PANAJI: Faced with strong criticism against the proposed changes to the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations, town and country planning (TCP) minister Vishwajit Rane said that while he is open to “constructive ideas”, he will not deviate from his plan to bring in “new policies in the interest of Goa”. Rane said he remains firm about offering additional floor-area ratio (FAR) to hotels and resorts, including three-star resorts, and also stands by his decision to permit golf courses, farm houses and other tourism activities in green areas. “Provision for golf course and film city has already been made under Regional Plan 2021. Clarity is now brought by means of these regulations,” said Rane. “We are here to accept constructive ideas and positive suggestions. As a government, we are here to work towards the benefit of our people and the state.” Political parties, environmentalists, social activists, architects, urban planners and citizens have expressed concern about the proposed changes. Revolutionary Goans (RG), Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have condemned the changes, and RG has announced that it will hold a protest on Friday outside the TCP office to oppose the changes. Rane, in turn, said he has appointed professionals and industry stakeholders to the TCP body to ensure balanced development. He said projects which are not in the state’s interest will not be taken up. “Years back, a few NGOs took to the streets objecting to the entry of five-star hotels in the state. Today, with our main financial backbone, mining, being shut, these very hotels are keeping the finances of the state going through tourism,” Rane said. He said that tourism projects need to be encouraged and incentivised. “We have decided that the facility of additional FAR as applicable to four-star and five-star hotels shall also be extended to three-star hotels and resorts as they are scattered in urban and rural parts. This will facilitate additional accommodation in other parts of the state and will generate additional revenue,” Rane said. The minister said that the TCP department will accord equal focus and emphasis to prevent damage to the environment. The state has decided to engage the services of the Indian Green Building Council to monitor and ensure that mega projects adhere to green norms, water conservation and energy efficiency, he added.
Panaji: Faced with strong criticism against the proposed changes to the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations, town and country planning (TCP) minister Vishwajit Rane said that while he is open to “constructive ideas”, he will not deviate from his plan to bring in “new policies in the interest of Goa”.Rane said he remains firm about offering additional floor-area ratio (FAR) to hotels and resorts, including three-star resorts, and also stands by his decision to permit golf courses, farm houses and other tourism activities in green areas.“Provision for golf course and film city has already been made under Regional Plan 2021. Clarity is now brought by means of these regulations,” said Rane. “We are here to accept constructive ideas and positive suggestions. As a government, we are here to work towards the benefit of our people and the state.”Political parties, environmentalists, social activists, architects, urban planners and citizens have expressed concern about the proposed changes. Revolutionary Goans (RG), Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have condemned the changes, and RG has announced that it will hold a protest on Friday outside the TCP office to oppose the changes.Rane, in turn, said he has appointed professionals and industry stakeholders to the TCP body to ensure balanced development. He said projects which are not in the state’s interest will not be taken up.“Years back, a few NGOs took to the streets objecting to the entry of five-star hotels in the state. Today, with our main financial backbone, mining, being shut, these very hotels are keeping the finances of the state going through tourism,” Rane said.He said that tourism projects need to be encouraged and incentivised. “We have decided that the facility of additional FAR as applicable to four-star and five-star hotels shall also be extended to three-star hotels and resorts as they are scattered in urban and rural parts. This will facilitate additional accommodation in other parts of the state and will generate additional revenue,” Rane said.The minister said that the TCP department will accord equal focus and emphasis to prevent damage to the environment. The state has decided to engage the services of the Indian Green Building Council to monitor and ensure that mega projects adhere to green norms, water conservation and energy efficiency, he added.
PANAJI: Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday said that the town and country planning (TCP) department’s recent amendments to the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations threaten Goa’s natural resources and ecosystem. The party said that the amendments “come at the cost of Goa’s agricultural sector” which needs to be strengthened and not weakened, after the Covid-19 pandemic. TMC’s joint convenor Samil Volvaiker urged village panchayats to pass resolutions opposing the TCP’s new amendments as Goa’s villages will soon face water scarcity. “The government is in a tearing hurry to destroy Goan farmers,” he said. Volvaikar said TMC is ready to join hands with other political parties to oppose the changes proposed by TCP. “We stand in solidarity with all Goemkars who have taken a stand and raised their voice against infrastructure projects. We may differ in our political ideology, but we must come together and fight to protect our heritage and environment. I appeal to panch members to collectively raise their voices against the regulations.”
