'BJP's attempts to divide have been defeated'

News Network
December 24, 2019

New Delhi, Dec 24: With the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance set to form the government in Jharkhand, several opposition parties on Monday linked the mandate to the CAA and the NRC, saying people have demolished "arrogance" of the BJP, which attributed its defeat to local issues and "internal strife" in the state.

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's working president Hemant Soren, the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance, said with the electoral mandate, a new chapter begins which will prove to be a milestone.

Speaking to the media, he said the opposition partners will meet to chalk out the strategy for the future.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance's victory in the Jharkhand Assembly polls was of "extreme contemporary importance" and asserted that the people have defeated the BJP's attempts to divide the society on caste and religious lines.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi congratulated the party, its coalition partners and workers on the decisive victory of the alliance in Jharkhand, while party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the people want to hear from the government on employment, bread, water, forest, land, farming and trade, but the BJP tried its best to "divide the people to hide its failed politics".

"Today the public's answer has come. Congratulations to all the members of the grand alliance. Congratulations to Hemant Soren. Congratulations and love to the Congress workers," she said in a tweet in Hindi.

Meanwhile, outgoing Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das took responsibility for the electoral verdict, saying it was his defeat and not of the BJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Soren for the victory and extended his best wishes to the alliance while BJP president Amit Shah said his party respects the mandate of voters and also expressed his gratitude to the people of Jharkhand for giving the BJP a chance to govern the state for five years.

In his tweets after the BJP lost power in the state, Modi said his party would continue serving it and raising people-centric issues.

With the polls outcome clearly giving a majority for the Soren-led alliance, Congress leader P Chidambaram said the BJP is not unbeatable and urged opposition parties to join forces against the ruling saffron party.

Congratulating Soren, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said people have faith that he would fulfil their aspirations.

Banerjee also said that elections were held amid protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed countrywide NRC, and extended good wishes to the "brothers and sisters" of the neighbouring state for voting in favour of the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance.

The Sharad Pawar-led NCP said people of Jharkhand have demolished the "arrogance" of Modi and the saffron party president Shah.

The Shiv Sena, which recently severed ties with the BJP, said the Jharkhand polls have shown that people are not buying the saffron party's politics based on sentimental issues like the National Register of Citizens.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the Jharkhand results appeared to be a verdict against the NRC and the CAA, and reflected the public reaction to the "arrogance" of the BJP visible across the country.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo also said the BJP leaders have "aggressively" campaigned in the last two phases of the Jharkhand Assembly polls, raising the issues related to the CAA and the NRC.

"Inability of local leadership to convince the electorate for repeat of the mandate and internal strife within the party also appeared to have a significant fall out. A detailed analysis will be done," he said.

BJP's face in the state Das faced a challenge from his former cabinet and party colleague Saryu Roy, who left the party after being denied ticket from Jamshedpur (West) seat. Roy contested the poll from the Jamshedpur (East), a seat held by Das five times, as an Independent and was leading by a huge margin.

"We have seen that local elections are increasingly influenced by the performance of the local government and local factors," Rao said, referring to recent assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra besides Jharkhand.

Asked about the impact of the CAA on Jharkhand elections, BJP vice president Shivraj Singh Chouhan said state elections are fought on different issues and rejected suggestions that the Jharkhand elections was a litmus test for the Act.

Congress General Secretary in-charge for Organization K C Venugopal said the results were a "substantive and clear mandate against divisive and disruptive political actions" of PM Modi and BJP.

The people of Jharkhand have rejected the anti-people and anti-constitutional policies of the BJP, he said in a statement.

Instead of talking about development in respective states or issues of common people, the BJP and PM Modi were trying to fool the people by their narrow minded divisive political actions and sectarian agenda, he alleged, adding that people of Jharkhand have given a befitting reply to them.

The AICC in-charge for Jharkhand, RPN Singh, said, "PM Modi and Union Home Minister Shah tried to divert the attention of people away from fundamental issues but people did not get swayed."

Reiterating that Soren of JMM will be the CM as declared earlier, Singh said Jharkhand results are a defeat of the BJP's "arrogance and diversionary tactics".

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 30,2020

Kochi, Mar 30: Kerala High Court on Monday granted interim bail to the under-trial prisoners and remanded accused in the state till April 30 in view of the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The court said that the accused should report to the local police station immediately after getting bail. Those released on bail must strictly follow the lockdown instructions, the High Court said.

"Those who have been convicted of imprisonment for less than seven years will get bail. Prison Superintendents will release the prisoners who are eligible. But regular offenders are not entitled to get bail," the court said.

After the bail period, the accused should appear in the respective trial courts, where a decision will be taken on their bail by the respective trial courts.

The Supreme Court had last week asked all state governments to release undertrial prisoners, who are facing charges attracting less than seven years imprisonment, to reduce overcrowding of jails amid the ongoing coronavirus scare.

So far, 194 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state.

The country is under a 21-day lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has claimed the lives of 29 people and infected a total of 1071 people as on Monday morning.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 27,2020

Kabul, Jan 27: A passenger plane crashed on Monday in a Taliban-held area of Afghanistan's Ghazni province, local officials said.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time in Deh Yak district, which is held by the Taliban. Two provincial council members also confirmed the crash.

The number of people on board and their fate was not immediately known, nor was the cause of the crash.

Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national carrier, dismissed the claim that one of their planes had crashed in a statement on their website, saying all their aircraft were operational and safe.

The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.

The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005 when a Kam Air flight from western Herat to the capital Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.

The war however has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. One of the most spectacular occurred in 2013 when an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base north of Kabul en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All seven crew member were killed.

Afghanistan's aviation industry suffered desperately during the rule of the Taliban when its only airline Ariana was subject to punishing sanctions and allowed to fly only to Saudi Arabia for Hajj flights.

Since the overthrow of the religious regime smaller private airlines have emerged but the industry is still a nascent one.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 13,2020

Jun 13: Requiring the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in areas at the epicenter of the global pandemic may have prevented tens of thousands of infections, a new study suggests.

Mask-wearing is even more important for preventing the virus' spread and the sometimes deadly COVID-19 illness it causes than social distancing and stay-at-home orders, researchers said, in the study published in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Infection trends shifted dramatically when mask-wearing rules were implemented on April 6 in northern Italy and April 17 in New York City - at the time among the hardest hit areas of the world by the health crisis - the study found.

"This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9," researchers calculated.

When mask-wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day, researchers said. In the rest of the country, daily new infections continued to increase.

Direct contact precautions - social distancing, quarantine and isolation, and hand sanitizing - were all in place before mask-wearing rules went into effect in Italy and New York City. But they only help minimize virus transmission by direct contact, while face covering helps prevent airborne transmission, the researchers say.

"The unique function of face covering to block atomization and inhalation of virus-bearing aerosols accounts for the significantly reduced infections," they said. That would indicate "that airborne transmission of COVID-19 represents the dominant route for infection."

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday urged organizers of large gatherings that involve "shouting, chanting or singing to strongly encourage the use of cloth face coverings to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.