Cong demands PM Modi’s apology for ‘insulting’ Bengaluru

Agencies
May 5, 2018

New Delhi, May 5: The Congress today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "insulting" Bengaluru and the people of Karnataka by calling it a "valley of sins" and demanded his apology for his "deplorable" remarks.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi described Bengaluru as the garden city and the pride of India and said calling it a "garbage city" is "insulting".

"Building lies comes naturally to you, but you seem to find building cities very difficult. The data nails your lies," he said on Twitter, targeting the prime minister.

"Cosmopolitan, innovative and historic, beautiful Bengaluru, India’s pride, is the world’s most dynamic city!," he said in another tweet, adding that his government is committed to investing Rs 1 lakh crore to further develop Bengaluru and other cities in Karnataka.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said that as the Karnataka assembly election approaches, "the fears, frustration and follies of the BJP grow due to its impending defeat and this is reflected in the idioms and the language used by its leaders including the prime minister".

He also accused Modi of spreading "divisiveness" in the poll-bound state and alleged that such language was being used to divert the public attention from key issues such as the Cauvery water dispute, the dilution of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, joblessness and declining economy.

Singhvi said the prime minister failed to be the custodian of federal cooperation and maintain equilibrium between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the Cauvery river water-sharing dispute.

"You accuse Bengaluru, the Kannadiga of being a ‘valley of sin'. I think it is shameful and I think the country needs an apology which I am sure we will never get from the prime minister," he told reporters.

"As you see the heat mounting up on this campaign, you find the defamatory, the criminally culpable statements coming, deliberately inflaming and inciting communal passions, deliberately polarising communities, religious and groups and comprising blatant falsehood," he alleged.

The Congress leader said the country's prime minister lacked his grasp of the country's history as was evident from his yesterday's "false and superficial" statements on Field Marshal K C Cariappa and General K S Thimayya.

"The prime minister in his insatiable urge bordering on greed to attack the Congress party actually ended up insulting comprehensively the people of Karnataka, insulting each and every one of its entrepreneurs, insulting each and one of its IT technologists and labelling Bengaluru as the ‘valley of sin' from the Silicon Valley," he said.

"This is SIN - a ‘Special Insult. ‘S' for special and IN for insult which the prime minister of the country has heaped upon Bengaluru and the people of Karnataka," he said.

Describing Bengaluru as a birthplace of IT giants, a technological hub, a start-up hub, he said, "The prime minister has ignored the ‘S' for superior, the ‘I' for Information Technology and ‘N' for Novelty and calls it ‘SIN'."

He said, "The prime minister ignores the ‘S' for Super Highway which Bengaluru and its IT industry are and ignores the ‘I' for IT and the ‘N' for Network. He only finds 'SIN' and that is "deplorable" as he is unable to create jobs and stop farmer suicides, and instead accuse Bengaluru, the ‘Kannadiga' of being a ‘Valley of Sin'."

"The higher the divisiveness factor, the higher goes the BJP's decibel. Their decibel is linked to divisiveness. Why it is - to digress and draw the attention of the people of Bengaluru and Karnataka away from their failures in one day yesterday," he alleged.

In a full-scale attack on the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka on city-related issues, Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday accused it of having turned Bengaluru into a "garbage city and valley of sin" from "Silicon Valley." 

Comments

MR
 - 
Sunday, 6 May 2018

All the perfumes in Arabia cannot wash away the sins Modi alone has committed.

People of Karnataka will give him a fitting reply by voting for Congress!

 

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News Network
January 22,2020

Jan 22: India's ranking in the latest global Democracy Index has dropped 10 places to the 51st spot out of 167 owing to violent protests and threats to civil liberties challenging freedoms across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has been criticized by rights groups and western governments after shutting off the internet and mobile phone networks and detaining opposition politicians in Kashmir.

Modi’s government has also responded harshly to ongoing protests against a controversial, religion-based citizenship law. Muslims have said their neighborhoods have been targeted, while the central government has attempted to ban protests and urged TV news channels not to broadcast “anti-national” content. Some leaders in Modi’s ruling party called for “revenge” against protesters. India’s score in 2019 was its worst ranking since the EIU’s records began in 2006, and has fallen gradually since Modi was elected in 2014.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Democracy Index, which provides an annual comparative analysis of political systems across 165 countries and two territories, said the past year was the bleakest for democracies since the research firm began compiling the list in 2006.

“The 2019 result is even worse than that recorded in 2010, in the wake of the global economic and financial crisis,” the research group said in releasing the report on Wednesday.

The average global score slipped to 5.44 out of a possible 10 -- from 5.48 in 2018 -- driven mainly by “sharp regressions” in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. Apart from coup-prone Thailand, which improved its score after holding an election last year, there were also notable declines in Asia after a tumultuous period of protests and new measures restricting freedom across the region’s democracies.

Asia Declines

Hong Kong, meanwhile, fell three places to rank 75th out of 167 as more than seven months of violent and disruptive protests rocked the Asian financial hub. An aggressive police response early in the unrest, when protests were mostly peaceful, led to a “marked decline in confidence in government -- the main factor behind the decline in the territory’s score in our 2019 index,” the group said.

In Singapore, which ranked alongside Hong Kong at 75th, a new “fake news” law led to a deteriorating score on civil liberties.

“The government claims that the law was enacted simply to prevent the dissemination of false news, but it threatens freedom of expression in Singapore, as it can be used to curtail political debate and silence critics of the government,” EIU analysts said.

China’s score fell to just 2.26 in the EIU’s ranking, placing it near the bottom of the list at 153, as discrimination against minorities, repression and surveillance of the population intensified. Still, in China “the majority of the population is unconvinced that democracy would benefit the economy, and support for democratic ideals is absent,” the EIU said.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Hyderabad, Feb 10: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi continued his tirade against PM Modi and Amit Shah against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). "We are ready to take bullets in our chests but we will not show our papers.

We are ready to take bullets in our chests as we love our country," Owaisi said further.

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Agencies
July 14,2020

Jaipur, Jul 14: Sachin Pilot has been removed as Deputy Chief Minister and Rajasthan PCC Chief, announced Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala on Tuesday.

"Sachin Pilot, Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena have been removed from the posts of Deputy Chief Minister and Ministerial posts respectively. Sachin Pilot has also been removed as the Rajasthan PCC Chief," said Surjewala.

Govind Singh Dotasra has been appointed as the new PCC chief, he added.

"Sachin Pilot, few Congress Ministers and MLAs got involved in the conspiracy to topple the Congress government by getting entangled within the trap of BJP," he added.

The decision was taken after a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan earlier today.

The Rajasthan Congress is in turmoil over the past few days. While Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has blamed the BJP for attempting to destabilise the State government by poaching MLAs, Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot has been camping in Delhi.

A controversy broke out in Rajasthan after Special Operation Group (SOG) sent a notice to Pilot to record his statement in the case registered by SOG in the alleged poaching of Congress MLAs in the State.

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