Will not let PM rest till farm loans are waived: Rahul Gandhi

Kolkata: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh or Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari could have been the prime minister, said Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, subtly taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders relegated to the second rung of the organisational echelons.

Banerjee’s nephew and the TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, on the other hand, attempted to stoke trouble within the BJP’s unit in West Bengal, saying that at least 10 more state legislators of the saffron party were keen to join his party and in touch with him.

"You (Rajnath Singh) are surviving at the mercy of Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi). You are saluting Modi daily to save your chair. You or Nitin Gadkari could have been the PM (prime minister) today," the TMC supremo said in an election rally at Ausgram in Bolpur Lok Sabha constituency on Wednesday. "There would have been no problem...at least there would have been a gentleman in the chair who knows minimum courtesy," she added.

Banerjee was responding to Singh’s diatribe against herself and the TMC government led by her. The defence minister, who had addressed an election rally in Murshidabad on Sunday, had criticised the TMC government for alleged corruption and anarchy in West Bengal.

Singh had referred to the attacks on the Enforcement Directorate officials on January 5 during a raid at the residence of the TMC leader Sheikh Shahjahan at Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district of the state. It was followed by an agitation by local women protesting against atrocities by Shahjahan and his aides known to be owing allegiance to the TMC.

Singh questioned how the state government, led by a woman as the chief minister, could allow such atrocities on women to take place. He went on to say that Banerjee had lost all ‘mamata’ (affection and compassion) for people.

Banerjee shared a cordial relationship with Singh since the days when they both were ministers in the central government led by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Singh avoided personally criticising Banerjee in the past.

He, however, went ballistic against Banerjee on Sunday, triggering a strong response from the TMC supremo on Wednesday.

"The BJP is trying to get into the game of breaking parties, but they can't win in it. They poached two of our MPs, and we replied by taking two of their MPs, Arjun Singh and Babul Supriyo. Recently, by using ED raids, they inducted Tapas Ray. At least 10 top leaders of the BJP are in the queue to join the TMC," Abhishek said in another election rally in Murshidabad on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court of India on Friday, April 26, rejected pleas seeking 100% cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and said “blindly distrusting” any aspect of the system can breed unwarranted scepticism.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered two concurring verdicts. It dismissed all the pleas in the matter, including those seeking to go back to ballot papers in elections.

An EVM comprises three units – the ballot unit, the control unit and the VVPAT. All three are embedded with microcontrollers with a burnt memory from the manufacturer. Currently, VVPATs are used in five booths per assembly constituency.

EVM VVPAT case: Supreme Court issues two directives

1.    Justice Khanna directed the Election Commission of India to seal and store units used to load symbols for 45 days after the symbols have been loaded to electronic voting machines in strong rooms.

2.    The Supreme Court also allowed engineers of the EVM manufacturers to verify the microcontroller of the machines after the declaration of the results at the request of candidates who stood second and third. The top court said the request for the verification of the microcontroller can be made within seven days of the declaration of the results after payment of fees.

Option for candidates to seek verification of EVM programmes

•    Candidates who secure second and third position in the results can request for the verification of burnt memory semicontroller in 5% of the EVMs per assembly segment in a Parliamentary constituency. The written request to be made within seven days of the declaration of the results.

•    *On receiving such a written request, the EVMs shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from the manufacturer of the EVMs.

•    Candidates should identify the EVMs to be checked by a serial number of the polling booth.

•    Candidates and their representatives can be present at the time of the verification.

•    After verification, the district electoral officer should notify the authenticity of the burnt memory.

•    Expenses for the verification process, as notified by the ECI, should be borne by the candidate making the request.
What did the Supreme Court say?

•    "If EVM is found tampered during verification, fees paid by the candidates will be refunded," the bench said.

•    "While maintaining a balanced perspective is crucial in evaluating systems or institutions, blindly distrusting any aspect of the system can breed unwarranted scepticism...," Justice Datta said.

Who filed the petitions?

NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the petitioners, had sought to reverse the poll panel's 2017 decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with an opaque glass through which a voter can see the slip only when the light is on for seven seconds.

The petitioners have also sought the court's direction to revert to the old system of ballot papers.

New Delhi:  Twenty-nine Maoists, including a senior rebel leader - Shankar Rao, who had a bounty of ₹ 25 lakh on his head - were killed by security forces during an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district on Tuesday afternoon. A huge quantity of weapons, including Ak-47 and INSAS rifles, were recovered. 

Three security personnel were injured in the gunfight, which took place in forests near the village of Binagunda after a joint team of District Reserve Guard and Border Security Force were attacked.

Two of the three injured are from the BSF. Their condition is stable but the third - from the DRG - is in critical care. All three received treatment at a local hospital and are to be shifted to a larger facility.

Sources said the fighting began at around 2 PM, when a joint DRG-BSF team was conducting an anti-Maoist operation. The DRG was set up in in 2008 to combat Maoist activities in the state, and the Border Security Force has been deployed extensively in the area to for counter-insurgency ops.

There was another encounter in the district last month, in which two people - a Maoist and a cop - were killed, and security forces recovered a gun, some explosives, and other incriminating materials.

Personnel from the DRG and Bastar Fighters, both units of the state police force, with the Border Security Force, were involved in that operation, officials told news agency PTI. The patrolling team was cordoning off a forested area when fired on indiscriminately, leading to the gun battle.

In November last year, while the state was voting in the first phase of an Assembly election, a gunfight broke out between security forces and Maoist rebels in the same district.

An Ak-47 rifle was recovered from the encounter site.

On the same day, while polling was taking place, Maoists fired at DRG personnel deployed near a polling station in Banda in Dantewada district.