Gujarat RS polls: Ahmed Patel grabs victory on night of high drama

Agencies
August 9, 2017

Ahmedabad, Aug 9: Congress candidate Ahmed Patel defeated the BJP nominee in a bitterly fought Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat after late night dramatic developments saw the Election Commission reject the votes of two dissident MLAs of the main Opposition party for violating electoral rules.

Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi beat Balwantsinh Rajput, till recently the party's chief whip in the state Assembly before defecting to the BJP, polling 44 votes, in the first RS polls in Gujarat in two decades which saw a contest instead of official candidates of major parties getting elected unopposed. Rajput got 38 votes.

BJP chief Amit Shah made his maiden entry into the house of elders and so did party nominee and Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, clinching 46 votes each, an EC official said.

"This is not just my victory. It is a defeat of the most blatant use of money power, muscle power and abuse of state machinery," Patel, who secured a fifth Rajya Sabha term after the tough electoral fight, tweeted after his victory.

"I am happy and I thank my party leadership, my MLAs, party's rank and file who worked like a family. It was a tough election which we won," he said.

A defeat for Patel, apart from being seen as a personal setback to Sonia, would have left Congress rank and file hugely demoralised in a state where Assembly elections are to take place later this year.

The EC's decision to cancel the votes of two Congress MLAs brought down the requirement for an outright victory for a candidate to 44 from 45. Ahmed Patel secured 44, but would have won with even lesser number of votes given the fact that Rajput could clinch only 38.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said BJP would legally challenge the EC's decision rejecting the votes of two Congress MLAs who had backed his party.

Before counting was taken up following the Election Commission's order rejecting the votes cast by Bholabhai Gohil and Raghavjibhai Patel for allegedly showing their ballots to Amit Shah in violation of rules, a high-voltage drama unfolded at Nirvachan Sadan, the poll panel's headquarters in New Delhi. TV footages, however, showed that Patel displayed his ballot to an unidentified person present in the voting hall.

Congress' media in-charge Randeep Surjewala and spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil had earlier claimed the two disgruntled MLAs had shown their ballots to Shah.

The poll panel passed the order after viewing the video recording of the voting process, saying the two electors had "violated the voting procedure and secrecy of ballots."

The usually quiet polls for the upper chamber of Parliament turned acrimonious and chaotic after the Congress approached the Election Commission demanding cancellation of the votes of Gohil and Patel for having shown the ballots to people other than the party's authorised representatives.

Three delegations each of the Congress and BJP made a dash for 'Nirvachan Sadan' within a span of two hours, with the former demanding that the votes of Gohil and Patel be declared invalid, and the latter insisting that counting be taken up "immediately".

The poll panel finally, accepted the Congress's contention and asked the returning officer to reject the votes of its two MLAs and proceed with counting.

That the contest for three Rajya Sabha seats would go down to the wire had become clear the very day when Balwantsinh Rajput, the Congress chief whip in the state Assembly until a few days ago, defected to the BJP and was fielded to take on Ahmed Patel, the high-profile political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

According to the rules, voters for the Rajya Sabha elections have to show their ballots to authorised representative of their respective parties before casting them.

Terming Congress' objections as "baseless", a delegation of BJP leaders, including Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal, approached the EC demanding immediate counting of votes, contending that validity of votes once put in ballot boxes cannot be questioned.

Prasad said the Congress was acting out of fear of losing the poll, in which its senior leader Ahmed Patel is locked in a tight fight with a Congress rebel fielded by the BJP.

The BJP fancied its chances of getting a third candidate elected as, apart from Rajput, five other Congress MLAs had resigned with two joining the BJP with him, bringing down the Congress's strength in the 282-member House to 51 from 57. It hoped to make further inroads into the Congress' diminished flock of MLAs, which it did. However, that wasn't enough to ensure Rajput's victory.

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Agencies
August 1,2020

Chandigarh, Aug 1: The death toll in the Punjab spurious liquor tragedy rose to 86 on Saturday even as Chief Minister Amarinder Singh suspended seven excise officials and six policemen, officials said.

The government also announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for each of the families of the deceased, they said.

Tarn Taran alone accounted for 63 deaths, followed by 12 in Amritsar and 11 in Gurdaspur’s Batala. Till Friday night, the state had reported 39 deaths in the tragedy unfolding since Wednesday night.

According to an official statement, the CM ordered the suspension of seven excise officials, along with six policemen.