Panaji: Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday said that the town and country planning (TCP) department’s recent amendments to the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations threaten Goa’s natural resources and ecosystem. The party said that the amendments “come at the cost of Goa’s agricultural sector” which needs to be strengthened and not weakened, after the Covid-19 pandemic. TMC’s joint convenor Samil Volvaiker urged village panchayats to pass resolutions opposing the TCP’s new amendments as Goa’s villages will soon face water scarcity. “The government is in a tearing hurry to destroy Goan farmers,” he said.Volvaikar said TMC is ready to join hands with other political parties to oppose the changes proposed by TCP. “We stand in solidarity with all Goemkars who have taken a stand and raised their voice against infrastructure projects. We may differ in our political ideology, but we must come together and fight to protect our heritage and environment. I appeal to panch members to collectively raise their voices against the regulations.”
On September 1, when West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee led a rally in Kolkata as a thanksgiving gesture to the UNESCO for including the city’s Durga Puja in its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, she was accompanied by many TMC leaders and legislators including TV and film actors who got elected as party MLAs and MPs.Among the prominent faces who were conspicuous by their absence at this grand rally were independent writers, academics, painters, musicians and film and theatre personalities, such as Jogen Chowdhury, Aparna Sen, Nachiketa, Kaushik Sen, Arpita Ghosh and Sohini Sengupta among others, many of whom had rallied round Mamata during her landmark Singur and Nandigram movements in protest against the then CPI(M)-led Left Front regime’s land-acquisition policy.This group of intellectual and cultural figures had played a remarkable role in helping Mamata oust the 34-year Left regime from power in the 2011 Bengal Assembly polls. In the previous Assembly polls last year too they had strongly supported Mamata to keep the BJP at bay, whom they have always accused of allegedly practising the politics of communalism and polarisation.However, in worrying signs for the ruling TMC, these intellectuals and artists are now increasingly distancing themselves from the TMC dispensation as a slew of its leaders and functionaries have been allegedly implicated in various cases or scams after coming under the scanner of central agencies like the CBI and ED.On September 7, the state law and PWD minister Moloy Ghatak became the latest TMC leader to have been raided by a central agency, the CBI in this case, over his alleged involvement in a case of multi-crore coal smuggling from a state coalfield. Ghatak had already been summoned by the ED several times for questioning. Several TMC leaders, including the party’s national general secretary and Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, are on the radar of the central agencies over this scam. Abhishek has also been questioned by the ED several times.On July 22, a day after the TMC’s martyrs day rally, the ED raided multiple places in Bengal and finally arrested the then education minister and TMC heavyweight Partha Chatterjee in connection with the school jobs scam. It also recovered Rs 50 crore cash from the apartments of Partha’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee and arrested her. Both of them have been in jail. Partha’s arrest shook the TMC, even as the seizure of such massive stashes of cash, whose videos went viral, shocked the people of the state.On August 11, the CBI arrested a close Mamata aide Anubrata Mondal, the TMC’s Birbhum district president, over a cattle smuggling case. On September 7, the CBI conducted raids and search operations at the premises of several Mondal associates.On September 3, the Halisahar municipality chairman and TMC leader, Raju Sahani, was arrested in a chit fund case. A day later, the CBI raided the houses of TMC MLA Subodh Adhikari and his brother and Kanchrapara municipality chairman Kamal Adhikari in the same case.Recently, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP and former Union culture secretary, Jawhar Sircar, admitted that “a section of the TMC was completely rotten” and that the party could not fight the saffron party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with the help of such elements.A fierce critic of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre, Sircar said the visuals of piles of cash recovered from Arpita’s houses were so outrageous that his family urged him to quit politics. