PolitiClone
Political Pundits? India

NC Hills Council poll illegal: BJP

12:07 AM
GUWAHATI, Dec 27 – Terming the State Government’s decision to hold mid-term polls for the NC Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) in February 2010 as “illegal, unconstitutional and anti-people”, BJP Assam State president Ramen Deka today alleged that a vested interest circle at high places of the Government want to use the Council as a milch cow. Addressing a press conference, Deka said that the anti-tribal attitude of the Congress-ledState Government had been apparent from the beginning as it was constantly putting all sorts of “barriers and obstacles” to prevent opposition parties, such as BJP and ASDC from ruling the NCHAC even after gaining absolute majority.

“Now ironically, even when its own party is going to rule the Council, the democratic process has been blocked by the State Government as well as the Governor of Assam,” Deka said.

Asserting that the chronology of events leading to the cabinet decision to hold mid-term polls strongly pointed to a conspiracy, Deka said that members of the Council voted out the erstwhile executive committee headed by Mohet Hojai at a specially-summoned session on December 14 electing Samarjit Haflongbar as CEM but the government notification issued on behalf of the Governor dated December 15, 2009 declared the session illegal as under the purported ground that it was held during the Governor’s rule in NCHAC.

“But the point to be noted here is that Governor’s rule which was imposed on June 12, 2009, lapsed on December 11, 2009, and no notification was issued for further extension of Governor’s rule. “This is a case of blatant violation of democratic norms and there is clearly a vested interest in plunging the Council in deep constitutional crisis,” he said.

The BJP leader said that the people were happy following the DHD(J)’s surrender of arms on October 2, 2009 and the lapse of Governor’s rule on December 11 but the subsequent developments bode ill for restoration of a democratic order in the trouble-torn district.

“It seems there is a vested interest circle at high places in the Government which still wants to use the NCHADC as a perennial ATM,” he said.
Read On

THE POLITICIANS AND THE POLITICS OF INDIA

9:19 AM
THE POLITICIANS AND THE POLITICS OF INDIA

I have been wanting to write about our country’s political system for quite some times but could not bring myself to do it until I got an email just the other day which was like a slap in my face, and would be a slap on every Indian’s face. That email made me think that we as a population, we as citizens of this huge country are just as much a stooge as the politicians are. We are absolutely responsible for the despicable life that we lead. Then came the decision of the ruling Congress government to break Andhra Pradesh into two naming the other state as Telangana. By doing this the government actually opened the Pandora’s Box and now as of date the Mayavati government of Uttarpradesh wants a separate state by the name of Poorvanchal. The Gorkha Mukti morcha in the north West Bengal has renewed their demand for a separate state, and God only knows how many will follow suit. It seems that all the problems of our country has been solved and now only such things are left to handle and spend upon whereas the basic amenities like food clothing and shelter are yet to reach the masses. I thought I should pen my thoughts now.

The email is about the Last assembly election that was held in the month of April 2009 and went on to the month of May 2009 The details of the dates and the phases I reproduce below just to impress upon my readers that this process of conducting the assembly election is a gargantuan task undertaken every five years and to conduct this process yours and my hard earned money is spent. Crores and crores of money is spent, taxpayers money is spent to elect a representative who will sit in the highest office of the country and promulgate decisions and law that will see the effective functioning of our huge country. They will represent you and me in the parliament .

The election schedule of the 16th assembly election 2009

1st phase: April 16, 2009 (124 seats)

2nd phase: April 23, 2009(141 seats)

3rd phase: April 30, 2009 (107 seats)

4th Phase: May 7, 2009 (85 seats)

5th phase: May 13, 2009 (86 seats


1st phase: April16 :

Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshwadeep. March 23: Issue of notification. March 30: Last date of filing nominations. March 31: Scrutiny of nomination. April 2: Last date of withdrawal of nomination

2nd phase: (A) April 22 :

Manipur. March 28: Issue of notification. April 4: Last date of filing of nomination. April 6: Scrutiny of nomination. April 8: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

2nd phase: (B) April 23 :

Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand. March 28: Issue of notification. April 4: Last date of filing of nomination. April 6: Scrutiny of nomination. April 8: Last date of withdrawal of nomination

3rd phase: April 30 :

Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, Sikkim, Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu.

