Stalin-led DMK heads for big win in Tamil Nadu

The BJP has opened its account in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. The party's candidate from Gujarat's Surat constituency, Mukesh Dalal, has won the polls as all his opponents are now out of the fray.

BJP's Mukesh Dalal elected unopposed from the Surat Lok Sabha seat after all other candidates withdrew from the contest, the party's Gujarat unit chief CR Paatil said today. Today was the deadline for withdrawing nominations.

The nominations of the Congress party's Surat candidate and his substitute were rejected by the returning officer over alleged discrepancies in paperwork, a development that the Congress called an attempt at "match-fixing".

"Surat has presented the first lotus to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I congratulate our candidate for Surat Lok Sabha seat Mukesh Dalal for getting elected unopposed," Mr Paatil posted on the microblogging website X, referring to the BJP's election symbol.

Eight candidates - seven of them independents - and Pyarelal Bharti of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) withdrew their papers.

The nomination papers of the Congress's Surat candidate Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected on Sunday after the district returning officer Saurabh Parghi found discrepancies in the signatures of the proposers.

The nomination form of Suresh Padsala, the Congress's substitute candidate from Surat, was also found invalid.

The returning officer had said the four nomination forms submitted by the two Congress candidates did not appear genuine. The proposers, in their affidavits, had said they had not signed the forms themselves, the returning officer said in the order.

Congress lawyer Babu Mangukiya said the party will approach the high court and the Supreme Court for relief.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh in a post on X said the Surat developments indicate "democracy is under threat". "Our elections, our democracy, Babasaheb Ambedkar's Constitution - all are under a generational threat. This is the most important election of our lifetime," Mr Ramesh said.

Mr Ramesh alleged the "distress" of micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) owners and the business community in PM Modi's "Anyay Kaal" and their anger have "spooked the BJP so badly that they are attempting to match-fix the Surat Lok Sabha polls, which they have won consistently since the 1984 Lok Sabha elections."

New Delhi: Even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nasty election speech in Rajasthan's Banswara has triggered a nationwide controversy, the Election Commission has so far not taken any action. Meanwhile the Opposition bloc INDIA called the speech an attempt to divert attention from "real issues".

Addressing the people Banswara, on April 21, (Sunday) Modi openly attacked India’s Muslims, suggesting they were “infiltrators” and went on to claim that the opposition if elected would give away “mangalsutras” and “land” of those listening to his speech to them (Muslims). 

He referred to his immediate predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh who was in office for 10 years as prime minister till 2014, and said, “Earlier, when his government was in power, he had said that Muslims have the first right on the country’s property, which means who will they collect this property and distribute it to – those who have more children, will distribute it to the infiltrators. Will the money of your hard work be given to the infiltrators? Do you approve of this?” 

Modi went on to say, “This Congress manifesto is saying that they will calculate the gold of the mothers and sisters, get information about it and then distribute it. Manmohan Singh’s government had said that Muslims have the first right on property. Brothers and sisters, these urban Naxal thoughts will not let even your mangalsutra escape, they will go this far.”

Narendra Modi and the BJP so far in their campaign trail have invoked religious faith, the Ram temple and Lord Ram multiple times, directly using it to call for people to vote for them. The Election Commission has been completely silent on the messaging via videos, tweets and other exhortations. 

Did Manmohan Singh really say that?

Modi’s claim that Dr Singh said that is not new and was refuted in 2006 itself by Singh’s PMO, when Modi had first made the false claim. The PMO had termed such remarks, “a deliberate and mischievous misinterpretation of what the Prime Minister said here yesterday at the meeting of the National Development Council, on fiscal priorities of the government.” It was termed “an avoidable controversy has been generated. The Prime Minister’s observations have also been quoted out of context in some sections of the electronic media, fuelling a baseless controversy.”

The full text of the paragraph in which the Prime Minister referred to the issue of minority empowerment to clarify the matter is as follows:

“I believe our collective priorities are clear: agriculture, irrigation and water resources, health, education, critical investment in rural infrastructure, and the essential public investment needs of general infrastructure, along with programmes for the upliftment of SC/STs, other backward classes, minorities and women and children. The component plans for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will need to be revitalized. We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources. The Centre has a myriad other responsibilities whose demands will have to be fitted within the over-all resource availability.”

The PMO’s clarification said. “it will be seen from the above that the Prime Minister’s reference to “first claim on resources” refers to all the “priority” areas listed above, including programmes for the upliftment of SCs, STs, OBCs, women and children and minorities.