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on TV. So much money can come out of someone’s house! Past imagination. Scenes of such corruption are rarely seen on TV,” he reportedly said.Sircar’s remarks sparked a row even as he drew flak from within the TMC. Senior party MP Sougata Roy said, “Jawhar Sircar did not walk in a Trinamool procession even for a day before becoming a Rajya Sabha MP. There are no sacrifices. When he was secretary of the Ministry of Culture in Delhi, he did not do the Trinamool any favours.” Calling Jawhar “selfish”, he also charged, “They are all self-centred and act in their own interests. When you get on a plane as an MP, get a salary of two lakh rupees a month, and leave during the party’s difficult times!”Hitting back, Jawhar said his family members and friends have urged him to quit politics, saying “I have never heard of this kind of insult in my life.”Amid increasing raids on its leaders by central agencies in connection with various scams, the TMC has cried foul, charging the BJP-led Centre with allegedly indulging in “vendetta” by using various agencies like “political weapons” against its rivals.However, a major intellectual section seems to be getting disillusioned with the TMC now. A senior theatre actor, who was an active participant in Mamata’s Singur-Nandigram movement, said, “Many like me have ethics and principles. So we had become part of this movement for a cause, but we cannot back the TMC now. The corruption cases against the TMC, especially the school jobs scam is very serious.”Some TMC leaders also referred to the point that in the wake of Mamata’s resounding victory against the BJP in the 2021 polls, several prominent leaders from various parties, including Yashwant Sinha, Pawan Verma and Ashok Tanwar, joined the party. “A few months ago, Verma and Tanwar resigned from TMC. In Tripura and Goa also, many of our leaders decided to quit although they had joined the party barely a year ago,” said a TMC leader. “We have suffered a loss of face in the intelligentsia class that had returned to our camp ahead of the 2021 polls. Various corruption cases and Rs 50 crore cash recovery from Partha Chatterjee’s aide have severely dented our image.”During the 2021 polls, a section of the state’s political parties had undertaken a “No vote to BJP” campaign, which had helped the TMC. The CPI(ML) Liberation’s Partha Ghosh said, “We campaigned for ‘No vote to BJP’. But we cannot support this TMC government. They are claiming that it is pro-people. Their slogan is ‘Ma Mati Manush’. But they are not clearing the dues of labourers under the MGNREGA scheme. Also, they are paying huge money to Durga Puja committees. This cannot be a policy of pro-people government. School jobs scam and other scandals showed how much this government has sunk into corruption. We have to now fight against both the BJP and TMC and strengthen the Left forces.”
On September 1, when West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee led a rally in Kolkata as a thanksgiving gesture to the UNESCO for including the city’s Durga Puja in its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, she was accompanied by many TMC leaders and legislators including TV and film actors who got elected as party MLAs and MPs.Among the prominent faces who were conspicuous by their absence at this grand rally were independent writers, academics, painters, musicians and film and theatre personalities, such as Jogen Chowdhury, Aparna Sen, Nachiketa, Kaushik Sen, Arpita Ghosh and Sohini Sengupta among others, many of whom had rallied round Mamata during her landmark Singur and Nandigram movements in protest against the then CPI(M)-led Left Front regime’s land-acquisition policy.This group of intellectual and cultural figures had played a remarkable role in helping Mamata oust the 34-year Left regime from power in the 2011 Bengal Assembly polls. In the previous Assembly polls last year too they had strongly supported Mamata to keep the BJP at bay, whom they have always accused of allegedly practising the politics of communalism and polarisation.However, in worrying signs for the ruling TMC, these intellectuals and artists are now increasingly distancing themselves from the TMC dispensation as a slew of its leaders and functionaries have been allegedly implicated in various cases or scams after coming under the scanner of central agencies like the CBI and ED.On September 7, the state law and PWD minister Moloy Ghatak became the latest TMC leader to have been raided by a central agency, the CBI in this case, over his alleged involvement in a case of multi-crore coal smuggling from a state coalfield. Ghatak had already been summoned by the ED several times for