4th Phase: May 7 :

Bihar, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi. April 11: Issue of notification. April 18: Last date of filing of nomination. April 20: Scrutiny of nomination. April 22: Last date of withdrawal of nomination

5th phase: May 13 :

Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttaranchal, Chandigarh, Pondicherry, Uttar Pradesh.

Such grueling was the schedule of this election. That email therefore was a slap on my face. The email, “Can one imagine working for the following company?

It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics

29 have been accused of spouse abuse.

7 have been arrested for fraud.

19 have more than three criminal cases pending against them .

117 have been charged and are being investigated for Murder, Rape, Assault, Extortion and Robbery.

71 cannot get credit or loans due to bad credit histories.

21 are current defendants on various lawsuits..

84 have been involved in offenses and have paid fines.

Can you guess what mighty Organization this is?

It is the 545 members of the Lower House of Parliament of India that works for you and me. The same group cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of Laws design , takes decisions that changes our lives in a second,to keep the rest of us in line……”

India is the world’s largest democracy. When the constitution was made, all that was put forth as the qualification to become a member of the parliament, was just the basic three things 1.should be a citizen of India 2.should be at least 25 years of age 3. Should be a registered voter. All Indian citizens above the age of 18 have the right to vote. May 2009 the world largest Democracy concluded the gigantic exercise of electing their leaders to the 16th Lok sabha term.

The difficulty in conducting this gargantuan exercise was compounded by the fact that just few months before this election in the late hours of 26th November Mumbai was attacked by terrorists and it was a nightmare for all of the residents of Mumbai. There were intelligent bureau inputs that terrorists from Pakistan would try their utmost to disrupt this election process at various locations. Nearly hundreds of terrorists from SWAT valley in the North Western frontier Province of Pakistan actually crossed the borders braving the snow and the adverse weather conditions that were prevailing during that period to give shape to their evil design. BUT the election process went on smoothly with no incidence of violence being reported from anywhere.

New York Times came out with an excellent observation which I reproduce here bellow: “True this is the place where Gandhi, Buddha, Mahavir, Guru Govind Singh were born and preached their religion. True India has the second largest population of Muslim. India truly is a picture of Unity in Diversity. India truly is a picture of the bouquet of colored flowers. In such a backdrop one would expect all the citizens to come out in force and vote for their next leaders to lead. The disappointing fact remains that there has been a very low turnout of voters, about 41% which conversely means that 59% did not cast their votes. 59% of the eligible voters stayed away from this gigantic process.”

Six months before the start of the election process campaigns were launched. There were umpteen numbers of television commercials urging each and every eligible voter to come out and vote. Famous personalities urged everyone to come out and vote. The voters ignored the commercials and the famous personalities and they did not come out to vote.

I have been delving into the psyche of each of the voters trying to think in the way they would have thought before going to cast their valuable vote, just to find an explanation for such apathy towards this huge process. The reasons that I have are not many but each of them are very pertinent.

Few years before we got the Independence, in the year 1947, the National movement had gathered a lot of steam all the political parties in India namely Congress led By Jawarharlal Nehru, The communist Party led by one of the stalwart of the freedom movement Sri Harkishen Singh surjeet, The Muslim league led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah all these leaders and the Parties had but one agenda and that was to free India from the bloody clutches of the British. The British government then realized that they will not be able to rule India further. Just before granting India the Independence the politics of separatism started and the then Stalwarts of Indian politics failed to see the implications. They failed to perceive the dubious politics of divide and rule injected by the British. The riots between Hindus and Muslim took place on both sides. Thousands and thousands of innocent people were killed on both sides. Families were separated, loved ones had to reconcile to the fate of leaving each other, and thousands were maimed. This was only because the two pillars of the then political system Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah The two stooges both wanted power to rule free India, neither wanting to reconcile. Mahatma Gandhi could not broker peace between them; he went on a fast but to no avail and ultimately Pakistan was created and Mohammed Ali Jinnah was its premier where as Jawarharlal Nehru became the prime minister of free India.

