Kashmir.Watch

Category: National

  • Back to Aam Aadmi. Arvind Kejriwal quits as Delhi Chief Minister

    New Delhi:  Less than two months after Arvind Kejriwal rode the metro to take his oath as Delhi’s Chief Minister in a large park packed with tens of thousands of people, the man who delivered a seismic shift in Indian politics has shaken things up again. By quitting. (10 latest developments) | (Live updates)

    He has resigned after his push for the anti-corruption Jan Lokpal Bill was blocked in the state legislature by law-makers from the Congress and the BJP.

    “They know that if this law is brought in, their leaders will end up in jail,” Mr Kejriwal said to a cheering group of supporters at his party office this evening. His trademark muffler was wrapped around his head. (Amid talk of Kejriwal’s resignation, a growing crowd at AAP office)

    Earlier, in the raucous Delhi Assembly, he declared, “I will give up the chief minister’s office not once but 1000 times to fight against corruption.”

    The legislators from the Congress and BJP who voted today to prevent him from tabling the Jan Lokpal Bill say they support the proposal, but cannot ignore the fact that it has been vetoed by Delhi’s constitutional head, Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung. The chief minister had firmly rejected the opinion that before it is presented for review in the legislature, the bill must be vetted by the Lieutenant Governor as a representative of the centre. (Read: Kejriwal’s family watches as Congress, BJP launch attack)

    The Jan Lokpal Bill has been described by Mr Kejriwal as the raison d’etre of his Aam Aadmi Party, which was set up a little over a year ago. The party and its leaders said their mission was to cleanse the polity of deep-rooted graft and self-serving officers.

    Other parties dismissed AAP as an upstart that had neither the experience nor the vision to offer governance.

    In December, Delhi voters pointedly disagreed. In the first election it contested, AAP delivered a result of astonishing proportions, placing second. The Congress, decimated to third place, offered its support to AAP which then formed a minority government.

    AAP leaders have warned that they have no interest in power; they have repeatedly disowned the Congress as an ally, frequently describing its union ministers as “India’s Most Corrupt.”  Earlier this week, Mr Kejriwal ordered a criminal investigation against Union Oil Minister Veerappa Moily for allegedly colluding with India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, to inflate gas prices.

  • Dance of Democracy: Pepper Spray, Knives in Indian Parliament and MPs Taken to Hospital

    New Delhi: Parliamentarians protesting against the creation of a new state unleashed unprecedented

    mayhem in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament, with one MP using pepper spray on his colleagues and another brandishing a knife.

    The long-simmering issue of the bifurcation of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh came to a boil when the government tried to table a bill for the creation of Telangana state.
    Parliamentarians opposed to the bill protested loudly and tried to prevent Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde from introducing the bill.
    Lagadapati Rajagopal, a billionaire MP from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), charged at the Speaker’s dais. When he was stopped and a scuffle broke out, Rajagopal opened a can of pepper spray.
    People in the House, including parliamentarians, staff and journalists, started coughing and were left teary eyed, the Hindustan Times reported, adding that many darted out to escape from the fumes.
    As the commotion worsened, another TDP MP, Venugopal Reddy, allegedly took a knife out and smashed the Speaker’s microphone.
    “I was told there was gas, knives, other materials as well,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath was quoted by NDTV as saying.
    “The circumstances and incidents which took place in the House are a big blot on our parliamentary democracy,” the minister said.
    As angry MPs went on the rampage, glasses were broken and computers flung out, prompting the Speaker to call in the services of the marshalls and suspend as many as 18 members from the House.
    While the in-House doctor provided medical assistance to the parliamentarians, some MPs were taken to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in an ambulance, reports said.
    Despite stiff opposition, India’s federal government decided to table the Andhra Pradesh reorganisation bill, which facilitates the carving out of a new state, Telangana.
    IT hub Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, falls inside the geographical limits of the proposed new state, and this has made the issue highly complex.
    The new state will have a population of 35 million and will be formed by carving out 10 of the 23 districts in Andhra Pradesh.

