Vasundhara Raje to break away from BJP to form own party?

October 19, 2012
Vasundhra_Raje
Jaipur, October 19: Even as BJP battles instability in its Karnataka unit along with former CM B S Yeddyurappa threatening to walk out, a bombshell seems to be waiting to explode for the party in Rajasthan, with Vasundhara Raje on the verge of revolting against party's central leadership.

Raje, former Rajasthan CM and currently the leader of opposition in the state assembly, is considering to walk away with a big chunk of "loyalists" to float her own regional party before assembly polls in the state — due in December next year — if the leadership does not recognize her pre-eminence in the state unit. Raje has demanded a say in the appointment of state chief, and an upper hand in the distribution of party tickets for the assembly polls.

Raje is widely acknowledged to be the only leader in the BJP with a pan-state appeal: something which defies Rajasthan's reputation as a conservative state and has baffled political observers and sociologists alike. It is also recognized that sabotage was the chief reason why she failed to pull off a win in the last assembly election despite coming close to pulling off one in the face of anti-incumbency.

The grouse of Raje and her supporters is that the appreciation of her being the best bet for the party is not reflected in way central leadership has been conducting its affairs, insisting on a parity among the party between her and the "leaders who have no influence outside their assembly constituencies".

The indulgence of indiscipline has encouraged disproportionate ambitions, dealing a blow to the authority of the leadership. "Devi Singh Bhati (Kolayat MLA) has launched an independent campaign and challenged the party leadership to stop his campaign. Gulab Chand Kataria is already moving places. There is no discipline in the party and senior leaders are shy of projecting Vasundharaji as a party leader. That leaves her with no option but to think about options beyond BJP," said a Raje loyalist.

"Madam (Raje) was aghast at the national leaders' indifference towards her repeated demand for a free hand in the run-up to assembly polls in the state," BJP MLAs aligned with Raje told.

A leader from the Raje camp claimed that 70 out of the 79 MLA have expressed their support to Raje, and several other party leaders are also willing to follow suit.

While efforts to contact Raje proved futile, her trusted lieutenant and party chief whip in the state assembly, Rajendra Singh Rathore also refused to comment on the issue. "I have no information in this regard," he said.

Raje camp insiders said that they were in touch with a few independent legislators, including the six "turncoat" MLAs elected from the BSP who went on to join the Congress, providing a majority to the Ashok Gehlot government.

Raje is also said to be mulling over an alliance with the BSP as that will not only strengthen them in eastern Rajasthan but also fetch a sizeable number of Muslim votes.

The BSP did well in eastern Rajasthan during the 2008 assembly polls in the state as six MLAs were elected and several of its candidates finished runners-up.

The trouble in Rajasthan unit spells serious concern for the party. BJP is hoping for a good tally of Lok Sabha seats from the state, but the prospect could suffer a setback if Raje heeds her supporters to go her separate way.

Raje could be the latest addition to a long list of regional satraps of the BJP, who have had a falling out with the national leadership. Yeddyurappa is also toying with the idea of floating a regional party as the high command has refused to reinstate him as chief minister of Karnataka.

The party has still not recovered from the loss caused by the exit of Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh and Babulal Marandi has emerged a strong regional force in Jharkhand after parting ways with the BJP.

The trend of satraps launching their own outfits is also seen as fallout of the vanishing Hindutva fervour and BJP's failure to find a replacement for the charismatic Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

After attending the recent assembly session in the state, Raje is camping in New Delhi. She met with several senior party leaders in the national capital to convince them about giving her a free hand to take final calls about the assembly polls. It was learnt that Raje also asked for state party chief Arun Chaturvedi to be substituted by a colleague of her choice, and rejection of the candidature of Gulab Chand Kataria, her detractor for the post.

Senior leaders have rejected her demands and suggested that they will let her lead the party but no "free hand" will be encouraged as unanimity ought to be maintained among senior state leaders on all major issues.

Kataria is a known Raje baiter and has already tried to open a parallel front as he planned a "rath yatra" against corruption in the beginning of this year. Raje vehemently opposed Kataria's proposed campaign and that latter had to cancel the plan.

Reports suggest that Kataria, this time around, has got support of other senior state leaders including Ghanshyam Tiwadi (deputy leader of opposition), Arun Chaturvedi (current state president), Lalit Chaturvedi and Narpat Singh Rajvi (son-in-law of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat). These leaders have reportedly maintained a concerted pressure on the BJP top brass to make sure that Raje was not allowed to "dictate" her will and that other leaders are also given the due consideration on party matters.

Moreover, a few senior leaders in New Delhi, who were rubbed the wrong way by Raje in the past, have extended tacit support to the anti-Raje camp.

Raje camp insiders claimed that the RSS office-bearers were also determined to make sure that Raje is not accorded "autonomy" like Narendra Modi. Recently Raje met with a few RSS functionaries in New Delhi and the latter assured support to her. However, the same RSS functionaries allowed Kataria to go ahead with his own scheme of things and strengthen his position in the state.


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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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News Network
March 29,2020

New Delhi, Mar 29: The battle against coronavirus is a tough one and it required harsh decisions to keep India safe, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first Mann Ki Baat after the 21-day lockdown was imposed in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.
"The battle against COVID-19 is a tough one and it did require such harsh decisions. It is important to keep the people of India safe. A disease must be dealt with at the very beginning as delay makes it incurable," said Prime Minister Modi.
He said that as the coronavirus has put the entire world in lockdown, so "India is doing the same."
"It is a challenge before everyone, science and knowledge, poor and rich, powerful and weak. It is neither restricted to a nation nor region or particular weather. This virus is bent upon killing human beings, eliminating them. Hence all of us, the entire humanity, must unite and resolve to eliminate it," he added.
Addressing the 63rd edition of his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat', the Prime Minister had sought forgiveness from all countrymen, and especially the poor, for the nationwide lockdown in the country in the view of the novel coronavirus.
During his address to the nation on March 24, the Prime Minister had announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the deadly virus. 

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News Network
May 30,2020

May 30: A Delhi court on Saturday granted interim bail for 10 days to former municipal councillor from the Congress Ishrat Jahan, who has been booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, to get married.

She has been booked under the anti-terror law in a case related to communal violence in northeast Delhi in February.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana granted the interim relief from June 10 to June 19 to Jahan on furnishing two sureties of Rs 1 lakh.

The court directed her not to tamper with any evidence or influence the witnesses in the case.

According to the interim bail plea, filed through advocates S K Sharma and Lalit Valeecha, Jahan's marriage was fixed in 2018 for June 12, 2020.

The plea further said that Jahan would not tamper with any evidence or influence the witnesses if granted bail.

The petition, also filed through advocates Tushar Anand and Manu Prabhakar, claimed that Jahan has been falsely implicated in the case.

It alleged that upon bare perusal of the contents of the FIR, no incident of violence can be attributed to her and the wild and baseless allegations made against her were not only irresponsible and false, but also caused serious harm to her reputation.

Jahan, who is also an advocate, was only a supporter of ongoing peaceful protests and it was one of the fundamental rights of the citizens to protest and register their dissent against any unreasonable measure of the government, the plea said.

Besides Jahan, Jamia Millia Islamia University students Asif Iqbal Tanha, Gulfisha Khatoon, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider, president of Jamia Alumni Association Shifa-Ur-Rehman, suspended AAP councillor Tahir Hussain, activist Khalid Safi, JNU student Natasha Narwal and former student leader Umar Khalid have also been booked under the anti-terror law in the case.

The police had claimed in the FIR that Khalid and his associates had instigated people to start riots in the area and it was a "premeditated conspiracy".

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.

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