From then till today the politics of separatism has continued and we the gullible and not so intelligent citizens of India time and again fell into the traps of this politics of separatism. We have always failed to realized that these politicians have but one agenda in todays free India and that is to seat in the chair of power by hook or by crook, mainly by crook. We are used as pawn in the game of numbers where we are the vote bank and to garner our support the bloody politicians can go to any extent. Look at the latest inclusion in the history of politics of separatism. Raj Thakare. His MNS, Maharashtra Nirman Sena. The word nirman is synonymous with progress and here he is brutally attacking the youngsters who came to give entrance examination of the railway recruitment board. Constitution of India has given the right to every citizen of India to go anywhere in India in search of job ,a citizen can work anywhere in India and here Mr Raj thakare is used his political clout to stop Indians ,who had come from Uttarpradesh and Bihar, from sitting in this exams. Supreme court guarantees the freedoms as prescribed in the constitution. Raj Thakare’s men and goons assaulted the candidates and vandalized the exam center forcing the authorities to cancel the exam. For such dastardly act Raj Thakare should have been behind bars but today he is free man and on the contrary he is at times a guest of honor in some stupid functions. Seeing this, the citizens of India will have a total aversion to go in the hot April sun to vote for someone like a goon named Raj Thakare . Politicians try to divide us on the basis of Language, on the basis of caste, on the basis of class and on the basis of Religion only to garner a sufficient number of voters by virtue of which they might come to power. In doing so none of the Political leader in this country has actually thought about the country and its people. Crores and Crores of rupees were spent in changing the names of the cities like Mumbai from Bombay, like Kolkata from Calcutta, Like Bangaluru from Bangalore. Question is what is the need to do these changes? Have the politicians solved every problem that the country is facing? Even after sixty two years of Independence the election manifesto is the same. Housing for all, Food for all and medical for all. There is no change in the manifesto of any political party in India because the root problems have never been dealt with. Every Party that was in the fray for this election had their agenda printed in glossy prints and each party promised electricity to the rural India, water good road etc etc. Come to think of it, from 1947 till date 2009 the agenda is the same which means that any party that comes to the power does practically nothing for the masses once they come in power. Before election they are epitome of humbleness but soon after they come in power they forget whatever they promised to the masses and the agenda that they printed on the glossy pages remains in the glossy pages for ever. Hence we find that even after 62 years of independence good roads, electricity to the rural areas, water, shelter and illiteracy still finds place in the agendas after agenda and the population has to fend for themselves for the basics. Year after Year funds are allocated to implement the agenda and the funds mysteriously disappear.

Politicians like Raj Thakare should have been punished in the strongest possible manner but the lackadaisical attitude of our judiciary when it comes to the question of punishing the politicians raise lots of doubt in the psyche of the common Indians. Nothing is going to happen to these goons. The law, the police, The judiciary is all for the common Man. The law of the land does not apply to people like Raj Thakare, like Papu Yadav and the likes who blatantly defile the Constitution of India. Such politicians are actually the terrorist that India as a country should be aware of, as these breeds of politicians are breaking the country from within. We do not need a foreign hand our own hand is doing the work of the foreign hand.

Therefore the psyche of the voters is that all the politicians are the same , they are basically the opposite sides of the same coin, anybody and everybody is the same and nothing is going to change. The low turnout in the election shows resignation among the voters.

