.story-content span .story-content p .story-content div color:#000!important;font-family: open sans Arial!important;font-size:15px!important ALSO READ Why TMC is reluctant to speculate on Jaya Bachchan s role in Rajya Sabha Corporate profits markets can double over next 4-5 years: Prateek Agrawal Budget 2018 pushes growth momentum says ICRA MD Naresh Takkar Mining a must to pare imports eradicate poverty: Vedanta s Anil Agrawal span.p-content div id = div-gpt line-height:0;font-size:0 Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Naresh Agrawal along with three other party leaders - Nitin Agrawal Mukesh Agrawal and Madhu Mishra - joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday. Their initiation into the party took place in the presence of Union Minister Piyush Goyal at the BJP headquarters in Delhi. Addressing the press Agrawal said My status was reduced to that of a film actor. Because of her the ticket was not given to me which I did not find right. I just want to serve the BJP I have no conditions and no demand for a ticket in the Rajya Sabha. Meanwhile Goyal welcomed Agrawal to the party and said I heartily welcome my friend Naresh Agrawal in the Bharatiya Janata Party. His whole team today joined the party. I congratulate Naresh ji Nitin ji Mukesh ji and Madhur Mishra ji and thousands of party workers along with them who recognised the development taking place in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and especially the rapid development that has swept Uttar Pradesh under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Naresh Agrawal ji felt he could serve the country and his state better if he joined the BJP Goyal added. ALSO READ: With SP not nominating him to RS Akhilesh aide Naresh Agrawal joins BJP Agrawal represents Hardoi constituency in the Rajya Sabha and his term expires in March. How Naresh Agrawal s loyalty waivered and the controversies 1. Dancers and film actors were preferred over him for the nominations for the upper house of Parliament My comparison was drawn with those working in films... I was rejected for those who dance in films work in films he said. He was referring to the nomination of film actor Jaya Bachchan by the Samajwadi Party for a Rajya Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh in the coming biennial elections ignoring Agrawal s claim. His term in the upper house is coming to an end shortly. ALSO READ: Naresh Agrawal hasn t done it first time... 2. BJP unhappy with Naresh Agrawal s remark; welcomes him nonetheless His remark did no go down well with the leaders of his new party. Senior leader Sushma Swaraj welcomed Agarwal on board but said his comment is not acceptable. Shri Naresh Agarwal has joined Bhartiya Janata Party. He is welcome. However his comments regarding Jaya Bachhan ji are improper and unacceptable. Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 12 2018 ALSO READ: Unacceptable : BJP on Naresh Agrawal s comment on SP s Jaya Bachchan 3. Agrawal has often changed parties in the last over 30 years of his political career He had earlier been with the Akhil Bhartiya Loktantrik Congress with Jagdambika Pal Rajeev Shukla and Shyam Sunder Sharma that allied with the BJP government headed by Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh in 1997. Describing his joining the BJP as homecoming he said he would unconditionally do whatever the party wanted him to. I have not joined the Bharatiya Janata Party for any Rajya Sabha ticket nor have I set any condition. Agrawal who has been one of the most vocal critics of the Narendra Modi government and the BJP in the Rajya Sabha in the last few years lauded the Prime Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah. 4. Naresh Agrawal was a staunch supporter of Akhilesh Yadav In 2016 amid a turf war in Mulayam Singh Yadav s family Naresh Agrawal asserted Akhilesh Yadav will be the chief ministerial candidate of Samajwadi Party in the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Election will be contested under the guidance of Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Akhilesh will remain the chief ministerial candidate the party s Rajya Sabha MP said. 5. Mulayam expelled Naresh Agrawal In the midst of the bitter feud in the Yadav clan Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh in January 2017 expelled Naresh Agrawal for attending the national convention called by the Akhilesh camp. 6. Naresh Agrawal rejects his expulsion Agrawal rejected his expulsion from the party by Mulayam Singh Yadav. Netaji s (Mulayam) step is totally unconstitutional. He has lost the power to expel anyone from the party as our national president is now Akhilesh Yadav Agrawal had said. 7. In the same month rumours were rife on Naresh Agrawal s transition to BJP. However he quashed them. Agrawal said that he was not going anywhere and he was with SP president Akhilesh Yadav. News of me joining the BJP is baseless. I am with Akhilesh Yadav and my aim is to finish BJP in Uttar Pradesh. 8. Naresh Agrawal s move to leave Congress BSP SP disappointed Agarwal made it clear after joining that his son would vote in favour of BJP candidates in Rajya Sabha elections and complained that he was compared to the woman working in films while selecting the candidate for Rajya Sabha. Agarwal is a sitting Rajya Sabha MP whose term would end on April 2 along with nine other seats in Uttar Pradesh. The election on these 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh would take place on March 23. 