'Bharat Ratna' getting politicised
Parties have begun to prepare for elections. On one hand they are looking for coalitions to pose a strong challenge to BJP. Rahul Gandhi is in touch with regional political parties for the same purpose. Chandrasekhar of Telangana and Mamatha Banerjee of West Bengal are in talks on this issue. Leftists are still unclear about their stance. To cause major embarassment to BJP, Shiv Sena has been insisting on having Ram Mandir built soon as possible. Delhi government has somewhat provided answer to rumours that Congress would truck with AAP on the upcoming elections. Delhi government has submitted a plea to the centre demanding the withdrawal of Bharat Ratna conferred on Rajiv Gandhi because he masterminded the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. BJP has also joined hands with AAP on this.
It is rather easy to understand why this order was passed in Delhi assembly. AAP wants to break into Punjab and hence it has assumed the stance to repeal Bharat Ratna from Rajiv Gandhi's name.
Punjab is a very promising state for AAP apart from Delhi. The party wants to garner Sikh votes. Which means the party will fight elections in the near future with Sikh massacre as its moot issue in Punjab. But the most unfortunate aspect is Kejriwal has presented this issue before a PM who defends massacres. Delhi government is expecting those elements to facilitate responsible behavior and justice from the others, while the former didn't even apologies for the violence they created in Gujarat. That's a tall order!
Rajiv Gandhi hasn't assumed power when Sikh massacre took place. He had reportedly said “when a huge tree falls, it surely causes small damages” or something to that effect. At the same time, there are allegations that he had shielded those who were part of the massacre.
Hence Rajiv Gandhi's role was limited in this case. But when the Gujarat incident happened, Modi was the CM of that state. Amit Shah was the home minister. Media reports have repeatedly suggested how the government machinery was used to create and mastermind this massacre. And the man who stayed put on his chair of CM owing to Gujarat is the PM of India. Kejriwal surely is aware of all of this. With this plea by Kejriwal as the context, most BJP leaders in the centre are all set to sling some mud on Rajiv Gandhi themselves. Let's agree that Rajiv Gandhi needs to be stripped of this honor. At the same time are they ready to strip former PM Vajpayee of the honor of too? Because when the Gujarat massacre happened, Vajpayee was the PM.
While instructing Modi to follow the 'Raj dharma’, Vajpayee defended this massacre in his speech in Goa. Most of the senior police officers maintain if the centre had taken cognizance, the massacre could have been contained. Vajapayee also faced charges of outing the details of freedom fighters to the British and getting them arrested during the struggle for independence. If both names of Rajiv and Vajapayee were placed together, then this demand could have been a bit balanced. Rajiv Gandhi family has a deep bond with this nation. Motilal Nehru sacrificed all his ancestral property for the nation, during the years of freedom fight.
His son Jawaharlal Nehru not only took part in the freedom struggle but also became the first PM of the nation and took it towards progress in the initial years. Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi was popular among people with her poverty eradication programmes. The boldness she showed in getting freedom for Bangladesh left the world dumbfounded.
She sacrificed her life to contain the terrorism in Punjab. She didn't ever have any animosity with Sikhs. If she did, she wouldn't have Sikhs for her bodyguards even after Operation Bluestar. If this is the background Rajiv Gandhi has, the only thing that follows Vajapayee are those tasks he did you favour the English during the quit India operations. The youth came into focus after Rajiv Gandhi became the PM. The digital era was ushered with his foresight. If we are roaming with two mobiles each, the dream that Rajiv Gandhi saw has a significant role in making this turned true and country was on a path to technological progress. But the Bofors scandal followed him like a shadow even when he had a reputation of being Mr Clean.
But the court said he had no role in that deal, in the case that continued after his death. He sacrificed his life for the sake of this country too. Having started something as indignifying as this against a leader who was the role model of youths isn't very complementary to AAP. Through this, Kejriwal has shown he isn't too averse to doing dirty politics and whatever it takes to win elections.
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Huge turnout amidst SIR shadow caps ballistic battle for Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal assembly polls ended on Wednesday with what the election watchdog said was the state's highest-ever voter turnout of 92.84 per cent, leading to mouth-watering anticipation ahead of the announcement of results on Monday as both contenders sounded sanguine about their victory prospects.
