Imprint of central cabinet expansion matrix expected in Karnataka cabinet

News Network
August 2, 2021

Bengaluru, Aug 2: Following his second visit to Delhi for forming a new ministry in the state, the political pundits and BJP insiders are speculating that the central leadership may weigh the political prospects of the party in the poll-bound state.

Going by the recent cabinet expansion at the central level orchestrated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, political prospects of the party in poll-bound states and caste matrix, were weighed by these political masters.

For instance, four new ministers were inducted from Karnataka, taking the total representation from the state to six. The other two ministers from the state being Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Karnataka goes to poll in 2023 or less than 21 months from now. The party is determined to retain its dominance in the state by swearing in Shobha Karandlaje, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, A Narayanswamy and Bhagwant Khuba from the state.

Modi and Shah also had applied a similar matrix in other poll-bound states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttarakhand. They not only gave importance to the geographical factor, but also caste factor, when they picked ministers in the central cabinet.

They also ensured backward classes were adequately represented. The expansion saw 12 ministers from the Scheduled Caste community, including two with cabinet rank – Virendra Kumar and Pashu Pati Kumar Paras. There were 27 ministers representing various backward communities across the states.

So, the pundits are speculating that a similar matrix will be applied by Modi and Shah to ensure that caste balance is maintained after taking into consideration geographical factors when they sit to form the new ministry in Karnataka.

This criteria was quite evident when they sat to induct ministers from poll-bound states including Karnataka. Narayanaswamy is SC (Left), whereas Karandlaje and Khuba hail from Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities, respectively.

The political analysts are also of the view that the central leadership may consider the affiliation of the aspirants with the RSS. Except Chandrasekhar, all other inductees in the central cabinet have affiliations to the RSS.

The analysts also are speculating that the central leadership may induct low-key legislators in the Basavaraj Bommai ministry like they did by including Khuba and Narayanaswamy in the central ministry. The party may look to woo the SC (left) and backward class communities, as it did during the expansion of the central cabinet.

Bommai flew to Delhi Sunday night along with Joshi in the same flight. He is expected to meet the National Party president JP Nadda today. After reaching Delhi, he held discussions with Joshi and party's National General Secretary (Organization) BL Santosh until late night.

Bommai is likely to return to Bengaluru in the evening after meeting Nadda with the list of ministers.

So, the political pundits are expecting some surprises for the people of Karnataka when the list of ministers are made public by Bommai.

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News Network
April 28,2024

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Students in Paris blocked access to a campus building at a French university on Friday, as pro-Palestine demonstrations reach Europe.

The students occupied the central campus building of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, and dozens of others blocked its entrance, echoing protest action at American universities.

Students inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at the prestigious French university on Friday.

They blocked the entrance with trash cans, wooden platforms and other items.

The occupation of the Paris university campus came after police broke up a separate protest at the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses.

Scores of student protesters gathered at the building’s windows, chanting slogans and holding placards reading “We are all Palestinians,” in defiance of administrators who students say called the police on their peers two days earlier.

Pro-Palestinian student protesters had occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s Paris campuses on Wednesday evening.

The US-style student protests, which began over the months-long Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, kicked off in the United States and have now spread to European capitals as well as Australia.

In the German capital Berlin, several people were arrested as police violently cleared a camp of Gaza war protesters at the German parliament.

Pro-Palestinian activists are demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to the Israeli atrocities, and an arms embargo of the Tel Aviv regime.

The Israeli regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year. The genocidal war has killed more than 34,356 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

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News Network
April 24,2024

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Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Wednesday slammed Rahul Gandhi’s "wealth redistribution promise", stating that only someone with no practical knowledge can speak like that.

 “He is dreaming of a revolution. By talking about wealth redistribution, Rahul Gandhi has insulted and humiliated two Congress Prime Ministers who brought market reforms and increased the wealth of the nation,” he added, recalling the contribution of P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh in economic liberalisation.

Accusing Gandhi of indirectly trying to say that what the two Congress Prime Ministers did was wrong, Gowda said, "He (Rahul Gandhi) has torn up their economic reforms like he had torn up an ordinance (which sought to overturn the rule that disqualifies convicted MPs and MLAs) issued by (the then) Manmohan Singh (government)."

The 90-year-old JD(S) supremo ridiculed the Congress manifesto claiming that only a party that is sure of never coming to power can make as many promises.

“The Congress has promised so many things in its manifesto. The only party that is very sure of never coming to power will promise so much,” Gowda said at a press conference here.

He said the Congress wants to turn this country 'upside down' and the promises made by it indicated that it wants to come to power 'at any cost'.

“Rahul Gandhi wants to do a wealth survey and distribute the wealth. Does he think he is a mass leader,” Deve Gowda said.

Picking up points from the Congress manifesto ‘Nyay Patra’, Gowda said Rahul Gandhi wants to 'give 30 lakh new central government jobs and run this country'.

“There are only 40 lakh sanctioned jobs. How can he create 30 lakh more jobs overnight? How much will he pay these people? Where will he employ them,” he asked.

“Only someone with no practical knowledge can speak like this. (P) Chidambaram was the manifesto committee chairman. Does he agree with Rahul Gandhi’s immature economic ideas,” Gowda said.

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News Network
April 29,2024

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At least 900 protesters have been arrested since the launch of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on university campuses across the US, where students are raging against the Israeli regime’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.

The Washington Post reported the tally on Sunday, the 10th straight day of the protests that began after Columbia University set up an encampment to demand cessation of the war and press the school to divest from Israeli financial interests.

The crackdown then started when university authorities called in the police, a move that sparked more than 100 arrests on the university’s Manhattan campus.

Two other highlights in the crackdown saw police forces rounding up roughly the same number of people at New York University and Emerson College in Boston.

Protests have also erupted across numerous other seats of learning, including Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and California State Polytechnic in Humboldt.

The ensuing countrywide counter-campaign of suppression has seen law enforcement resorting to riot control methods against the protesters.

The methods have featured “the same tools and tactics” that were deployed to confront the thousands-strong protests that sparked across the country after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd four years ago, the daily reported.

“At Emory University last week, Atlanta police said officers used ‘chemical irritants’ to clear an encampment, and a Georgia State Patrol officer was captured on video using a stun gun to subdue a man on the ground,” it said.

Academics have, meanwhile, been banding together throughout the US under the banner of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP).

Earlier in April, the FSJP’s Georgia chapter called on Morehouse College in Atlanta, which invited Joe Biden as its 2024 commencement speaker, to rescind its invitation as a means of objecting to the president’s role in enabling the Israeli genocide.

At Biden’s behest, the United States has been providing the Israeli war with unreserved military and intelligence support.

The US has also vetoed several United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in the brutal military onslaught that has so far claimed the lives of at least 34,454 Gazans, mostly women and children.

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