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By the time you have come as far as
this page of your newspaper this morning, the assembly election results of
Jammu & Kashmir should have begun trickling onto your television screen.
Therefore I shall not speculate on results, and move to its significance.
J&K is
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Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Dec. 21 |
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has neither threatened to quit or has any intention to put in his papers in protest against the statements made by the RSS functionaries and its affiliate organisations on religious conversions.
Highly placed sources considered close to the Prime Minister told Lokmat that some of the media reports (not Lokmat) were without any basis and figment of imagination.
"Why shall Prime Minister quit ? "These sources wondered and said, " Modi knows how to handle these elements." After all Modi as chief minister of Gujarat had taught a lesson to Praveen Togadia and other functionaries who owed their allegiance to saffron ideology.
Modi is certainly extremely upset with the statements made by some of the leaders of the BJP including MPs and even ministers. While he has reined in the ministers and BJP president Amit Shah has also cracked the whip on party leaders. So much so that even ministers have been directed not to speak on controversial issues without the permission of the PM and MPs directed to concentrate on development agenda of their constituencies and task assigned.
However, Modi and Amit Shah have no control over the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and other such bodies who have their own agenda. Modi has been sending signal to the RSS leadership that these wings should be restrained and allow him to implement his agenda of development. But if these organisations did not desist, Modi had no reason to quit.
Some of the hard line Hindutva organisations like the Hindu Maha Sabha who are bent upon stalling the statue of Mahatma Gandhi's killer Nathuram Godse, has been a serious worry as Maha Sabha Bhavan is in the heart of Delhi and can cause problems. Therefore, Delhi Police will be directed to crack the whip the moment these leaders do anything "sinister".
Modi, on his part, doesn't want confrontation with these frontal organisations and messages have been sent to them through intermediaries to refrain from indulging in such activities at least for the next two years. If they continue with their agenda, Modi is tough enough to rein them irrespective of political consequences. He had sought votes during the Lok Sabha campaign in the name of development and growth and he won't tolerate any deviation.
The Modi supporters do not see any problem in the statement of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat who has only advocated that a law be brought to ban conversions. Neither the Muslims and nor the Christians are willing for such a law.
No doubt, the Bhagwat statement will certainly lead to ruckus in Parliament on Monday and it may not function properly.
But there is no reason for Modi to even think of quitting.
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Govt gets tough, Oppn unrelenting
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Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Dec. 16 |
The fate of the much-touted Insurance Bill waiting for passage in the Rajya Sabha has become uncertain during the Winter Session as the Opposition and the treasury benches have failed to find a compromise formula.
The government seems to have realised that the Opposition parties are wanting to delay the passage of the Insurance Bill and using the religious conversion issue as a stick to get the RS stalled.
The government is aware that it doesn't have a majority in the Rajya Sabha and even the presiding officer belongs to the Congress party. Therefore, there is a no way that it will be able to get the insurance Bill passed or even rejected. Therefore, it is gearing up to make a last ditch effort but without accepting Opposition's demand for the presence of the PM on the issue.
The insurance Bill, which is considered a big ticket reform agenda of the government, awaiting passage before the visit of the US President Barack Obama in January. The Opposition parties are insisting that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi would accept its demand of coming to the Rajya Sabha and even make a statement on the conversions so that Bill is passed.
The government has rejected the proposal saying that the PM cannot be subjected to the "blackmail" of the Opposition which has a majority in the Rajya Sabha. It feels that this was a trap the Opposition is laying and embarrass it one pretext or the other. The government has said it has nothing to do with the statements of some of the MPs or party leaders and the PM had made a statement on the issue last week. Therefore, the Rajya Sabha is being bulldozed passed.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley who also addressed the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting in the morning, gave a detailed account of the political situation prevailing in the Rajya Sabha.
He said until the party gets a majority in the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition parties would continue to derails the agenda. However, he hoped that situation will take turn for the better.
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There are many who believe that the falling oil price—it was $62.45 last week but around $105 six months ago—is a blip, and that there will soon be business as usual. As expected, conspiracy theories abound, some of which, though, may be true. It all originated, it is said, from two places in the US, Texas and North Dakota, where hydraulic fracturing of shale, known as 'fracking', was so successful that it is producing 7.4 million barrels a day. |
