Shiv Sena-BJP set to kiss and make up by Monday: Fadnavis on course to be CM

October 25, 2014

Mumbai, Oct 25: After all the shadow-boxing and public posturing, the BJP appears to have succeeded in getting the Shiv Sena exactly where it wants it: as part of the Maharashtra government, but without undue clout.

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Soon after the assembly results made the BJP the single largest party with 122 seats — 22 short of the half-way mark — the Sena had started playing hard-to-get, but its game went awry when the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) announced unilateral support for the BJP. This enabled the latter to announce that it will form the government, with or without the Sena.

With a huge stake in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (where it is in alliance with the BJP), and at the Centre (where the Sena has a cabinet minister and expects more berths in the next reshuffle), the Sena saw the writing on the wall and decided that discretion is the better part of valour. It appears to have given up its old insistence of a 50:50 split of state ministries, and has accepted the reality that the BJP is now big brother.

The upshot: instead of a minority government, Maharashtra will now have a stable BJP-Sena coalition with 186 seats between them in a 288-member assembly. Add another 14-15 members from the smaller parties and independents, and the coalition could have nearly 200 members in its tally.

The final shape of the power-sharing arrangement and the coalition will be visible on Monday, when Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP general secretary JP Nadda arrive in Mumbai to kick off the process of government formation. They will hold consultations with the newly-elected legislators and elect Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP President, as leader of the legislature party.

Once this is done, Governor Vidyasagar Rao will invite Fadnavis to form the government. It appeared as if Nitin Gadkari, the Union Surface Transport and Rural Development Minister, had also thrown his hat in the ring when some Vidarbha MLAs lobbied for him as CM. But Gadkari said he was not keen to return to Maharashtra politics, which means the leadership issue is now settled in favour of Fadnavis. Both Fadnavis and Gadkari are from Vidarbha.

As part of the thaw in the Sena-BJP relationship, there are indications that all Shiv Sena MPs, 18 from the Lok Sabha and three from the Rajya Sabha, will attend a Diwali Milan dinner hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for NDA MPs this Sunday (26 October). If all goes well, it would signal that ties between BJP and Sena have been mended, or at least have not broken down.

Sources told Firstpost that backroom talks over the last two days, held at various levels, helped Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray dilute his position on the Maharashtra power-sharing arrangement. He is now said to be inclined to accept the revised terms and conditions. The sources said that “he could not have been an equal partner in the Maharastra government but only an ally where mutual respect and coalition dharma is maintained by both sides.”

BJP sources said the party considers the Sena its “natural ally” and this means it should not unnecessarily criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi or create tensions in the next state government. The BJP now expects greater circumspection in what the Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, writes. The current bout of pre-election tensions was triggered by negative write-ups in Saamna.

The BJP, by taking its time to offer an olive branch to the Sena, has forced the latter to take a more realistic view of the ground situation in the state. For its part, despite the bravado of setting up a minority government in Maharashtra, the BJP’s top leadership recognised that this can never result in stability. Hence the move make up with the Sena.

Despite claiming that it had not rejected the NCP’s offer of support, the party leadership was clear that taking this support would be politically too costly. The party was not so worried about what the NCP could demand in return, but was wary of the negative public perceptions it would have generated, especially for Modi, who called NCP a “naturally corrupt party” during the election campaign.

By the time Rajnath Singh lands in Mumbai on Monday, the alliance issue would, thus, in all likelihood have been clinched.

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News Network
March 26,2024

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Hyderabad: The K Chandrashekar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi faces big questions as shocking allegations of state police officers tapping the phones of then Opposition leaders in Telangana, including current Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, celebrities and businessmen come to the fore.

The surveillance, it is alleged, was also used to blackmail businessmen into contributing huge amounts to the BRS party fund.

The BRS is yet to respond to the allegations.

Three senior police officers have been arrested in this connection and a lookout notice issued against T Prabhakar Rao, former chief of the state intelligence bureau, who is reportedly in the US now.

Police have said two senior officers - Additional Superintendent of Police Bhujanga Rao and Additional Superintendent of Police Thirupathanna - have admitted to illegal surveillance and destruction of evidence.

According to reports, Ravi Paul, a technical consultant with the state intelligence bureau under the then BRS government, had allegedly helped import and set up phone-tapping equipment near the residence of Mr Reddy to listen in on his conversations.

The equipment, it is alleged, was imported from Israel using a software company as the front. No permission from the Centre - a must for such imports - was taken, it is learnt. With this setup, anything spoken within a range of 300 metres could be heard, reports say.

Ravi Paul, it is alleged, set up an office near Mr Reddy's residence and installed the device. Police are set to question him in this connection.

Lookout notices have also been issued for Sharvan Rao, who runs a Telugu TV channel I News, and Radha Kishan Rao, a police officer with the city task force.

The surveillance was not restricted to Opposition leaders. Top businessmen, including real estate dealers and jewellers, and celebrities were also under surveillance. In fact, the tapping of phone conversations led to the divorce of a celebrity couple, reports say.

