Narendra Modi In Varanasi

Ajay Rai, Not Priyanka, To Challenge Modi

The Congress on Thursday fielded Ajay Rai as its candidate from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, putting to rest speculation regarding Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contesting the election against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Modi won from Varanasi by a margin of 3.37 lakh votes. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and Rai were among the candidates from the seat. While Kejriwal came in the second place, Rai stood third in the vote tally.

Priyanka last week had said that she will contest the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi against Prime Minister Modi if the party president Rahul Gandhi asks her to do so.

This would be the second time Prime Minister Modi and Ajay Rai will battle from Varanasi seat.

Varanasi goes to polls in the seventh and the final phase of the general election on May 19. The result will be announced on May 23.

Meanwhile, the Congress has also announced the name of Madhusudan Tiwari as its candidate from Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat. (ANI)

Who Win Mainpuri

Ground Zero – Who Will Win Mainpuri?

A Yadav stronghold, Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat has traditionally sent Samajwadi Party candidates to Parliament for decades. This year is likely to be no different but, as LokMarg spoke to the voters in the region, the BJP seems to be gaining popularity among villagers. However, even BJP supporters confide that it will be difficult to dislodge Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Good To See SP-BSP tieup

Mainpuri Seat – ‘Good To See SP-BSP tieup’

Sanjay, 24, member of Kanjar community in Mainpuri, has not been in the best of terms with the law and the locals, as his community carries the stigma of being a criminal tribe. Traditionally BSP supporters, Sanjay is happy that Mayawati has joined forces with Mulayam Singh in this Yadav stronghold.

Mainpuri has been a Yadav bastion for as long as elections were held here. The Yadav community rules the roost in this region. From top to bottom in administration and also among (Samajwadi) Party office bearers, their writ runs. Whether you need a job, or a government scheme favour, or even lodge a police complaint in the local Thana (station), one has to plead before their leaders.

Our community also votes for Neta ji (Mulayam Singh Yadav). We fully support Samajwadi Party. Yes there are some in our family, who support Behanji (Mayawati) because she has worked to get us some self-respect in society. During her rule in Uttar Pradesh – between 2007 and 2012 – many of us got pucca houses, some were able to buy and set up shops in the market with their savings. Otherwise, most caste Hindus do not have business dealings with us. I don’t know why, nor do I any longer bother. We are happy with our lives.

WATCH: SP-BSP Supporters Speak Up In Mainpuri Rally

I studied till Class VII then dropped out we needed more hands to work and livelihood. I am happy, we have our own house, and we get odd jobs to see us through. But during the time of notebandi (demonetization), we had to keep the hearth burning on borrowed ration. Those two-three months were horrible. There was no work for us. Even when we got work the wages were not paid. Everybody was cursing (Narendra) Modi here. Things are better now.

It has been a great relief that Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav have joined hands. Many Yadav leaders suspect us to be BSP supporters and refuse to help us. With the gathbandhan (SP-BSP alliance), there is no reason for (Samajwadi) Party leaders to look at us with suspicion. We just hope this alliance survive. Rest, time will tell.

Violence Mars Third Phase Of Polling

Several incidents of violence were reported from many parts of the country, specially from West Bengal, where voting wass underway for the third phase of Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday.

In West Bengal, a man was killed and at least three Trinamool Congress (TMC) activists injured in the different incidents of violence.

The deceased, Tiyarul Kalam, was standing in the queue to cast his vote when he sustained injuries in clashes erupted between Congress and TMC workers in Baligram area of Murshidabad parliamentary constituency. The violence broke out over allegations of proxy voting at booth number 188.

In another incident, three TMC workers were injured after being hit by a crude bomb hurled at them in Domkal municipality of Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency.

Some unidentified men hurled the bomb near polling booth 27, 28 in Murshidabad’s Raninagar area.

In yet another incident, a polling agent was found dead at his house in Buniadpur area of Dakshin Dinajpur district. The cause of his death is not clear yet.

Meanwhile, West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party wrote a letter to Chief Election Officer and Special Observer to the state alleging “violence and intimidation” by TMC.

“It has been seen that TMC has resorted to intimidating and threatening voters, especially in Hindu villages. Genuine voters have been threatened with dire consequences if they go to vote,” the letter stated.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters thrashed a National Conference (NC) polling agent in a polling station in Bijbehara of Anantnag district alleging bogus voting in favour of NC.

In Uttar Pradesh, BJP cadres thrashed an election officer at booth number 231 in Moradabad, alleging he was asking voters to press the ‘Cycle’ symbol of the Samajwadi party.

A scuffle between Congress and BJP workers broke out at booth number 2 in Bagalkot of Karnataka where Congress activists alleged that BJP workers were bringing engineering students to vote.

A polling officer at booth number 41 in Kantapal village in Dhenkanal, Odisha, died after collapsing while on duty.