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar when he made the constitution he basically compiled the constitution from the various constitution of the world. He took the best points from various constitutions and made into one. No doubt this was a mountainous job and very well executed, but this constitution has one basic flaw. There is no restriction to the number of political parties that can be formed in this country. Anybody who is a citizen of India can launch a political party of his own with even a handful of supporters. There is no cap on the minimum qualification of the political aspirant. With the constitutional right and with no cap on qualification any criminal today is a political aspirant and he or she is accepted in the political system without any question. Politics therefore in India has become a haven of criminals of all types. From rapist to smugglers, from murderers to petty crimes the political parties cutting across all ideology has only them as their candidates. Such people only join the political system to escape from the law as they very well know that as long as they are in power or once they are in power they will get immunity from all the crimes that they have committed and will have total sanction of the government to perpetrate more crimes. We the people of India have to caste our votes to bring one of them in power. Why should we? The statistics of the parliament profile which I stated in the beginning of this article precisely shows that.

Again the psyche of the voters refrains them from going out in the April sun to cast their vote. Whom to vote for? Every politician irrespective of the Party is a goon, a rapist, a criminal, a murderer and cutting across every political party the politician is the most corrupt person in India and No law can do anything to them.

There is a phrase very common in India, “A politician can even sell his mother if he can get some money out of it”. If all the black money that these politicians have stashed away is brought to the country there would be no deficit financing. All the loans that India has taken would be mitigated, all the projects that are stuck due to paucity of funds would be completed, and even after this there would be surplus which would then be utilized in the R & D in all scientific fields. That would be UTOPIA. So whom do we vote for? We don’t want a stupid, illiterate, murderer, rapist, burglar and a corrupt person to be our leader and sit in the highest office –THE PARLIAMENT. This is the general sentiment among all Indians. This shows that by far the most the population of India has resigned to its fate of being ruled by a bunch of idiots and criminals.

Is there any answer to all these? When I was in my school way back in 1977 I was given a topic of debate which was, “Dictatorship is the only answer to India’s misery” and I spoke for the topic. Today I feel that it is the answer to India’s misery. During Indira Gandhi’s time when she was the prime minister of our country she had declared emergency in the country. During that period the country showed tremendous growth, crime rates came down, corruption came down drastically and everything seemed to be running smoothly.

We as country we are not ready for democracy. We still do not understand the value of democracy. Pre Independence we all had but one issue and that was to drive away the British. Then one midnight in the year 1947 India was declared independent and we from then on have not understood the value of independence and democracy. Some say that India is heading towards civil war but violence is not the answer to India’s misery. Violence begets violence. The answer lies in the Total overhaul of the system.

Let me enumerate the steps that should be taken to bring about a radical change in the lives of us Indians.

1. The minimum qualification for all political aspirants should be at least a master’s degree in any field as this will bring about an analytical approach to all the issues.

2. There should be a cap on the total number of political parties that India can have.

3. No political aspirant who has any brush with the law should be allowed to stand in the election. The maximum age of all the politicians serving the country should be 65 year only. Post 65 they should retire and make way for younger and more dynamic persons to come in. today most of our politicians are septuagenarians who cannot even take care of themselves how will they take care of the nation and its aspiration?

4. There should be total accountability in the functioning of the government. A step in this direction has begun recently with the RTI act which is note worthy.

5. The law order situation should go under the knife and have a total overhaul. Police should be autonomous delinked from the political parties and the politicians. Judiciary should be able to discharge justice in the shortest possible time, it is a common adage, “justice delayed is Justice denied” Law and order should be same for everybody irrespective of their position. Politicians should have no control on the Police.

6. Every citizen from the age of 18 to the age of 20 should have compulsory military training as this will instill a sense of discipline and a love for our country.

We as a power can make the government act according to our requirement and make them implement the above we can at least give our future generation a better India of which they can be proud of.

Author has a masters degree in Anthropology from Calcutta university
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MNCs will eat up small States, warns Karat

8:50 AM
“Centre will become more powerful”

GUWAHATI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) favours a federal system under which States will be strong. It is opposed to bifurcation of any State, including Andhra Pradesh, general secretary Prakash Karat said on Sunday.

Addressing a rally against rise in prices, he cautioned that if Andhra Pradesh was to be bifurcated to create Telangana, such demands would follow in other States.

This would only make the Centre more powerful, while allowing multi-national companies to eat up the smaller States.

