP has flunked the first test of its August 5 decision to dispense with Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. If the people had been impressed by its ‘bold’ decision to put an end to Kashmir’s privileged position, the BJP would have fared much better in Maharashtra and Haryana.

National, Politics

By Amulya Ganguli

October 21, 2019

CBI exonerates two Kerala orphanages; Media in the dock

After five years of investigation into how 579 children from underprivileged families in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar had landed up at the Palakkad Railway Junction, on their way to two major orphanages in Kozhikode and Malappuram, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has now found nothing illegal about it. Children from poorer backgrounds, even if their parents are alive, are free to seek admission to such orphanages expecting a better future and such initiatives did not involve any kind of child trafficking, observed the CBI.

For reasons best known to them, Kerala’s mainstream media paid little attention to the final report filed by the CBI in a judicial magistrate court in Kochi last week absolving Mukkom Muslim Orphanage in Kozhikode and Anwarul Orphanage at Vettathur in Malappuram of any illegality for soliciting children from West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar. The media was not so indifferent in 2014 when these 579 children were detained at the railway station on the suspicion of alleged trafficking.

Eight people from the three states who accompanied the children on the long journey were arrested by the railway police when media dubbed them as operatives of an inter-state child trafficking mafia. Without hearing the side of the arrested people and orphanage heads, the television channels had vied with each other in telecasting breaking stories reinforcing their assumptions of child trafficking involving huge money. The then Kerala BJP President V Muraleedharan had immediately asked for a CBI enquiry.

Media, Society

By K A Shaji