Opposition reacts

Chairman, Media and Publicity department of the Congress, Pawan Khera said in a video message in a post, “We challenge the Prime Minister to show us if the word Hindu or Muslim is written anywhere in our manifesto. This kind of lightness is there in your mentality, in your political values. We have talked about justice for the youth, women, farmers, tribals, middle class and workers. Do you object to this as well?”

Khera was referring to earlier mistruths uttered by Modi about the “Muslim League” having influenced the Congress manifesto.

In Jharkhand’s Ranchi at an opposition rally, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is reported to have said by BBC Hindi, “If democracy and the Constitution end in the country, then the people will have nothing left. Babasaheb Ambedkar ji and Jawaharlal Nehru ji gave equal voting rights to everyone, due to which all classes got respect. But Narendra Modi wants to snatch their rights from the poor.”

B.V. Srinivas termed it as unfortunate that “this person is the Prime Minister of this country, and an even bigger tragedy is that the Election Commission of India is no longer alive.” He said that “due to the frustration of impending defeat, the Prime Minister of India is openly sowing the seeds of hatred, he is polarising by misquoting Manmohan Singh’s 18-year-old incomplete statement, But the Election Commission (Modi ka parivar) is bowing down.”

Modi’s past hate-speech

Modi, in his 12-year tenure as chief minister of Gujarat was known to have made speeches targeting the state’s minority Muslim community brazenly, terming camps where Muslims were forced to stay in after communal violence gripped the state in 2002. Frontline covered him on his Gujarat Gaurav Yatra started shortly after the violence, at a rally at Becharaji in Mehsana district in northern Gujarat, when he said, “What should we do? Run relief camps for them? Do we want to open baby-producing centres? But for certain people that means hum paanch, hamare pachees.” 

In 2017 it was time again for direct speech targeting Muslims when in February he spoke of ‘shamshaan versus kabristan’ campaigning for UP and then for Gujarat elections when the BJP had its worst performance this millennium, in a speech at Palanpur on December 10, 2017 Modi invoked a “secret meeting” to get Pakistan to fix Gujarat’s assembly polls. He said that a meeting was held at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s residence, attended by former PM Manmohan Singh, former Vice-President Hamid Ansari, former Army Chief Deepak Kapoor and distinguished diplomats to execute the plot. Modi’s PMO faced embarrassment when in response to an RTI filed by the Congress, his office was forced to say that Modi’s campaign speech could have been based on an “informal input”.

In the only question he has answered as part of a press conference with Joe Biden on June 22, 2023, Modi was asked, “India has long prided itself as the world’s largest democracy, but there are many human rights groups who say that your government has discriminated against religious minorities and sought to silence its critics.  As you stand here in the East Room of the White House, where so many world leaders have made commitments to protecting democracy, what steps are you and your government willing to take to improve the rights of Muslims and other minorities in your country and to uphold free speech?”

In response Modi appeared visibly frazzled and denied all charges. “I’m actually really surprised that people say so.  And so, people don’t say it.  Indeed, India is a democracy.” 

The journalist was trolled online by BJP leaders and supporters to such an extent that the White House had to come out and defend her and strongly denounce the trolling and abuse.

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday alleged that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is being pushed towards a “slow death” inside Tihar jail by denying him insulin and consultations with his doctor.

Kejriwal, who has Type-2 diabetes, has been asking for insulin and a video conferencing with his family doctor but his requests are being denied by the jail administration, party spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a press conference.

"I want to say with full responsibility that a conspiracy is underway for the slow death of Kejriwal," Bharadwaj claimed citing blood sugar readings of the Chief Minister in jail.

He also slammed the Tihar administration, BJP, Centre and Delhi LG for allegedly denying insulin to Kejriwal and said the Delhi Chief Minister had been suffering from diabetes for the last 20-22 years.

On Friday, the chief minister council Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi said Kejriwal has not been administered insulin to control his sugar levels since his arrest, terming it “shocking” and “alarming”.

The ED had on Thursday claimed before the court that Kejriwal was eating food high in sugar like mangoes and sweets every day, despite having Type-2 diabetes, to create grounds for medical bail.

Kejriwal, however, refuted the ED’s claims by asserting before a court that the food he consumed was in conformity with the diet chart prepared by his doctor.

“Out of 48 meals sent from home, only three times mangoes were there…,” Singhvi told the court.

Bharadwaj said Kejriwal was allowed by the court to use a machine in the jail to monitor his daily blood sugar levels.

"Overall, it was a conspiracy to finish Kejriwal so his multiple organ damage and when he comes out of jail after 2-4 months he goes for treatment of kidney, heart and other organs," said Bharadwaj, who holds the portfolio of health in Delhi government.