Mr. Karat said the Centre’s unilateral declaration on the creation of Telangana, without any political consensus, stirred statehood demand in different parts.

He cited the revival of the movement for statehood by the Bodos and the Karbis. If Telangana was created, Assam would break into smaller States.

As for the rise in prices of food items, he reiterated his party’s demand that ration cards be issued to every citizen and rice be distributed at Rs. 2 a kg through the Public Distribution System. Rice was being supplied at that rate through the PDS in West Bengal, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh to cushion the people from the impact of rising prices, he said, asking why it could not be done in Assam.

The Left parties would meet on December 24 to decide on turning the movement against price rise into a national one, and on the party’s demand that 14 essential commodities be supplied through the PDS. As part of the intensified agitation to get the PDS universalised, a rally would be organised in front of Parliament during the next budget session.

Describing the erosion caused by the floods in the Brahmaputra and its tributaries in Assam as “very grave,” Mr. Karat alleged that neither the Centre nor the State government had made any effort to resolve the problem.
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NCP blames Cong's 'rug pulling activities' for Maha LS defeat

5:02 AM
New Delhi: NCP, a constituent of the UPA, on Saturday squarely blamed the "rug pulling activities" of Congress for its poor show in the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra as also Goa and Bihar.

"In Maharashtra, where we won eight seats, lost five seats including two sitting seats because of the rug pulling activities of our partner. The experience in Goa and Bihar had also not been different," the party said in a draft resolution to be placed before its national convention tomorrow.

Noting that the party had fought the Lok Sabha elections in the three states in alliance with Congress and in about a dozen states on its own, it felt that the alliance politics also did not give it good dividend.

It also said that in the dozen states it contested without aligning with anybody, it could win only one seat and that is from Meghalaya.

"This shows that whether we fight independently or in alliance, winning the seats depends upon the organisational strength and popular support of our party leaders," it said underlining the need to expand the party's base.

Asked about the party's message to Congress in UPA-II, party general secretary D P Tripathi, who had during UPA-I maintained that coalition does not mean "fiefdom" of any party, said "our message to Congress is political togetherness." He said "NCP is there to emerge and not merge" when asked whether the party could merge with Congress in future.
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The fiction about fasting

