OMG! BJP kick-starts early 2019 poll preparations

News Network
August 17, 2017

New Delhi, Aug 17: The BJP has started early preparations for 2019 polls as party president Amit Shah got into a huddle with top leaders on Thursday to appoint managers to curate 120 Lok Sabha seats it never won.

Shah, said BJP sources, took a meeting of about a dozen union and UP ministers and ten general secretaries at the party's Ashoka Road headquarters, to identify leaders who can work as "palaks (managers)" on at least 6 Lok Sabha seats each which it had lost always. 

Among the union ministers, who attended the meeting and are likely to be assigned the task of palaks are Ravi Shankar Prasad, JP Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar, Prakash Javadekar and Nirmala Sitharaman. While general secretaries present were Ram Lal, Ram Madhav, Arun Singh, Anil Jain, Murlidhar Rao, Kailash Vijayvargiya, V. Satish, Shiv Prakash, Saudan Singh and BL Santosh.

Shah is keen to create a crack team to work on the ground on these parliamentary segments where union ministers will chip in heavily since the party does not have enough leaders to galvanise workers and voters to convert defeat into victory, explained BJP sources aware of the planning.

Other than palaks, the second rung of the team will have leaders who will be assigned other than their native constituencies. The BJP believes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image is intact despite opposition sweating out to erode his and the NDA government's credibility.

BJP wants to take an early lead in its preparations to outwit the opposition still struggling to put up a grand alliance to checkmate saffron surge. The opposition though had showcased its intent by fielding a common candidate of seventeen parties during president and vice president's elections.

The party has been doing the spade work at the booth level in these weaker areas such as West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha and in North East, except for Assam it had won comfortably, to compensate for states where the BJP had peaked in 2014 elections to win overall 282 seats. Those states are - Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh.

The party poll managers are confident of doing well in Congress held states of Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka in the coming assembly polls.

Shah also has been re-emphasizing Modi's message that the NDA government's welfare schemes like providing underprivileged women LPG cylinders through Ujwala scheme and providing toilets should be electorally milked in rural belts as it successfully did in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

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Agencies
February 5,2020

New Delhi, Feb 5: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday expressed his suspicion over the government using force to clear the Shaheen Bagh stretch where an agitation has been ongoing for over 50 days against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

While speaking to ANI over the phone, Owaisi was asked that there are indications from the government that after February 8, Shaheen Bagh will be cleared.

In reply, he said, "Might be they will shoot them, they might turn Shaheen Bagh into Jallianwala Bagh. This might happen. BJP minister gave a statement to 'shoot a bullet'. The government must give an answer as (to) who is radicalising."

Further speaking about NPR and NRC, Owaisi said, "Government must give a clear cut answer that till 2024 NRC will not be implemented. Why are they spending Rs 3900 crore for NPR? I feel this way because I was a History student. Hitler during his reign conducted census twice and after that, he pushed the jews in a gas chamber. I don't want our country (to) go in that way."

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News Network
March 7,2020

Mar 7: Two Malayalam news channels, Asianet News and Media One, which were banned by the information and broadcasting ministry for their coverage of the recent violence in Delhi on Friday evening, were allowed to resume telecasting on Saturday morning.

While Asianet News appeared to have begun operations around 7am on Saturday, Media One was screening content by 9.30am.

The ministry of information and broadcasting had imposed a 48-hour ban on Asianet News and Media One for their coverage of the Delhi violence for 48 hours from 7.30pm on Friday. Both Asianet News and Media One were barred under Rule 6(1 c) and Rule 6(1e) of the Cable Television Networks Act, 1994.

The ministry of information and broadcasting alleged Asianet News and Media One were "biased" and critical of the RSS and Delhi Police.

The ban on Asianet News and Media One triggered a torrent of criticism of the move. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked how "Malayalam channels inflame communal passions in Delhi?" and alleged some English news channels were continuing "their brazen distortions" with impunity.

In a statement issued on Friday after the ban, Media One termed the move "unfortunate and condemnable" and called it a "blatant attack against free and fair reporting". Media One called it "an order to stop free and fair journalism".

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News Network
May 14,2020

London, May 14: Fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Thursday urged the Central government to accept his offer to repay 100 per cent of his loan dues and close the case against him.

While congratulating the Centre for introducing Rs 20 lakh crore relief package to boost the economy amid the coronavirus lockdown, Mallya, lamented that his repeated attempts to pay back his dues have been ignored by the Indian government.

"Congratulations to the Government for a Covid 19 relief package. They can print as much currency as they want BUT should a small contributor like me who offers 100% payback of State-owned Bank loans be constantly ignored? Please take my money unconditionally and close," he tweeted.

Earlier this month, Mallya had sought permission to appeal against a ruling ordering his extradition to India in Britain's highest court the UK Supreme Court.

The application comes two weeks after the High Court in London - the UK's second-highest court - dismissed Mallya's appeal against a lower court ruling that he be sent to India to face charges of defrauding a consortium of Indian banks of more than Rs 9,000 crores relating to the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines in 2012.

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