    MPs not frisked
    The commotion in parliament took place even as the government adopted special security measures, reports said. Visitors were barred from the gallery and fire extinguishers and blankets were kept ready as one MP had threatened to set himself on fire if the government proceeded with the controversial bill.
    However, an NDTV report pointed out that MPs were not frisked when they entered parliament, suggesting they could bring in materials such as pepper spray and weapons.
    “What happened is disgraceful, unprecedented, unforgivable,” Jaswant Singh, a senior parliamentarian from the opposition, said.
    Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not in the House when the government introduced the bill.

  • Lalu Prasad claims he is ‘real’ tea seller not Narendra Modi

    Patna:  Lalu Prasad Yadav has challenged Narendra Modi to the title of the original tea boy. For good measure, he has added biscuits. 
    “I used to sell tea and biscuits while studying in school,” Mr Yadav, who is the chief of the Bihar-based Rashtriya Janata Dal, told reporters in Patna. He detailed his tea story – “I sold tea with my elder brothers from a shop near the police quarters in the veterinary college area.”
    This evening, Mr Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, launched his chai pe charcha campaign, designed to highlight his modest origins as a young boy who sold tea on trains. The BJP has leveraged snide comments made by political rivals like the Congress’ Mani Shankar Aiyar to launch the mass contact programme, with Mr Modi engaging with thousands of people across the country from a tea stall in Ahmedabad. 
    Mr Prasad said, with a caustic aside, that he quite doubted Mr Modi had actually sold tea on trains.
     

    The RJD chief, resurgent after forging a new pre-poll alliance with Congress in Bihar has sought permission to hold a rally in Muzaffarpur on March 3, the same day that Mr Modi is scheduled to address a rally there.

  • Kejriwal hits back at Omar, says will sweep Kashmir polls

    New Delhi: Calling Omar Abdullah a ‘dynasty politician’, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday said his Aam Admi Party (AAP) will sweep the forthcoming polls in the state.

    Kejriwal while speaking at a Delhi Literature Festival said chief minister Omar Abdullah is a dynasty politician and that his party will soon open its offices in Jammu and Kashmir and will register a glorious triumph in the forth coming polls.
    Replying to the question that Omar had recently challenged Kejriwal that his party will face defeat if it contests elections in the state, he said AAP will in near future open its offices in the state and will give lesson to the corrupt politicians there. 
    Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had said if Kejriwal’s party fields candidates from the state for the general elections, they would lose their security deposits.
    Answering a question at a media conference in the winter capital Jammu about Kejriwal’s allegation about his father and union minister Farooq Abdullah being “a tainted politician”, Omar said he would not speak on Kejriwal’s list of tainted politicians.
    Omar added if Kejriwal wanted to field his candidates from Jammu and Kashmir in the Lok Sabha polls, he was welcome to do so.

  • Independent legislator to withdraw support to AAP government

    New Delhi : Independent legislator Rambeer Shokeen on Monday said he would withdraw support to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi as water and power issues have not been addressed by it. 


    “(Delhi Chief Minister) Arvind Kejriwal promised that our demands will be fulfilled. Till now, nothing has happened so I am going to withdraw my support,” said Shokeen. 

    Janata Dal-United legislator Shoaib Iqbal, Shokeen and expelled AAP legislator Vinod Kumar Binny Feb 2 told Kejriwal to meet their demands, among others, for slashing power and water tariff and enhancing women’s security, else they would withdraw support to his government. 

    Iqbal and Shokeen met Kejriwal Feb 3 and claimed that the chief minister had assured them of action on their demands. 

    “It’s been long and he (Kejriwal) is not even responding to my calls,” Shokeen said. 

    The AAP won 28 seats in the 70-member house in the December 2013 Delhi assembly elections and formed the government with the outside support of the Congress, which won eight seats. 

    The BJP won 31 seats and the Akali Dal and Janata Dal-United one each, while an Independent candidate was also elected. 

    Of the AAP’s 28 lawmakers, one was elected speaker while Binny was expelled for anti-party activities, bringing the party’s effective strength down to 26.