12:37 AM
By Jawed Naqvi
Thursday, 17 Dec, 2009
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Much credit is being given to regional politician Chandrashekhar Rao, an ally of Singh’s ruling coalition, who went on an indefinite fast to press his demand for a separate Telangana state. –Source: outlookindia
There is something innately unverified about political fasting that filmmaker Kundan Shah was not aware of. Bobby Sands died a glorious death during his hunger strike yet he failed to compel British troops to leave Ireland. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have got more political mileage from his periodic fasts. Yet, while he may have succeeded in quelling a communal conflagration that engulfed Bengal by not eating for days, eventually it was a communalist who killed him.
If his fast had any proven merit why would Gandhi’s charm wane and his killer become a celebrated hero among a growing tide of Indians today?
Kundan Shah is a living icon among filmmakers thanks to his 1983 slapstick comedy Jane Bhi Do Yaaro. It was a tart comment on society’s Faustian trade with lucre and gross values. However, Shah’s more serious quest for higher values nearly killed him. In 1985, he was camping in Delhi to push for an extension on Doordarshan of his popular TV serial Nukkad when Saeed Mirza his ideological and creative partner told me that Kundan had gone on a hunger strike against corruption.
Apparently Doordarshan officials had demanded money to push his file. By the time we tracked him the filmmaker was on his second day of fast, emaciated and locked up inside the guest room at a friend’s house. Kundan was promptly rescued from his illusion and made to realise that a fast was something to make a song and dance about and not to suffer silently, worse, angrily. It is evident that Kundan Shah was a victim of a misleading tradition that has spread in India about the magical properties of going without food in protest.
We mocked Mao Zedong as a dangerous rabble-rouser for positing that power flowed from the barrel of the gun. Gandhi’s pacifist methods were projected as more genuinely revolutionary, with Barack Obama quoting the Indian hero in his presidential speeches. When it came to the crunch, however, while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize recently, Obama was quoting Mao, not Gandhi. His country and his allies needed military power to usher peace, he pontificated!
Fasting is lauded by nearly all religions and seems to work well for periodically detoxifying the body. But also like religion, it offers no guarantees of any further material success. The Muslim soldier going to battle Muslim rebels in Waziristan may be armed with a gun and his well-wishers’ prayers but it would be foolish of him to ignore the possibility that the quarry would have invoked the help of the same God and with a better weapon. Jewish troops fighting Muslim Hezbollah probably face similar bouts of uncertainty.
Rightwing politician Narendra Modi and environment activist Medha Patkar both believe in fasting, but they lead opposite sides of the political divide.
Medha Patkar fasted to stop the building of dams on the Narmada River because they would threaten the ecology and dislocate millions of poor people. Modi went on a fast to implement the scheme, which he claimed would generate ample electricity for his vision of Gujarat.
Modi is not the only fascist to have used (abused?) pacifist methods to press a point. The granddaughter of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini went on hunger strike after her party was barred from running in regional polls. What really happened was that a Roman court had ruled that more than 800 signatures collected by her far-right Social Alternative movement were false or forged. Alessandra Mussolini was due to run for president of Italy’s Lazio region.
For the last several days the main story in India’s newspapers has been about the messy politics surrounding an otherwise legitimate-looking demand for the creation of a new Telangana state.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says the proposed state would be carved out from Andhra Pradesh but added to please the other side that it would take time and consultations.
Much credit is being given to regional politician Chandrashekhar Rao, an ally of Singh’s ruling coalition, who went on an indefinite fast to press his demand for a separate Telangana state. Rao was on his 11th day of fast when the decision was announced and he drank orange juice.
However, his fast was a ruse and not the reason for the decision to break up Andhra Pradesh into two. It also looks ridiculous given the fact that the existing Telangana region has a high incidence of farmers’ suicides and starvation deaths. As someone said people are already too famished to go on a hunger strike.
Actually, there are too many corporate interests eyeing future exclusive economic zones on both sides of the new Telangana-Andhra equation. But all this has little to do with Rao going hungry for 11 days. If fasting or hunger strikes could melt hearts and influence politics, Jammu and Kashmir would be a separate independent state long ago, so many of its leaders have undertaken pacifist protests.
Sharmila Irom’s unending fast since November 2000 for democratic rights in Manipur is possibly the best proof that going hungry may put a halo of defiance on an activist’s head but little more. It has done nothing so far to limit the powers of Indian troops in Sharmila’s Manipur, which is her main demand.
Irom went on her fast in November 2000, after the Assam Rifles, one of the Indian paramilitary forces operating in the state, gunned down 10 innocent people who were waiting for their buses in Malom, a town in the Imphal Valley of Manipur.
The next day’s local newspapers published brutal pictures of the dead bodies, including one of a 62-year old woman, Leisangbam Ibetomi, and 18-year old Sinam Chandramani, a 1988 National Child Bravery Award winner. Soon afterwards, that very day, the people of Manipur, including major civil society organisations and other state institutions, agitated and demanded a magisterial inquiry into the incident.
The army, using the unperturbed authority given to them by the Armed Forces Special Powers’ Act (AFSPA), however, disallowed any inquiry. Sharmila, then only 28, decided, after taking blessings from her mother, to launch her hunger strike against widespread repression she says has been unleashed against the people of Manipur by the Indian military.
The single most determined objective of Sharmila’s protest then was the repeal of the AFSPA from the state of Manipur. However, in due course over the last nine years, she has extended the scope of her demand to all regions of India’s northeast where AFSPA has been imposed. There is no scientific reason to suggest that her fast would work where others have failed.
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Jaswant Singh resigns as PAC chief

4:29 AM

NEW DELHI: Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh on Wednesday resigned as the chairperson of parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

"He (Singh) has put in his papers today (Wednesday) and it will come into effect from Dec 31," a spokesperson for Jaswant Singh told IANS.