questioning. Several TMC leaders, including the party’s national general secretary and Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, are on the radar of the central agencies over this scam. Abhishek has also been questioned by the ED several times.On July 22, a day after the TMC’s martyrs day rally, the ED raided multiple places in Bengal and finally arrested the then education minister and TMC heavyweight Partha Chatterjee in connection with the school jobs scam. It also recovered Rs 50 crore cash from the apartments of Partha’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee and arrested her. Both of them have been in jail. Partha’s arrest shook the TMC, even as the seizure of such massive stashes of cash, whose videos went viral, shocked the people of the state.On August 11, the CBI arrested a close Mamata aide Anubrata Mondal, the TMC’s Birbhum district president, over a cattle smuggling case. On September 7, the CBI conducted raids and search operations at the premises of several Mondal associates.On September 3, the Halisahar municipality chairman and TMC leader, Raju Sahani, was arrested in a chit fund case. A day later, the CBI raided the houses of TMC MLA Subodh Adhikari and his brother and Kanchrapara municipality chairman Kamal Adhikari in the same case.Recently, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP and former Union culture secretary, Jawhar Sircar, admitted that “a section of the TMC was completely rotten” and that the party could not fight the saffron party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with the help of such elements.A fierce critic of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre, Sircar said the visuals of piles of cash recovered from Arpita’s houses were so outrageous that his family urged him to quit politics. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on TV. So much money can come out of someone’s house! Past imagination. Scenes of such corruption are rarely seen on TV,” he reportedly said.Sircar’s remarks sparked a row even as he drew flak from within the TMC. Senior party MP Sougata Roy said, “Jawhar Sircar did not walk in a Trinamool procession even for a day before becoming a Rajya Sabha MP. There are no sacrifices. When he was secretary of the Ministry of Culture in Delhi, he did not do the Trinamool any favours.” Calling Jawhar “selfish”, he also charged, “They are all self-centred and act in their own interests. When you get on a plane as an MP, get a salary of two lakh rupees a month, and leave during the party’s difficult times!”Hitting back, Jawhar said his family members and friends have urged him to quit politics, saying “I have never heard of this kind of insult in my life.”Amid increasing raids on its leaders by central agencies in connection with various scams, the TMC has cried foul, charging the BJP-led Centre with allegedly indulging in “vendetta” by using various agencies like “political weapons” against its rivals.However, a major intellectual section seems to be getting disillusioned with the TMC now. A senior theatre actor, who was an active participant in Mamata’s Singur-Nandigram movement, said, “Many like me have ethics and principles. So we had become part of this movement for a cause, but we cannot back the TMC now. The corruption cases against the TMC, especially the school jobs scam is very serious.”Some TMC leaders also referred to the point that in the wake of Mamata’s resounding victory against the BJP in the 2021 polls, several prominent leaders from various parties, including Yashwant Sinha, Pawan Verma and Ashok Tanwar, joined the party. “A few months ago, Verma and Tanwar resigned from TMC. In Tripura and Goa also, many of our leaders decided to quit although they had joined the party barely a year ago,” said a TMC leader. “We have suffered a loss of face in the intelligentsia class that had returned to our camp ahead of the 2021 polls. Various corruption cases and Rs 50 crore cash recovery from Partha Chatterjee’s aide have severely dented our image.”During the 2021 polls, a section of the state’s political parties had undertaken a “No vote to BJP” campaign, which had helped the TMC. The CPI(ML) Liberation’s Partha Ghosh said, “We campaigned for ‘No vote to BJP’. But we cannot support this TMC government. They are claiming that it is pro-people. Their slogan is ‘Ma Mati Manush’. But they are not clearing the dues of labourers under the MGNREGA scheme. Also, they are paying huge money to Durga Puja committees. This cannot be a policy of pro-people government. School jobs scam and other scandals showed how much this government has sunk into corruption. We have to now fight against both the BJP and TMC and strengthen the Left forces.”
The West Bengal Cabinet on Monday approved the setting up of seven new districts in the state, taking the total number of districts to 30, up from the existing 23.Announcing the Cabinet decision, the Chief Minister said the seven districts will be carved out of five existing districts — Murshidabad, Nadia, South and North 24 Parganas, and Bankura.A new Sundarban district will be carved out of both South and North 24 Parganas districts; two new districts, Ichhamati in Bongaon subdivision and a yet unnamed district in Basirhat, will be created out of North 24 Parganas district; Ranaghat, a city and municipality in Nadia district, will become the fourth new district; a new district of Bishnupur will be carved out of the existing Bankura district; and two new districts of Baharampur and Kandi will be created out of Murshidabad district.Sources in the state administration said the new districts were created to streamline administrative operations. “It is purely an administrative decision. The Chief Minister wanted to decentralise the system and that is why she went in for smaller districts. Earlier, the government had carved out Kalimpong from Darjeeling, Jhargram from West Midnapore and split Burdwan into East and West districts.”Dismissing reports of a possible dissolution of the state Cabinet, CM Banerjee said she would carry out a reshuffle and fill in key vacancies. She added that the new ministers – four to five of them – would take oath Wednesday evening.“Subrata Mukherjee and Sadhan Pandey are no more. Partha da (Partha Chatterjee) is in jail. They had held important departments like panchayat, industry, consumer affairs and many more. I cannot take any more pressure. So I have to get some new faces in the Cabinet. Some leaders will be sent to the party organisation too.”Sources also said the revamped Cabinet will have TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s imprint, and will have young faces.Babul Supriyo, Partha Bhowmick, Udayan Guha, Snehasish Chakraborty are among the young faces who may be included in the Cabinet. Sources also said minister Paresh Adhikari, whose name features in the teacher recruitment scam, and another senior minister, Soumen Mahapatra, may be dropped from the Cabinet.
The West Bengal cabinet has approved the creation of seven new districts in the state, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday (August 1). This will take the number of districts in West Bengal to 30 from the existing 23.The Chief Minister told a press conference that a new Sundarban district will be carved out of South 24-Parganas district; two new districts will be created out of North 24-Parganas district — Ichhamati in Bongaon subdivision and a yet unnamed district in Basirhat; Ranaghat, a city and municipality in Nadia district, will become the fourth new district; a new district of Bishnupur will be carved out of the existing Bankura district; and two new districts of Baharampur and Jangipur will be created out of Murshidabad district.Hon’ble Chief Minister @MamataOfficial announces the creation of 7 new districts in Bengal for greater administrative efficiency.The 7 new districts include – Sundarban, Ichamati, Ranaghat, Bishnupur, Jangipur, Berhampore and one more in Basirhat, to be announced soon. pic.twitter.com/1f9nqvIejr— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) August 1, 2022Why have these districts been created?States keep creating new districts from time to time. The idea everywhere is, generally, that smaller units would make governance easier and would benefit the people by bringing the government and the administration closer to them, and making them more accessible. Sometimes, the decision to create a new district is driven by local demands.In April this year, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy virtually inaugurated 13 new districts in his state, fulfilling a promise that he had made during his Assembly election campaign in 2019. Reddy had long maintained that decentralisation and smaller administrative units bring better and more transparent governance, and smoother and more effective delivery of welfare.These same reasons would be applicable to West Bengal too. As per Census 2011 figures, almost 4 million people lived in each of West Bengal’s 23 districts on average — among the highest in the country.By contrast, before Reddy doubled the number of districts to 26, Andhra Pradesh had only 13 districts, with about 2 million people — half the number in West Bengal — living in each on average, as per the 2011 Census. In West Bengal, South 24-Parganas district sprawls over almost 10,000 sq km; North 24-Parganas is about 4,000 sq km in area — with populations of more than 8 million and more than 10 million each (2011).Who decides on creating or scrapping districts, or changing their boundaries?This power lies with the state governments, who can pass a law in the Assembly or simply issue an order and notify it in the gazette. The Centre does not have a say in the matter.The central government does play a role, however, when a change of name of a district or railway station is contemplated. The request of the state government in this regard is sent to several central government departments before a no-objection certificate is issued.Have Indian states been creating a lot of new districts?Yes, the number of districts around the country has been going up steadily over the years. The 2001 Census recorded 593 districts, which went up to 640 in 2011. India currently has more than 775 districts.Uttar Pradesh has the most districts (75) in the country, followed by Madhya Pradesh (52). Goa, by contrast, has only 2 districts. However, the number of districts in a state is not always a function of the area of the state, or of its population.West Bengal, for example, has 42 Lok Sabha MPs but only 30 districts even after the addition of the 7 new districts, and Andhra Pradesh, even after the recent doubling of the number of districts to 26, has only one more district than the number of Lok Sabha seats. Tamil Nadu, which has 39 MPs in Lok Sabha — after only Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and West Bengal — has one fewer district.In general, the largest districts in India by area cover sparsely populated areas — for example, Kachchh in Gujarat, and Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Barmer, and Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
Panaji: A written reply in the Rajya Sabha by the Union government stating that the controversial bungalow at Old Goa was built in violation of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, is perhaps a further endorsement of action taken by state departments.Union minister for tourism and culture, G Kishan Reddy in a written reply to Trinamool Congress MP, Luizinho Faleiro, on July 29 stated that the building is within the protected area of St Cajetan Church and that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has issued showcause notices to the project promoter.The Union government’s reply throws light on several incorrect statements about the illegal bungalow at Old Goa. A few MLAs said during the recent assembly debate that the construction falls in the buffer zone, at a distance of less than 300m, from the ASI monument — the Church of St Cajetan.“The buffer zone does not apply here, as the plot of survey no 4/1 has been statutorily listed as the protected area of the Largo of St Cajetan and connected ruins,” architect and heritage activist, Tahir Noronha, said.Activists have also disagreed with town and country planning (TCP) minister Vishwajit Rane’s statement that TCP only gave permission to the bungalow after the National Monument Authority (NMA) did.On June 1, 1968, ASI had declared the plot of survey no 4/1 as the Largo’s protected area along with other monuments in Old Goa after seeking public opinion. The buffer zones were introduced only after the ASI act was amended in 2011, which also envisaged setting up of the NMA for scrutinising construction activity between 100 and 300m from the protected area. “NMA has no jurisdiction in this plot (of the bungalow) and as per RTI replies, no central government department gave permission before the TCP did,” Noronha said.In a written reply to AAP MLA Cruz Silva, the TCP has projected an ASI letter from 2020 as NMA permission. “ASI and NMA are two different departments,” he said.
Panaji: While the Centre has been forced to admit that an unauthorised bungalow has come up close to the Old Goa Unesco heritage site, the state government continues to delay action against the structure, said TMC on Saturday. It also questioned the BJP-led government’s failure to demolish the structure, and demanded immediate action.Union minister for tourism and culture G Krishan Reddy, in a reply to TMC national vice-president Luizinho Faleiro, admitted that laws were violated when the structure came up.Highlighting Reddy’s statement, Goa TMC functionaries Trajano D’Mello, Samil Volvaiker and Pratibha Borkar launched a scathing attack on the government for its inaction and failure to take a clear stand on the matter.Volvaiker said that more than seven months have lapsed since the case was filed before the director of panchayats. “The failure of the panchayat department to demolish the structure only brings to the fore BJP government’s vested interests,” he said. tnn
After keeping everyone guessing for nearly a month, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Saturday announced its support for the joint Opposition’s candidate Yashwant Sinha in the July 18 Presidential election, infusing some energy in the dispirited Opposition camp whose presidential campaign had seemed to be unravelling.The Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor, Arvind Kejriwal, chaired a meeting of the 11-member AAP Political Affairs Committee (PAC), the party’s highest decision-making body, at his residence during the day, where it was decided that the AAP’s MLAs and MPs will vote for Sinha for the President’s post.On June 21, after declaring Sinha’s candidature, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s supremo Sharad Pawar had told reporters that the AAP, despite staying away from the Opposition’s meetings on the issue, will back the former Union minister in the Presidential poll. The Kejriwal-led party, however, chose not to reveal its cards till the eleventh hour. In fact, when Sinha visited Chandigarh earlier this week as part of his whirlwind tour across states for his campaign, he did not have any meeting with the AAP’s Punjab MLAs, which kept the suspense alive.“The AAP will contest the Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh this year, where the BJP is in power and the Congress is the principal Opposition. It made no sense for the party to give a handle to the Congress to whip up the narrative that AAP is BJP’s B-team,” a senior AAP leader told The Indian Express.The AAP is, however, also mindful of the symbolism projected by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led NDA’s Presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu, who is set to become the country’s first-ever tribal occupant of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. So while announcing the decision to support Sinha’s candidature, the party leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjay Singh, sought to address this aspect of the Presidential contest too.“We have respect for the BJP’s candidate Droupadi Murmu as well, but in the election we will support the Opposition’s Presidential face,” Singh told reporters after the PAC’s meeting that was also attended by Manish Sisodia, Atishi, Durgesh Pathak and Raghav Chadha, among other senior AAP leaders. Singh had met Pawar In Mumbai ahead of the Opposition parties’ first joint meeting last month.In the Opposition camp, the AAP is the only party besides the Congress that has its government in more than one state. The ruling party in Delhi and Punjab, the AAP accounts for nearly 1.96 per cent votes in the Presidential electoral college. The value of the votes of the party’s 10 Rajya Sabha MPs is 7,000, while its MLAs from Delhi (62), Punjab (92) and Goa (2) bring a collective vote value of 14,308 in the Presidential poll.The AAP’s pledge to support Sinha would ensure he gets over 4 lakh votes, even as Murmu is comfortably poised to sail through the election by expectedly garnering at least 6.60 lakh votes.Even in 2017, when the AAP ruled only Delhi and was the principal Opposition in Punjab, the party had declared its support for the then Congress-led Opposition’s Presidential candidate Meira Kumar just three days before the election. However, the Congress had kept the AAP away from the meetings of 17 Opposition parties, where Kumar’s name was decided.This time, although the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the NCP steered these Opposition deliberations, the AAP stayed away from them despite being invited. AAP sources attributed it to the party’s “discomfort” in sharing any common platform with the Congress. It also does want to be seen being led by parties like the TMC, which is also looking to occupy the space being vacated by a drifting Congress in a bid to emerge as the principal challenger to the BJP in national politics.“The AAP has made it abundantly clear through its moves that politically it wants to grow by strengthening the perception that it is different from others. Being a part of large groups with no shared values except opposing the BJP does not help the AAP,” the source said.The AAP has also attended the Opposition’s joint events in the past, though. In 2018, Kejriwal was among the top Opposition leaders who attended the swearing-in ceremony of Janata Dal (Secular) leader H D Kumaraswamy as the Karnataka CM with the Congress as his senior ally.Kejriwal was also present at a TMC-organised joint Opposition rally in Kolkata in 2019. In February 2019, the AAP also hosted a “Save Democracy” rally at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, where Kejriwal shared dais with the Congress’s Anand Sharma, among other leaders. But the AAP’s drubbing in the 2019 general elections, during which the party had made an unsuccessful bid for an alliance with the Congress, forced its rethink on its equation with the grand old party.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday said that it will support Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha for the Presidential elections scheduled on July 18.“AAP will support Opposition’s Presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha. We respect Droupadi Murmu but we will vote for Yashwant Sinha,” AAP MP Sanjay Singh said following the party’s political affairs committee (PAC) meeting.Besides AAP, the ruling TRS in Telangana has also extended its support to the candidature of joint opposition nominee Sinha.The meeting was attended by AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Punjab MP Raghav Chadha, MLA Atishi, and other members of the PAC.Voting for the Presidential poll will take place on Monday. The AAP is the only non-BJP, non-Congress outfit having governments in two states — Delhi and Punjab.It has 10 Rajya Sabha MPs from the two states including three from Delhi. Also, the party has a total 156 MLAs including 92 in Punjab, 62 in Delhi and two in Goa.