Wednesday's second phase saw a 92.48 per cent turnout. The concluding phase covering 142 constituencies in south Bengal appears poised to match the first phase's record voter participation of 93.19 per cent by the time final numbers are collated.
The figures put the combined poll percentage over the two-phases at 92.84 per cent. The first phase of polling was held on April 23.
"This is the highest-ever recorded poll participation since Independence in West Bengal," it said.
The capital Kolkata recorded a turnout of 88.59 per cent, with Purba Bardhaman district topping the charts at 93.78 per cent.
The scale of participation sent out an overarching political message — practically every single eligible voter in the state felt personally invested in the electoral process and its outcome. They turned out in numbers large enough to make every narrative contested and every claim of momentum politically loaded. If the first phase tested whether the BJP could retain its north Bengal citadel, the second and final round was always the real battle for the saffron party on whether it could breach the ruling TMC’s southern fortress of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman.
At the centre of the larger political fight stood Bhabanipur, no longer merely a south Kolkata constituency but Banerjee’s political refuge, her emotional home turf and the BJP’s chosen psychological battlefield.
Banerjee, 71, seeking a fourth consecutive term after 15 years in power, faced Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari in a prestige battle widely seen as a symbolic rematch of Nandigram, where Adhikari had defeated her in 2021 after crossing over from the TMC to the BJP.
Five years later, the duel shifted to Banerjee’s own bastion. For the TMC, retaining Bhabanipur is about protecting the chief minister’s authority in her own backyard. For the BJP, breaching it would puncture the aura of invincibility around Bengal’s most powerful political figure.
The constituency witnessed nearly 87 per cent polling, sharply up from around 61 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls and 57 per cent in the bypoll that brought Banerjee back to the House.
Banerjee – who usually votes later in the day and prefers staying indoors on the day of polls – broke convention and hit the ground before 8 am, moving through Chetla, Padmapukur and Chakraberia areas following complaints of alleged intimidation of local TMC leaders.
As she sat outside a booth amid heavy deployment of central forces, Adhikari arrived there and declared, "I will not allow any hooliganism." He opposed Banerjee moving around with "50-60 people" with her.
Banerjee accused the BJP of trying to "rig" the election by using central forces, election observers and officials.
"The BJP wants to rig this election. Polls in Bengal are usually peaceful. Is there a goonda raj here?" she said, alleging intimidation of TMC polling agents and late-night visits by CRPF personnel to party workers’ homes.
"The atrocities by the central forces are unprecedented. What is happening is not at all free and fair polls. But despite all this, we have full faith that we will win," she said after casting her vote.
Adhikari dismissed the charges as "frustration", claiming Banerjee had realised that "not a single vote was coming her way".
Tension flared again in Kalighat when Adhikari visited another booth, and TMC workers raised slogans against him. Police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd as BJP supporters answered with counter-slogans. Reports of sporadic tension were also received from some other areas amid sights of long queues at polling stations, booth-level flare-ups, and political bickering.
In Kolkata's Entally, BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal alleged that the TMC's polling agents tried to assault her after she objected to overcrowding inside a booth and a lack of voter privacy.
In Panihati, BJP candidate and the R G Kar victim's mother, Ratna Debnath, faced protests, while her party colleague in Basanti, Bikash Sardar, alleged that "200 to 250 TMC goons" attacked his vehicle and assaulted his driver.
The TMC, meanwhile, accused the central forces of exercising brute force on the general voters at Falta's Belsingha village, especially women, who were beaten up during a move to disperse a crowd from near a polling station.The party also alleged CAPF high-handedness on women and a four-year-old child at Sathachhia in Howrah and on villagers at Ausgram in Purba Bardhaman district.
"In the name of ensuring security, central force jawans are not sparing even women who were brutally lathi-charged. TMC protests this highhandedness of the male jawans who exercised brute force on unarmed villagers. We draw the EC's attention to such illegal actions of the CAPF and ask the poll body to issue cease-and-desist orders against such use of force. We believe, people of Bengal will respond to this on EVMs," Anirban Banerjee, party spokesperson, said.
The BJP alleged that in several polling stations in Falta, the option to vote for the party was blocked using a tape over EVM poll buttons, and demanded repolls in the affected booths.
The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said repolling was likely to be announced in booths where EVMs were found tampered with. However, the order will only be issued after authorities receive reports from the district election officer or election observers regarding allegations of EVM tampering, such as using tapes or a blot of ink, he said.