9. Naresh Agrawal has always triggered row with his irresponsible statements From linking the names of Hindu gods with alcohol to suggesting that former Indian Naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav was a terrorist he has always triggered row with his irresponsible statements. Triple Talaq: Naresh Agarwal drew flak for calling Muslim women demanding a strict law against Triple Talaq as non-Muslims and BJP supporters. The Muslim women who were present at the Rajya Sabha gallery to watch the Triple Talaq debate were termed BJP supporters by Agarwal. Lynching debate: A massive uproar broke out in the Rajya Sabha last year when the SP MP linked the names of Hindu gods with alcohol. He narrated an incident in 1991 when he visited a school that was turned into a jail. He said the names of some Hindu deities linked to some types of alcohol were written on the wall of the school. Pointing towards the treasury bench Agrawal said these lines were written by your people . 10. Pakistan treated terrorist as a terrorist says Naresh Agarwal on Kulbhushan Jadhav issue Justifying the treatment meted out to Jadhav and his family in Pakistan Senior Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal today sparked a controversy by saying Pakistan has recognised Jadhav as a terrorist so has treated him accordingly. Agar unhone (Pakistan) Kulbhushan Jadhav ko aatankwadi apne desh mein mana hai to wo uss hisaab se vyavhaar karenge; humare desh mein bhi aatankwadiyon ke saath aisa hi vyavhaar karna chahiye (If Pakistan has recognised Jadhav as a terrorist they will treat him likewise; India should also treat terrorists like this Naresh Agarwal said outside the Parliament. BJP heavily criticised Naresh Agarwal for his statement. BJP spokesman GVL Narasimha Rao called the SP leader s comments a betrayal of national interest .
NEW DELHI: The stellar performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent state elections in Tripura Nagaland and Meghalaya is a landmark for a party which had little traction in the region except in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The party never had any significant connect with the masses and was seen as an outsider. What changed the situation? BJP president Amit Shah in his first press conference after the results credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi s Act East policy for the upsurge in fortunes. Modi s Act East policy included a big push for road and railway infrastructure and various steps to boost the regional economy. While most of the infrastructural projects are at various stages of completion Modi s northeast agenda created a rhetoric of inclusiveness that helped bring the masses closer to the BJP. Below are a few important initiatives by the Modi government that may have made the BJP acceptable to the northeast voters: The railways push Before a metre-gauge line started in 2008 Tripura didn t have any railway link with the rest of the country. The Modi government converted it into broad gauge. All over the region the government has converted 900 km of tracks to broad gauge. It also launched a Rajdhani Express and the Tripura Sundari Express between Agartala and Delhi. In 2016 then railways minister Suresh Prabhu laid the foundation stone for the Rs 2 315 crore 88-km Dhansiri-Kohima railway track connecting Kohima to the national railway network. The government also began railway projects to connect Imphal Aizawl and Shillong. It has introduced more than two dozen new trains in the region. It also signed a deal with Bangladesh to develop a rail link between Tripura and Chittagong which would speed up flow of products especially grains to the region. Roads and highways Modi has branded his policy to build infrastructure in northeast as Transformation by Transportation . Lack of connectivity has been a major roadblock in the economic progress on the region. Modi s promise of connectivity resonates with the masses. More than 3 800 km of national highways with an investment of Rs. 32 000 crore have been sanctioned in the region in the past three years while nearly 1 200 km of roads have been constructed according to the government. In a public announcement in December last year Modi said the centre would invest another Rs. 60 000 crore under the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in the northeast and Rs. 30 000 crore under the Bharatmala project over three years. Modi also dedicated to the nation a 271-km two-lane national highway connecting Tura in western Meghalaya to the state capital Shillong last year. Air connectivity The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has allocated Rs 3 400 crore for the upgradation of airports in the North East region. According to the government projects worth Rs 934 crore have already been completed while the rest would be over in the next two or three years. The aviation projects in the northeast include re-carpeting of the runway at Silchar and Lilabari airport and an aviation manpower training institute; development of Rupsi airport; a new integrated airport and an engineering workshop at Agartala; expansion and revamp of existing terminal building and runway at Dimapur; installation of an instrument landing system (ILS) at the Shillong airport; and operationalisation and development of the Tura airport. Other projects and policies Last year Modi dedicated the 60-MW Tuirial hydropower power project which made Mizoram the third power-surplus state in the northeast to Sikkim and Tripura. The project is expected to produce 251 million units of electricity annually. Announced in 1998 by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government it was the first major central government project to be successfully commissioned in Mizoram. Recently the government decided to fully fund various Central projects being implemented in the northeast instead of the previous practice of sharing 90 per cent of the cost. The Modi government has also made the 1360-km long India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway which is to be completed in 2020 a centerpiece of its Act East policy. Opening the northeast to the ASEAN countries the highway will boost the regional economy. In Budget 2018-19 the government re-classified bamboo from tree to grass which would enable easier cultivation for commercial purposes. Bamboo is central to the rural economy of the northeast. Its classification as tree meant various restrictions on its produce transport and sale.