BJP workers beat up an NCP worker at SDM office in Bhopal after he allegedly showed black flags to Bhopal candidate Pragya Singh Thakur during her roadshow in Madhya Pradesh’s capital city.

As many as 13 states and two Union territories are voting in the third phase in which 116 Lok Sabha seats are at stake.

Counting of votes will be held on May 23. (ANI)

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Colombo's Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith

Easter Blasts Will Open New Fault Lines In Sri Lanka

Post-Easter terror strikes, Sinhala hotheads are bound to target minorities and a period of communal tension appears to be on the cards for Sri Lanka

Easter Sunday’s well-coordinated terror strikes, which ripped through three churches and high-end hotels in Sri Lanka, killing over 300 people, were a bolt from the blue for most of the world. The violence in the island nation was always ethnic, not religious. The Easter massacre bear a remarkable resemblance to copy-cat ISIS and Al Qaeda operations. After two days of counting the dead, ISIS finally claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Sri Lankan government has identified all the bombers as Sri Lankan citizens but authorities suspect foreign links. The sophistication of the serial blasts and the coordinates point to some level of international plot inspired by radical Islamic ideology and the world wide jihadi movement. Suicide bombers were used earlier by the LTTE while battling government forces in the past, but the targeting of Christians and the fact that five star hotels were attacked, clearly points to an attempt to kill westerners.

Whether the Sri Lankan investigators connect the dots or not, the fact remains that the local bombers would have been inspired by the international jihadi propaganda. There are numerous instances of lone wolf and group attacks across the Europe, Africa and Asia by those who wish to clone Al Qaeda and ISIS and hit out at Christians.

The Easter Sunday terror has come at a time when Sri Lanka was witnessing a period of peace and stability after decades of bloodletting during the ethnic conflict between Tamil rebels and security forces. This new threat could once again open old wounds in the island nation. The Tamil minority in the north and east are unhappy with all the tall promises made by Sirisena-Ranil Wickremasinghe government which remain unfulfilled. Tamils want closure to decades of abuse by bringing to book those responsible for largescale human rights violation during the military campaign that wiped out the LTTE leadership in 2009. It is suspected that elements that continue to support the LTTE may try to use the current mayhem to cooperate with local Islamic radicals in future. But it is more likely that with the government naming the local terror group Thowfeek Jamaath as the main perpetrators of the Easter Sunday strikes, a fresh fault line or communal discord between the majority Buddhists (over 70% of the population) and the minority Muslims. This outfit was also responsible for defacing Buddhist statues some time back.

Sinhala chauvinism which is at the heart of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, was at its peak after the victory over the LTTE. Led by none other than President Mahinda Rajapaksa, triumphalism was all pervasive. A section of Sinhala-Buddhists, with newly acquired confidence, often got aggressive with minority groups. In the decade after the defeat of the LTTE, incidents of attacks on Muslims and Christians were reported intermittently.  

Such things were unheard of in the past. In 2013, a Buddhist mob attacked a mosque in Colombo injuring 12 worshippers. There was communal tension for a while but the government was able to contain the situation. Buddhist monks once tried to disrupt a church service earlier this year. More than two dozen such incidents were reported including attempts to stop the service this year itself. Last year, 86 cases of discrimination, threats and violence against Christians were reported by the National Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.

In the past, when the focus was primarily on the ethnic divide between Sinhalese and Tamils, Muslims and Christians faced little problem. In fact the 9.7% of Muslim minority in the Buddhist island nation is well integrated with both the majority Sinhala and Tamil communities.  Muslims in Sri Lanka are mainly Tamil speaking. During decades of ethnic conflict, the Muslims largely kept equidistance from both sides, though some collaborated with the government. Others were caught in the conflict between the state and the LTTE.  In the late 70s and 80s, the Israelis who were close to the United National Party, were called in to assist the Lankan intelligence agencies and train Tamil-speaking Muslims to spy on the LTTE. At that time, India was worried about the spread of Israeli and American influence in its immediate neighbourhood, especially as there was talk about the US setting up a listening post in Eastern Sri Lanka.  

During that period, there were instances of LTTE attacks on new Muslim and Sinhala settlements in the Eastern province, where the government was hoping to dilute the Tamil majority status. Likewise the Christians, most of them Roman Catholics, who form 7.4% of the population, are also well integrated with both the Sinhalese and the Tamils.  Thus the attack on Christians is unlikely to be owing to any local circumstances despite minor incidents earlier mentioned.   

Clearly, like many Muslim youth across the world, the talk of the Caliphate by ISIS did ignite the imagination of Muslim boys in Sri Lanka. A few of them, around 33-35 travelled to Syria to fight with the ISIS warriors. The numbers were small compared to other countries; 6,000 went from Tunisia and 1,500 from France. With the collapse of the Caliphate and the ISIS on the backfoot through Syria and Iraq, many of the fighters are looking for safe and distant havens. South Asia is a good choice. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan are places to regroup.