Among the suspended officials are two deputy superintendents of police and four station house officers.

Strict action will be taken against any public servant or others found complicit in the case, said the chief minister, describing the police and excise department failure to check the manufacturing and sale of spurious liquor as shameful.

Nobody will be allowed to get away with feeding poison to our people, he added.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
June 27,2020

New Delhi, June 27: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led union government of India is not ready to stop all imports from aggressive China in spite of mount calls to boycott Chinese products in India.

The Centre is reportedly considering to stop only non-essential imports from the neighbouring country.

However, the Inward shipment in sectors such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, certain electronics and others will continue until a domestic alternative is found.

“India will gradually move towards import substitution. It will not happen overnight. In the meantime, attention has to be paid on production and job creation. We cannot throttle our industry. There are certain absolutely essential imports. Needless to say, those will keep going,” official sources said.

Sources said that both the government and the industry are in the process of identifying products that can be domestically manufactured in the medium term. There are certain chemicals, automotive components, handicrafts, cosmetics, agriculture items and certain consumer electronics, which can be manufactured domestically in the short to medium term. The government is doing all it can to raise the capacity of domestic industries.

However, there are certain other imports in the automobile and the pharmaceutical sectors which cannot be done away within the short to medium term. Their domestic production at the moment may not be that cost-effective.

The six-crore strong traders’ body CAIT has been at the forefront of such a demand and has launched a campaign to celebrate Indian Diwali this year with a total absence of Chinese goods.

“Ease of doing business, capital availability at lower rates and globally competitive logistics and energy costs are some of the prerequisites that the government should look into to ensure the growth of the domestic auto component industry,” according to Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) Director General Vinnie Mehta.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman R C Bhargava said, “People who are boycotting Chinese goods have to remember that in some cases it may lead to their being asked to pay more for the same product."

Meanwhile, domestic rating agency Acuite Ratings & Research has analysed the current import portfolio from China and found 40 sub-sectors have the potential to lower their import dependency on China. These sectors contribute to $33.6 billion worth of imports from China and about 25% of these imports can be substituted by local manufacturing without any significant additional investments.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

Mumbai, Mar 8: A day after the Enforcement Directorate registered a money laundering case against Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and raided his premises, he was taken to the agency's office in Mumbai on Saturday for further questioning.

Kapoor, who was grilled by central agency's officials on Friday night at his Samudra Mahal residence in Mumbai, was shifted to the ED office in the metropolis around 12.30 pm.

ED officials said Kapoor was questioned throughout the night, with some rest time.

A senior ED official connected with the probe told IANS: "Kapoor will be questioned about Yes Bank loans to Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL)."

The official said that during searches a lot of incriminating documents were found and the agency wanted to grill him on his links with DHFL promoters and other companies.

Kapoor's alleged role in the disbursal of loan to a corporate entity and kickbacks reportedly received in his wife's bank account are also under probe.

The ED had filed the money laundering case against Kapoor and raided his residence, apart from issuing a look-out circular so that he does not flee the country.

The ED registered a money laundering case against Kapoor as a continuation of its probe against the DHFL wherein it was allegedly found that Rs 12,500 crore was diverted to 80 shell companies using one lakh fake borrowers. The transactions with these shell companies date back to 2015.

An ED official in New Delhi told IANS that the DHFL probe revealed that funds diverted by the DHFL originated from Yes Bank.

He said that the searches at Kapoor's residence on Friday night were meant to find out any irregularity in grant of loans to the DHFL by the Yes Bank.

The ED has accused Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of DHFL of purchasing shares in five firms -- Faith Realtors, Marvel Township, Abe Realty, Poseidon Realty, and Random Realtors -- after which they were amalgamated with Sunblink.

The outstanding loans of these five firms, totalling around Rs 2,186 crore till July 2019, were allegedly appropriated onto the books of Sunblink to cover up the diversion of loans acquired from DHFL.

The ED's action comes after the RBI superseded Yes Bank Board for 30 days and appointed an administrator, putting a cap of Rs 50,000 on withdrawals by account holders for a month.

The RBI said that the bank's board was superseded "owing to serious deterioration in the financial position of the bank".

Former SBI CFO Prashant Kumar was appointed as administrator of Yes Bank, which has over 1,000 branches and 1,800-plus ATMs across the country.

On Thursday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the bank was on watch since 2017 and developments relating to it were monitored on a day-to-day basis.

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