To add to the BRS's troubles, Chief Minister Reddy has received a complaint from Sharan Chaudhary, a businessman and a BJP leader, alleging that senior police officers kidnapped him last year and forced him to sign off a plot of land to a relative of former minister and BRS leader Errabelli Dayakar Rao.

Mr Chaudhury has alleged that Radha Kishan Rao and senior police officer ACP Umamaheswara Rao kidnapped him on August 21 while he was on his way to office. He has alleged that he was illegally detained and forced to register his property in the name of Vijay, a close relative of the minister. He was also forced to pay ₹ 50 lakh before they let him go.

The businessman has said he had approached the High Court after the incident, but Uma Maheshwar Rao threatened to file false cases against him and forced him to withdraw the petition.

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News Network
March 15,2024

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Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi would formally kickstart the BJP's Lok Sabha election campaign in Karnataka on Saturday from Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's home turf— Kalaburagi.

He is scheduled to address a mega public meeting at the district headquarters town's N V Ground at 2 pm.

Kharge, who had represented Kalaburagi (Gulbarga Lok Sabha segment) twice in the past, lost to BJP's Umesh Jadhav by a margin of 95,452 votes in the 2019 general elections here— the octogenarian leader's first electoral loss in his political life spanning several decades.

BJP has once again fielded Jadhav from the segment.

Speculations are rife that the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, who has the role of managing the party nationally and coordinating with the opposition I.N.D.I.A bloc, may not contest the coming polls and, instead, the Congress is likely to field his son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani, a businessman, who also manages educational institutions.

On March 18, Modi will be in Shivamogga, the home district of veteran BJP leader B S Yediyurappa, and is scheduled to address a huge public meeting at 2 pm.

Yediyurappa's son B Y Raghavendra is the sitting MP from Shivamogga and has been re-nominated by the party. Yediyurappa's other son B Y Vijayendra, who represents Shikaripura assembly constituency in the district, is the state BJP President.

BJP has announced candidates for 20 seats in the State, which has a total of 28 constituencies.

After being ousted from power by the Congress in the 2023 Assembly polls, the BJP now is making a strong bid to regain the lost ground in Karnataka.

The BJP won 25 out of total 28 seats in the previous elections, and had ensured the win of a party supported independent candidate in Mandya. The then ruling Congress-JD(S) alliance had come a cropper winning just one seat each.

It is a role reversal of sorts for JD(S), which joined the NDA last September and has forged an electoral alliance with the BJP. The regional party is expected to contest in three seats— Mandya, Hassan and Kolar.

Sharing details of Modi's visit, state BJP General Secretary Sunil Kumar on Wednesday said BJP National President J P Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath along with other leaders will visit different Lok Sabha constituencies for campaigning in the coming days.

Speaking about the party's poll preparations, he said: "We have divided 28 Lok Sabha constituencies into eight clusters for Lok Sabha elections. Keeping in view the local political and geographical background, programmes and strategies are being worked out in those eight clusters."

Several senior leaders including Shah and Nadda have already visited one of these clusters, Kumar said, adding, "Workers' convention, well-wishers' contacts have been made and election preparations are on in all these eight clusters. In the second phase, large public meetings will be held."

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News Network
March 18,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 18: The Election Commission on Monday afternoon issued orders for the removal of six Home Secretaries - including the top bureaucrats from Gujarat, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

The poll panel also directed the transfer of West Bengal's Director-General of Police, the top cop of a state that has seen several instances of poll-related violence in recent years. The poll panel further said a shortlist of three potential replacements had to be prepared and submitted by 5 pm.

The re-shuffle, not an uncommon move by the Election Commission before major polls, also includes the transfer of the Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand Home Secretaries, as well as senior officials attached to the offices of the Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh Chief Ministers.

In addition, Iqbal Singh Chahal, who is Commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and other officials in municipalities across Maharashtra, have been removed too.

All of this comes less than a month before the 2024 Lok Sabha poll; the ECI on Saturday said voting will begin on April 19 and run over seven phases till June 1.

This is, in fact, the first bureaucratic re-jig by the ECI since it announced polling dates.

The ECI's move comes after a meeting of Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and his two associates, the newly-appointed Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu. This step comes as part of the poll panel's commitment to ensure a level playing field for all political parties in the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, as well as by-polls for 26 seats in 13 states.

Sources said the personnel removed were found to be holding dual charge in the offices of the respective chief ministers of each state, and this could compromise, or be seen to be compromising, required neutrality, particularly in relation to law-and-order before, during and after polling.

Bengal's ruling Trinamool has not yet reacted to the removal of DGP Rajiv Malik, who is seen by some to be close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party. In the past, the state government has questioned the last-minute re-shuffle of senior civil service and police officials so close to an election, arguing it actually hampers prep work since the new faces need time to adjust to the post.

Bengal has frequently witnessed violence during polling season; in June last year over a dozen people were killed across the state as voting for a panchayat election was underway.

The Trinamool accused the opposition of instigating violence and criticised central forces for their failure to protect voters, while the Congress claimed the state had let thugs loose on the people.

While announcing the dates on Saturday, the Chief Election Commissioner said the poll panel would take a very dim view of any violence during the election. Mr Kumar said the ECI is prepared to come down hard on any such incident. "We're putting political parties on notice," he declared.

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