Sources close to the former defence minister said that the leader wanted to announce his resignation publicly but it was leaked by members of the PAC.

BJP had asked Jaswant Singh to step down from the post of PAC's chief after he was expelled in August from the primary membership of the party following his book on Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Jaswant Singh declined to comply, prompting BJP members to boycott the panel's subsequent meetings in protest.

BJP had asked Jaswant Singh, who is member of Lok Sabha from Darjeeling constituency, to quit the parliamentary panel on grounds of morality.

The 22-member PAC committee scrutinises government spending. Jaswant Singh was appointed its chairperson when he was in the BJP.
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Advani to highlight Manipur turmoil in LS

9:06 AM
IMPHAL: BJP leader L K Advani has assured a party delegation from the North-East that he would highlight the chaotic situation besetting Manipur in the wake of the July 23 Imphal "fake encounter" and the alleged failure of the Okram Ibobi Singh government in the ongoing Parliament session.

On Monday, Advani promised this to party's N-E in-charge P Chandrasekhar Rao and Manipur unit secretary L Basanta Sharma who met him at his residence along with other members from the region.

"As briefed by our team assisted by the party's national spokesman Prakash Javedkar, Advaniji said he'd raise all important issues besetting Manipur in Parliament," Basanta said.

The delegation briefed the BJP leader about the collapse of education system in the state following boycotting of classes by three student bodies for the past three months in protest against the July 23 shootout, he added.

"Among various points, we mentioned about the alleged nexus between security forces and certain underground groups and their indulgence in extortion. Besides, the alleged piling of assets and property by the CM disproportionate to his known sources of income was also highlighted," Basanta added.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley along with Prakash Javedkar have also assured the delegation of highlighting the issue in Rajya Sabha.

On July 23, Manipur police commandos gunned down Chungkham Sanjit Singh, a "reformed" rebel, and a pregnat woman in an alleged fake encounter at the crowded Khwairamband market.

A civil movement led by Apunba Lup erupted against the incident after a national magazine published photographs showing Sanjit being surrounded by commandos before his death.

The government instituted a judicial inquiry to probe the incident and has suspended seven commandos, including a sub-inspector.
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BJP to take up Manipur issue in Parliament

2:11 AM
New Delhi, Dec 1 : Top leaders of the BJP, including Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani, today said they will take up issue of repercussions of the alleged fake encounter killings on July 23 in Manipur, including the shutdown of schools, in the ongoing session of Parliament, a statement of the NE BJP media cell said.

A three-member delegation of BJP led by the party`s organising secretary of the north eastern states P Chandrasekhar, Laimayum Bashanta, secretary organisation and media affairs, BJP, Manipur Pradesh and Premananda Sharma, secretary north east forum met Advani, deputy leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley and party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, and apprised them about the matter, a statement said.

A brief report on the present scenario of Manipur aftermath the fake encounter of Ch. Sanjit and Rabina on July 23 in Manipur has also been framed with nine points, it added.

The report said on July 23, Chungkham Sanjit was shot down in the state capital by police forces.

The encounter is widely believed to be a "fake encounter" and protesting it several organisations are demanding chief minister O Ibobi Singh should step down owning up moral responsibility, it said.

The delegation also briefed the BJP central leaders about the "total constitutional breakdown" in the strife-torn state following which schools and colleges remained shut for more than four months because of agitations.

The BJP leaders assured tghe delegation they would take up the matter during the ongoing Parliament session.

The BJP leader further claimed the militants in the state have a free run as the Centre has turned a blind eye to the arms movement from neighbouring Myanmar to the ultras.

Further, the delegation demanded the party leadership should raise the matter with the Central government on the issue of setting up a special committee to look into the alleged disproportionate assets of the chief minister.

The delegation briefed the BJP leaders athat during the last seven years of Ibobi`s chief ministership, more than 2000 people were killed in the state and termed the situation "worse than the Jallianwallah Bagh Massacre".
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