ALSO READ RS polls 2018: Republic TV promoter Rajeev Chandrasekhar in BJP list of 18 Rajya Sabha polls: BJP to improve tally but not enough to push amendments Parties pad for RS polls protests continue to disrupt Budget session Dissecting Shivraj Chouhan & Vasundhara Raje s new-found love for farmers span.p-content div id = div-gpt line-height:0;font-size:0 Elections to 58-Rajya Sabha seats are scheduled for March 23 but saw much drama across the political spectrum on the last day of filing of nominations on Monday. Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Naresh Agarwal joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday. He was upset that the SP didn t re-nominate him to the Rajya Sabha. Agarwal said his son an SP legislator would vote for the BJP. In comments that came for criticism from within the BJP Agarwal said at the press conference at the BJP headquarters in the afternoon that the SP rejected his re-nomination to accommodate someone who dances in Bollywood . External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted: Shri Naresh Agarwal has joined Bhartiya Janata Party. He is welcome. However his comments regarding Jaya Bachhan-ji are improper and unacceptable. On the social media several BJP supporters said they were embarrassed that Agarwal who had in recent past mocked Hindu gods and also called Kulbhushan Jadhav a terrorist. Industrialist Rajeev Chandrasekhar finally shed his independent status to join the BJP. The BJP has made its candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls from Karnataka. I have been a quasi-BJP MP because things that I believe in - giving clean government and better governance besides providing opportunities for all - are more closely aligned with BJP than any other political party Chandrasekhar said. Former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane and senior journalist Kumar Ketkar were among the four candidates who filed their nominations for six Rajya Sabha seats from the state. Rane is a BJP candidate and the Congress has fielded Ketkar. Rane quit the Shiv Sena in 2005 and later joined the Congress. He ended his over-a-decade-long association with the party in September last year formed the Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksh and allied with the BJP-led NDA. In Kerala MP Veerendra Kumar who walked out of Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) last year filed his nomination as an independent candidate. He is backed by the ruling CPI-M led Left Democratic Front. The seat had fallen vacant after Veerendra Kumar s resignation and he is likely to be re-elected. In Kolkata senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi to whom the Trinamool Congress has extended support filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha election from West Bengal. In Lucknow Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and several others filed their nominations. An election is in the offing for the 10-seats for which 14 candidates have filed their nominations including SP s Jaya Bachchan and BSP s Bhimrao Ambedkar. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley files nomination papers for Rajya Sabha elections in Lucknow. (Photo: ANI) In Gujarat the Congress infighting came to the fore with Gujarat state women s wing president Sonalben Patel stepped down after the party nominated state spokesperson Amee Yajnik. Congress leader PK Valera a former bureaucrat also filed his nomination as an independent. Both the BJP and Congress can send two candidates each for the four vacancies but the entry of Valera could queer the pitch for the Congress candidates.
Hours after a BJP office in Tamil Nadu was attacked party National Secretary H. Raja on Wednesday expressed regret for his Facebook post that said statues of rationalist movement founder E.V.Ramasamy or Periyar would be razed to the ground in the state. Early on Wednesday a petrol bomb was hurled at a BJP office around 500 km from here in Coimbatore by unidentified persons. Later in a fresh Facebook post on Wednesday Raja expressed his heartfelt regret for his Tuesday s post which he claimed was a message posted by his social media administrator without his permission and hence he had removed it. Raja expressed regret if his post had hurt anybody s feelings. According to him damaging the statues of Ramasamy is not agreeable. The message that was posted and later removed said: Who is Lenin? What is the connection between him (Lenin) and India? What connection between communism and India? Lenin s statue was broken down in Tripura. Today it is Lenin s statue in Tripura and tomorrow it will be the statue of caste fanatic E.V.Ramasamy. Late on Tuesday two persons were arrested in Thirupattur in Vellore district for vandalising Ramasamy s statue. The attackers at the BJP s office in Coimbatore had come in a three wheeler and had thrown the petrol bomb inside the office. Police are investigating the case.