While it is not known if any of the Sri Lankan Muslims involved in Sunday’s bloodbath were youngsters who may have returned from ISIS camps, there have been reports in recent years of some degree of radicalization of Muslim youngsters in Sri Lanka. Also, Saudi Arabia has been pouring in funds for mosques in the island state as the kingdom had been doing across South Asia. All this is helping to stamp the Islamic identity of Muslims of Sri Lanka. These factors will come into play in the next few months as Sri Lanka grapples with the current crisis.

It is difficult to predict how the situation finally pans out. The government has handled the situation well so far. It has clamped down on rumours and half-baked assumptions so as not to inflame passions or cause attacks on hapless Muslims. Yet, Sinhala hotheads are bound to strike back and therein lies the real worry of the government and the region. A period of communal tension appears to be on the cards for Sri Lanka. Will this Jihadi fight spill over to India and the rest of the South Asian neighbourhood is a question which would be worrying authorities in New Delhi. Maldives, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, already has ISIS sympathizers and activists lurking in the shadows. Will these forces unite and shift their operations to India’s neighbourhood is a horrible prospect.

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Serial Blasts In Sri Lanka On Easter

Lankan Blasts: ISIS Claims Responsibility

The terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the coordinated bombings that claimed the lives of over 290 people in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. The bombers targeted churches and high-end hotels.

The terror outfit made the claim using its Amaq news agency, according to The New York Times.

Earlier today, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said the attacks were in retaliation to the Christchurch terror attacks that took place in New Zealand on March 15.

“The preliminary investigations have revealed that what happened in Sri Lanka was in retaliation for the attack against Muslims in Christchurch,” Al Jazeera quoted Wijewardene, as saying.

Wijewardene also told the Sri Lankan Parliament that the death toll has mounted to 321, including 38 foreigners.

Eight explosions rattled various suburbs in the Sri Lankan cities of Colombo, Negombo, Kochchikede and Batticaloa as the Christian community celebrated Easter Sunday on April 21.

A mass burial ceremony was held here today following a funeral service at St. Sebastian’s Church, one of the churches that came under attack.

Scores of teary-eyed locals were seen in attendance at the memorial service as well as mass burial, bidding adieu to the victims of the gruesome attacks.

The ceremony was held amidst heightened security in the region, with armed forces lending shoulders to carry the mortal remains of the deceased to the burial ground.

Sri Lanka is in a state of emergency in the aftermath of the bombings. All schools have been shut down till Wednesday, as the authorities continue their search and rescue operations. (ANI)

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Rafale Remark: Rahul Says Sorry To SC

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday expressed regret before the Supreme Court over his “chowkidar chor hai” remark in connection with the apex court order of April 10 in the Rafale case, saying it was made during “hectic political campaigning without seeing, reading or analysing the order”.

He made the submission in his response to a contempt plea filed by BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi for “misquoting’ the apex court order by saying that the court had accepted “chowkidar” (a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi), is a “chor'(thief).

The Chief chief said his statement was used and misused by political opponents and that he made the remark in the “heat of political campaigning”.

“It was made on the basis of a bonafide belief and general understanding of the order as being talked about in electronic and social media reportage and by several workers and activists,” Gandhi said in his affidavit.

He said that there was “no attempt too wilfully misinterpret” the court order.

The court had on April 10 dismissed the Centre’s preliminary objections claiming “privilege” over three Rafale documents cited in petitions seeking review of the December 14 verdict on the fighter jet deal.

In a unanimous judgement, the court had allowed the admissibility of the three documents and said the review pleas will be heard on merits.

Talking to the media in Amethi on April 10 after the apex court order, Gandhi said, “The Supreme Court has made it clear that “chowkidar” allowed “theft and that it had accepted that some sort of corruption had taken place in the Rafale deal”.

Thereafter, Lekhi filed the contempt plea against the Congress leader.

On April 15, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi decided to consider the petition.

It had asked the Congress president to file his response to the plea on or before April 22 and posted the hearing to April 23.

The court had said that it did not record any view or finding or made any observation as allegedly attributed to the court by the respondent (Gandhi).

ANI

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BJP HImmatnagar Rally

6 States That Could Make Or Break Modi

The BJP tally in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan will decide how it fares in 2019 Lok Sabha elections

Plumb in the middle of India’s seven-phase mega national elections, the prevailing mood is one that is marked palpably by confusion. India’s elections have often proved to be notoriously unpredictable. The tsunami-like wave that Mr Narendra Modi rode on to win in 2014 had taken everyone—including the most seasoned Indian psephologists—completely by surprise. It isn’t different this time. No one appears to have a clue. Journalists scouring the length and breadth of the country report widely divergent readings of the mood of India’s 820-million strong voters. Some say Prime Minister Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could return to power, albeit with less than the overwhelming majority it won last time (in 2014, the BJP won 282 of 543 seats; and along with its allies, its tally was 336). Others say the people’s verdict could result in an indecisive outcome with the united opposition, led by the Congress, eating into the BJP’s vote shares.

