Whoever wants to join BJP can go: Congress leader Kamal Nath

The Indian Express | 3 hours ago | 19-09-2022 | 11:40 am

Whoever wants to join BJP can go: Congress leader Kamal Nath

Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath on Monday said that whoever wants to quit the party and join the BJP is free to go as his party will not stop anyone.“Whoever wants to join BJP can go. We don’t want to stop anyone. If they (Congress leaders) want to go and see their future with BJP, I would lend them my motor (car) to go and join BJP. Congress would not stop anyone from quitting,” said the former chief minister.#WATCH | Whoever wants to join BJP can go. We don’t want to stop anyone. If they (Congress leaders) want to go and see their future with BJP, I would lend them my motor (car) to go and join BJP. Congress would not stop anyone from quitting: MP Congress chief Kamal Nath (18.09) pic.twitter.com/8cpI1ZgloT— ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) September 19, 2022Speaking to reporters, Nath asked, “just because someone leaves Congress, do you think the party is over?” He added, “People do what they do out of their own intent, no one does anything out of pressure.”Last week, eight Congress MLAs in Goa joined the BJP. Over the last few months, many prominent leaders have left Congress, including veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who recently announced plans to form his own party.

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Goa CM Pramod Sawant, 7 new BJP MLAs to meet Narendra Modi today
Times of India | 7 hours ago | 19-09-2022 | 08:02 am
Times of India
7 hours ago | 19-09-2022 | 08:02 am

PANAJI/VASCO: Chief minister Pramod Sawant will lead the seven MLAs, who merged the Congress legislative wing into BJP, in a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. Sawant said that the seven MLAs will meet the PM, Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda. “Our visit to Delhi is purely meant to meet party leaders,” the chief minister told TOI at the Goa airport. Sawant, accompanied by BJP state president Sadanand Shet Tanavade, Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Tendulkar and five of the newly inducted MLAs left for Delhi by a late evening flight on Sunday. Tanavade said that other than meeting the PM, Union home minister and party’s national president, “nothing else has been planned during our scheduled visit to Delhi”. Michael Lobo told TOI that he is unable to attend the meeting on Monday as he is currently in Kenya and will return on Thursday. The five newly inducted MLAs who accompanied the CM and Tanavade on the flight to Delhi are Sankalp Amonkar, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Rudolf Fernandes and Aleixo Sequeira. Sources said that Digambar Kamat and Rajesh Phaldesai have already reached the national capital. The chief minister is likely to reshuffle his cabinet after returning from Delhi. Margao MLA Digambar Kamat and former leader of opposition and Calangute MLA Michael Lobo along with six other MLAs “merged” the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) with BJP, last week. Ahead of the Delhi visit, Sawant also attended the coordination meeting called by RSS. The chief minister said that all the organisations connected with RSS attended the meeting. Sawant is likely to induct one minister initially. Nuvem MLA Aleixo Sequeira is likely to be first to be inducted. Whether Kamat is to be inducted in the state cabinet or moved to Delhi will be taken by the central leadership, a senior BJP leader said. Besides Kamat and Lobo, the other MLAs who joined BJP are Sequeira, Rodolfo Fernandes (Santa Cruz), Michael’s wife Delilah (Siolim), Sankalp Amonkar (Mormugao), Kedar Naik (Saligao) and Rajesh Faldessai (Cumbarjua). Eight months after they did a run of a temple, a chapel and a mosque taking a vow not to defect from Congress and even signing an affidavit pledging their loyalty to the party, eight of the 11 Congress MLAs “merged” the CLP into BJP taking the saffron party’s strength to 28 in the 40-member House. The three MLAs who remained with Congress are Quepem MLA Altone D Costa, Cuncolim MLA Yuri Alemao and Aldona MLA Carlos Ferreira. The merger was held considering the upcoming Lok Sabha seat where BJP is eyeing to win both the seats especially the South Goa one which has proved tough to secure. So far BJP has only won the seat twice.

Goa CM Pramod Sawant, 7 new BJP MLAs to meet Narendra Modi today
RG warns of stir, wants defectors to contest again
Times of India | 10 hours ago | 19-09-2022 | 04:24 am
Times of India
10 hours ago | 19-09-2022 | 04:24 am

Panaji: Indicating that larger protests at the constituency level would be held, Revolutionary Goans Party on Sunday demanded that the eight MLAs who switched over from Congress to BJP should resign and contest elections again. Revolutionary Goans held a symbolic peaceful protest at Azad Maidan, Panaji, where party volunteers from the constituencies represented by the eight MLAs said that voters are disgusted by the incident. “Ours is a symbolic protest, this is just the beginning. We will have different protests in the coming months. This is just a warning,” said RGP founder president Manoj Parab. He said that the eight MLAs jumped ship to earn a share from the mega investment projects that are expected to come into Goa in the coming months. “Multi-crore projects including golf courses, residential schools, race courses, yoga centres and hotels will be coming in each constituency and that is why these MLAs have changed their party so that they can get a share from the projects,” Parab said. He also criticised voters for accepting money from the MLAs in exchange for votes. “When people take money to vote, they surrender the right to question the MLA. This is increasing in Goa,” Parab said. The party also said the incident proves that Congress and BJP are two sides of the same coin. “BJP and Congress were united even before the elections and this whole thing was just drama to hoodwink people,” said the party’s lone MLA Viresh Borkar. “BJP and Congress created drama to cheat the people and enrich themselves. It is time for people to open their eyes.”

RG warns of stir, wants defectors to contest again
Now Bharat Jodo Yatra divides Karnataka Cong, open blame game among the top two
The Indian Express | 16 hours ago | 18-09-2022 | 10:40 pm
The Indian Express
16 hours ago | 18-09-2022 | 10:40 pm

With the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra set to enter Karnataka on September 30 for a 22-day stretch, the divide between the party’s state chief D K Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has again revealed the faultlines in the state unit.Assembly polls are scheduled to be held in Karnataka next year. Along with Rajasthan, the three weeks in Karnataka are the longest that the Bharat Jodo Yatra participants will spend in a state on their route. But the factions in Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) appear to be struggling to unite, with Shivakumar pulling up party colleagues for allegedly not stepping up to make the yatra a success.In a meeting on Friday, Shivakumar hit out at the SIddaramaiah faction. “The All India Congress Committee (AICC) has appointed a separate team under Sunil (political strategist Sunil Kanugolu) to conduct political analysis on a daily basis,” he said. “There are about 600 people across the constituencies who are watching all the Congress’s probable candidates. We may know or may not know them. They are looking into all the sitting, defeated, and aspiring MLAs.”Naming former state Congress chief RV Deshpande, Shivakumar said, “I asked Deshpande to get 5,000 people from his constituency for BJY (Bharat Jodo Yatra). He said he can’t get people as his constituency is far away. Can’t we just do this for one day for the sake of Rahul Gandhi?”On Sunday, Deshpande’s name was missing from a list of 18 committees set up to manage the yatra. The Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council, BK Hariprasad, is the state leader in charge of the yatra.According to some party insiders, the Siddaramaiah group is likely holding itself back as the yatra provides Shivakumar with the opportunity to showcase his organisational skills to the high command. Siddaramaiah himself is planning to hold a Rath Yatra. A Congress leader said the former CM’s march ahead of the Assembly polls would be on the lines of the Panchajanya Yatra led by former CM SM Krishna in 1999.At the Friday meeting, Shivakumar said the Freedom March that the party organised in Bengaluru on August 15 was better planned unlike Siddaramotsva, or Siddaramaiah’s birthday celebrations earlier that month that saw massive participation from people. “During Siddaramotsava, a lot of people were stuck in traffic and it was not planned properly but when it came to the Freedom March, it was well-planned and everything was hassle-free.”The relationship between the two leaders worsened following the announcement of Siddaramaiah’s birthday being celebrated in a grand manner by his supporters. Shivakumar said the party did not believe in worshipping individuals but changed his position after Rahul and general secretary KC Venugopal backed the birthday celebration plans. The two leaders are expected to be the front-runners for the chief minister’s post if the Congress returns to power next year.Siddaramaiah was recently said to be unhappy about not being informed about a meeting between Shivakumar and Randeep Singh Surjewala, the central leader in charge of Karnataka. Initially, he refused to participate in the meeting but others later convinced him to attend the talks. Recently, Siddaramaiah’s picture did not feature on hoardings that the party put up for an event in Raichur.Many old-timers do not consider the former CM a “real Congressman” as he joined the party only in 2006 after decades of association with the Janata Parivar. While Shivakumar has been able to keep the party on track since taking charge of the state unit in 2020 and has the advantage of being from the dominant Vokkaliga community from south Karnataka, SIddaramaiah, who is from the backward class Kuruba community, is also crucial for the Congress’s poll matrix as the party will want to consolidate his ‘AHINDA’ base. AHINDA stands for “Alpasankhyataru (minorities)”, “Hindulidavaru (Backward Classes)” and Dalit vote base.

Now Bharat Jodo Yatra divides Karnataka Cong, open blame game among the top two
Doing ‘God’s work’ to seeds of expansion: Dissecting Kejriwal speech at AAP’s first national convention
The Indian Express | 16 hours ago | 18-09-2022 | 10:40 pm
The Indian Express
16 hours ago | 18-09-2022 | 10:40 pm

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday tore into the BJP at the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) first national convention in the national capital that was attended by almost 1,500 elected representatives of the party from 20 states.Kejriwal, several of whose party colleagues are facing either facing corruption allegations or have been arrested over graft charges, framed the fight against the BJP as a struggle against “evil”. He also spoke of Gujarat, where the party is trying to make headway in the run-up to the coming Assembly elections, and brought up the “revdi” debate.Here are five broad topics that the AAP leader touched upon in his speech.Good versus evil“Like Lord Krishna was sent to end evil, God has sent the AAP to end corruption, inflation, unemployment, and save the Constitution and country from evils,” the Delhi CM told his party colleagues.Emphasising that the AAP’s formation was an act of divine intervention, Kejriwal said “god had to come and intervene, and in 2012 the AAP was formed to save the government and the country”. He added, “This is not some coincidence. .. God has given us the responsibility and each one of you has to keep up to that and work for development.”The AAP has always emphasised the importance of believers in its scheme of things, with the Delhi government in 2018 launching an initiative under which the government bears the cost of senior citizens’ travel to pilgrimage sites. Since then, the party has made a similar promise in states where it is looking to establish its presence, including Goa, Uttarakhand, and now Gujarat.BJP and ‘revdi’Kejriwal told his AAP colleagues that BJP was jealous of the popularity of the party’s politics of honesty. “They can’t bear our honesty. There are some things about AAP that they cannot bear — education, healthcare facilities and schemes which they call ‘revdi’. Their leaders have never spoken about education and healthcare facilities.”Last month, targeting the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his comments on “revdi”, or freebie, politics, Kejriwal said people calling welfare schemes “free ki revdi (sweets)” were “traitors” to the country and asked what was wrong with providing free education, health, and electricity to citizens.The AAP leader kept up his attack on Modi on Sunday, saying, “They are buying MLAs and then they stand on the ramparts of the Red Fort and say ‘I am fighting against corruption.’ He is not fighting corruption, he is fighting AAP.”Arrests of AAP leadersThe AAP has increasingly come under pressure over the arrests of its senior leaders in corruption cases and allegations of corruption against others. The latest to be arrested is MLA Amanatullah Khan who was arrested last Friday in a two-year-old case on alleged irregularities in the Delhi Waqf Board.Accusing the BJP of launching the second phase of “Operation Lotus” (in 2008, the BJP allegedly planned to engineer the defections of seven Opposition MLAs), the Delhi CM said, “Their phase-Il failed in Delhi and Punjab. So now they have arrested Amanatullah Khan in a fake case. Many of our MLAs have again started receiving calls from the BJP with offers of Rs 25 crore. They are being threatened that if you do not join BJP, you will also be arrested like Amanatullah Khan.”Kejriwal told his party colleagues that the way AAP MLAs were facing possible inquiries by central agencies was “not a small thing”. He added. “They (the BJP) want to put all of them (AAP leaders) in jail … You all should be ready to go to jail for three to four months … They won’t be able to do anything … Jail is not that bad … we stayed in jail for 15 days … If everyone gets this courage, they won’t be able to anything to us. “The CM also spoke of Satyendra Jain, who is in jail at present in a money laundering case, and said the former health minister should be given a Bharat Ratna for the work he has done to date. Kejriwal also referred to the accusations against his deputy Manish Sisodia and claimed state Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot was now being targeted.The seeds AAP plantedAt the start of his speech, Kejriwal said that 10 years ago, when the party was formed, he could not have imagined that one day so many representatives of his outfit would be present at the Indira Gandhi stadium in Delhi.The CM said AAP was planting seeds across India and these seeds would grow into strong trees, like in Delhi and Punjab. He hoped that like in Delhi and Punjab, AAP would get fruitful results in Gujarat. Since the landslide victory in Punjab, the AAP has its eyes on the western state apart from Himachal Pradesh, where it is not that strong organisationally at the moment. Earlier this year, the party made a foray into Goa and opened its account with two MLAs.“Seeds were planted in Delhi and Punjab and the plant has grown strong … We have planted seeds in Gujarat also and these seeds will grow very strong and become trees,” Kejriwal said. Referring to the party’s 27 councillors in the Surat Municipal Corporation, the AAP chief said, “A year-and-a-half ago, we planted 27 seeds in Gujarat and they are going to become strong trees.”Vision for futureExplaining his vision for the country, Kejriwal said work was required to ensure education, health and employment for people, equal opportunity for women and girls, and world-class infrastructure for farmers.Last month, the Delhi CM launched his ‘Mission to Make India number 1’ campaign. His five-point vision comprised free education; healthcare; employment; respect, dignity, equality and safety of women; and a fair price for farm crops.

Doing ‘God’s work’ to seeds of expansion: Dissecting Kejriwal speech at AAP’s first national convention
‘AAP is like Lord Krishna, was sent to end evil’: Arvind Kejriwal sharpens attack on BJP, PM Modi
The Indian Express | 21 hours ago | 18-09-2022 | 05:40 pm
The Indian Express
21 hours ago | 18-09-2022 | 05:40 pm

Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal Sunday sharpened his attacks on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the party’s first national convention.“Like lord Krishna was sent to end evil, god has sent AAP to end corruption, inflation, unemployment and save the constitution and country from evils,” he said, addressing a gathering of around 1,500 elected representatives of the AAP from around 20 states, including Punjab, Goa, Haryana.“Ten years ago, when the Aam Aadmi Party was formed, I never thought that there would be so many representatives that the Indira Gandhi stadium would fill up. Lord Krishna was born to end evil… Kanha ne rakshas ka vadh kiya… waise hi bhagwan ne AAP banaya hai,” he said.Attacking the Congress and the BJP, he said, “India adopted the Constitution on November 25, 1949, and in the next 60 years, these people destroyed the country. Later, God had to come and intervene and in 2012 AAP was formed to save the government and the country… This is not some coincidence… God has given us the responsibility and each one of you has to keep up to that and work for development.”“Seeds were planted in Delhi and Punjab and the plant has grown strong… We have planted seeds in Gujarat also and these seeds will grow very strong and become trees. ”Referring to the 27 councillors in the Surat municipal corporation, Kejriwal said: “A year and a half ago, we planted 27 seeds in Gujarat and they are going to become strong trees. Like lord Krishna, we are fighting against corruption, inflation, unemployment…agar dusri party wale mehngayi kam karte to hume log laat maar ke bhaga dete… But we are fighting against corruption and inflation. That is why people like us.”He said that people like the AAP because of its honest politics and honesty and that is what the opposition (BJP) cannot bear. “They can’t bear our honesty. There are some things about AAP that they can’t bear — education, healthcare facilities and schemes which they call ‘revdi’. Their leaders have never spoken about education and healthcare facilities.”Reacting to Amanatullah Khan’s arrest, Kejriwal accused BJP of launching phase -II of ‘Operation Lotus’. “Their phase-Il failed in Delhi and Punjab. So now they have arrested Amanatullah Khan in a fake case. Many of our MLAs have again started receiving calls from BJP with offers of Rs 25 crore. They are being threatened that if you will not join BJP, you will also face arrest like Amanatullah Khan.”“I have not seen India’s fight for freedom… but how our MLAs are fighting the opposition, rejecting offers of Rs 25-25 crores, facing CBI ED, it is not a small thing… They want to put all of them in Jail… You all should be ready to go to jail for 3-4 months…They won’t be able to do anything…Jail is not that bad…we stayed there in Jail for 15 days…agar sabke andar ye himmat aajaye wo humara kuch nahi bigad sakte,” Kejriwal added.The chief minister said Satyendar Jain, who is currently in jail in a money laundering case, should be given Bharat Ratna. “If he was in any other country, he would have been honoured for the work he did in the health and power sector. He brought mohalla clinics, free electricity, hospitals… He should be given the Bharat Ratna. When they failed to produce anything against Jain in court, they targeted Manish Sisodia but could find nothing… They raided his house, bank locker and questioned his villagers… They found nothing but a jhunjhuna that he bought for his son when he was a child… Now they are going after Kailash Gahlot… Don’t fear going to jail, jail is not bad, no matter what, we have to work for our country and make India number 1,” he said.Kejriwal was accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on the stage. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was also supposed to come for the event but party officials said he was in Germany. All MLAs and MPs from Punjab and Delhi ministers Gopal Rai, Kailash Gahlot, Delhi Jal Board vice-chairman Saurabh Bhardwaj and MP Sanjay Singh were also present in the meeting.Hitting out at Modi, Kejriwal said, “They spent Rs 8-9 thousand crore to buy MLAs… They are buying MLA and then they stand on the ramparts of the Red Fort and say ‘I am fighting against corruption… He is not fighting corruption, he is fighting against the AAP.”“Our main mission is to make India Number 1 and for this, we have to work on four sectors — education, health, employment, equal opportunity to women and girls, world-class infrastructure and facilities for farmers. 75 years ago, everyone came together and kicked Britishers out…Now, we all have to come together to make our country number 1. We have launched a missed call number, join us and spread this across the city and country to make India number 1. Today, we have 1,446 representatives in 20 states and union territories… It includes MLA, MP, zila panchayat members etc,” Kejriwal added.

‘AAP is like Lord Krishna, was sent to end evil’: Arvind Kejriwal sharpens attack on BJP, PM Modi