ALSO READ TN minister condemns BJP leader s Periyar remarks BJP s Raja invites ire of TN parties for social media post TN incubation ground of terror activities: BJP Kamal s political entry will not impact us: Panneeerselvam TN BJP sacks functionary for vandalising Periyar statue span.p-content div id = div-gpt line-height:0;font-size:0 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tamil Nadu president Tamilisai Soundararajan expelled R Muthuraman party functionary on Wednesday. Muthuraman was arrested for vandalising the statue of social reformer Periyar (EV Ramasamy) at Thirupathur in Vellore district.Prime Minister Narendra Modi also strongly disapproved incidents of vandalism reported from several parts of the country.Meanwhile Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) working President MK Stalin also demanded the arrest of H Raja following his now deleted controversial post on Facebook in which the latter had written that the statue of Periyar would be razed just like Vladimir Lenin s statue in Tripura.The post read Who is Lenin and what is the connection between Lenin and India? What connection has India with Communists? Lenin s statue has been removed in Tripura. Today it is Lenin s statue in Tripura tomorrow it will be the statue of caste fanatic EVR Ramasamy. Raja however apologised for the same by saying that the post was done by one of the administrators of his page without his permission.(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Days after the Bharatiya Janata Party won assembly elections in Tripura the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Tripura accused it of unleashing concerted violence against its workers and vandalising its offices. In a memorandum submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday the CPI(M) alleged that 514 of its workers had been injured with more than 1 500 homes attacked purportedly by BJP supporters. In addition it claimed 350 of its offices had been ransacked or captured by the newly elected party. This is not just an attack on our party said CPI(M) leader Jitendra Chaudhury. This is an attack on our Constitution our fundamental rights. Chaudhury who is one of the two Lok Sabha members from Tripura claimed the party s workers were being attacked in broad daylight by lethal weapons and petrol bombs . He alleged the attackers had the tacit support of the BJP s senior leaders. There are being instigated this is an organised attack he said. The parliamentarian said that the jubilant reactions of top BJP leaders to the destruction of a statue of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov or Lenin by alleged BJP supporters in a town called Belonia in the state s southern district was testament to the saffron party s endorsement of violence. Ram Madhav the party s national general secretary justified the vandalism in a tweet he alleged. They are sowing the seeds of hatred in Tripura. In a tweet that has since been deleted Madhav had written: People taking down Lenin s statue not in Russia; it is in Tripura. Chalo Paltai . Chalo Paltai Let s change was the war cry of the BJP s election campaign in Tripura.On Tuesday Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh called the governor of Tripura Tathagata Roy and asked him to ensure peace till the new government took charge. On Monday Roy had expressed support for the razing of the Lenin statue.What one democratically elected government can do another democratically elected government can undo. And vice versa https://t.co/Og8S1wjrJs Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) March 5 2018 We reject these charges The Bharatiya Janata Party s spokesperson in the state Mrinal Kanti Deb however rejected the charges against its leaders and workers. He alleged it was a conspiracy by the CPI(M) to disturb the law and order of the state. People have changed their colours overnight he said. A lot of Left workers after our victory started identifying themselves as the BJP workers. They are the ones involved in the few sporadic violent activities that may have taken place. But once our government takes charge all of them will be sent to jail. Several people in the state said that violence was quite widespread. In every village there has been violence said a rubber planter from Santirbazar in South Tripura. This is really disappointing because this is not what I had voted the BJP for. I hope the party s senior leaders take action. They can t just say they are not our workers. Said an Agartala-based businessman: Yes there has been violence but it only natural. There were a lot of pent-up emotions among people. The https://publiclab.org/profile/d4int Left after all had been in power for 25 years. Post-poll violence regular farePolitical observers point out that post-poll violence in Tripura is not a new occurrence. It happened in 2013 in 2008 in 2003 so there s nothing really new said an Agartala-based political analyst. But it does seem that there has been a quick turnover this time a lot of low-level Left leaders seem to have changed loyalties. Miscreants understand which side to be on and as newcomers you have to prove your worth that s how it works everywhere. Tapas Dey a veteran Congress leader and former legislator said the CPI(M) had only itself to blame. Post-poll violence is a legacy that the Left had left behind claimed Dey. They are doing this hue and cry this time because they are facing the heat. But the truth is they have created this culture. Electoral violence is common in Tripura. In the run-up to the state elections both the CPI(M) and the BJP lost several of their workers in violent clashes that would routinely break out between the two parties. Government officials however said that violence was beginning to taper off beginning Monday evening. Things are under control said a senior state government official. There are prohibitory orders in some places but that s only a preventive measure. A top official of the district administration of Sepahijala one of the two districts where Section 144 was imposed on Sunday said there had been sporadic clashes. He claimed many of these clashes were personal that had been given political colour . Both parties are involved he said on Tuesday evening. This happens after election results in Tripura and we expect things to be completely normal by tomorrow.