There are six states though that could decide the fate of the BJP: Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest number of parliamentary seats (80); Maharashtra (48), Bihar (40), Madhya Pradesh (29), Gujarat (26), and Rajasthan (25). That makes for a total of 248 seats; in 2014, the BJP won 194 of them. In other states with a large number of parliamentary constituencies, such as Bengal (42), and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (which together have 42), and the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka (which together account for 87 seats), the BJP’s footprint is still weak and it will have to depend on the electoral strength of its allies in order to add to the National Democratic Alliance coalition that it leads. Moreover, in some of these states, the regional parties (viz. the Trinamool Congress in Bengal; and the AIADMK and DMK in Tamil Nadu) hold sway with the national parties, BJP and Congress, having much less sway among voters.

So, much of how the BJP fares in the ongoing elections will depend on how many seats it gets to win in the six states that powered its victory in 2014. In three of them—UP, Maharashtra, and Bihar—where the BJP won handsomely in 2014, this time around it faces a stiff fight. In Uttar Pradesh, the two regional parties, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), usually daggers drawn, have forged a surprise alliance to fight against the BJP.

In Bihar, the Congress, which got battered in the 2014 national elections (it got a total of 44 seats), has tied up with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). In Maharashtra, where the BJP has an alliance with the regional Shiv Sena, the tie-up has been under strain. Notably, in UP, the alliance between the SP and BSP covers a swathe of castes and religious communities—the SP has the support of the Muslims and the Yadavs while the BSP, led by Mayawati, has the support of the Dalits and other backward castes. In Bihar, the Congress and RJD, contesting together, could prove to be a formidable challenger to the BJP.

ALSO READ: Do Regional Parties Hold Key To Next Govt?

In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, in recent assembly elections, the Congress was able to win and form the state governments. That could be a critical factor in determining who the voters in those states would choose in the national elections, giving the Congress an edge in the choice. In 2014, the BJP won 71 of the 80 seats in UP; 22 of the 40 in Bihar; all of the 26 seats in Gujarat; 23 of the 48 in Maharashtra; 27 of the 29 in Madhya Pradesh; and all 25 in Rajasthan.

This time, things could be much tougher for it. The BJP and its allies would need 272 seats in the 543-strong Parliament in order to decisively win. But, although Mr Modi and his party are hoping to get extra numbers from Bengal, Odisha and some of the southern states to make up for the losses in the six crucial states, it is not something it can bank on. The regional parties in these states are formidably strong, with some such as the Trinamool Congress having deep, cadre-based support bases.

In the six states that powered its 2014 victory, the BJP has taken steps to garner support in the face of a stronger opposition. In UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, it has tried to woo the non-Yadav and other backward classes by according the status of a constitutional body to the National Commission for Other Backward Classes, which decides on job reservations for India’s most backward classes. It has also tried to alleviate the apprehensions of the poorer sections of India’s upper castes (who fear discrimination when it comes to jobs) by reserving 10% of jobs for upper-caste people coming under the “economically weaker section”.

But still the going will be tough for Mr Modi’s party. In UP, the BSP-SP alliance is strong and theoretically covers a large swathe of castes and communities. For instance, Muslims who have remained almost universally apprehensive of Mr Modi’s government will be unlikely to vote for the BJP or any of its allies.

ALSO READ: It It Advantage Modi?

In two of the six crucial states, however, the BJP could leverage Mr Modi’s own popularity. In a TV interview recently, Mr Modi boasted: “Modi hi Modi ko challenge kiya hai” (Modi is the only challenger to Modi). In states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat, his popularity could translate into regional waves of support when people cast their votes. But in the recent state assembly election in Gujarat, while the BJP won and formed the government, the Congress fared better in terms of the number of votes it managed to get. And, in Maharashtra, where its fate will be partly governed by the support extended by its partner, the Shiv Sena, the two have had regular spats in recent years, differing over many issues.

Many believe that in 2014, when the BJP won 194 seats in the six mentioned states, it had exhausted the maximum number that it could have hoped for from those. And that a repeat of that performance now looks unlikely.

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Rally Report Mainpuri

Rally Report – SP-BSP Show In Mainpuri

LokMarg brings speaks to the SP-BSP supporters at the joint rally of Mayawati and Akhilsh Yadav on April 19 in Mainpuri, a Yadav stronghold in Uttar Pradesh. Watch what they said about the issues that brought them together: