Tussle between Reserve Bank and govt
PM Narendra Modi dedicated the tallest statue in the world of Sardar Patel, made at a cost of Rs 3000 cr to the nation. He has called it the ‘statue of unity’. There cannot be a bigger joke than that. May be a government which forced the country to stand on the brink of division needed a comic relief such as this to cover up for its lacunae. Forget the unity among people, autonomous organisations working under the government are splitting through their functioning. All credit goes to Narendra Modi for having successfully wrecked every working institution in the country whether it is the CBI, Reserve Bank, Finance ministry to fight against each other, while pitting Dalits against people of their own community. Now, after all this, the government has erected a statue of unity.
The fight between Reserve Bank and central government is now out in the open. RBI governor Urjit Patel is almost close to submitting resignation to his post. RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya had spoken about government interference in Reserve Bank’s autonomy. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has accused RBI of indiscriminately giving out loans between 2008 and 2014. Swadeshi Jagaran Manch of RSS, which was lying silent so far, has now suddenly vented ire against RBI holding it responsible for rupee losing its strength against dollar with every passing day. The government has directed RBI to make leeway for loans, despite NPAs piling up and loans but being repaid. RBI has instructed 11 banks to stop giving out loans in this regard. Government has problems with RBI for the same reason that the institution has refused to give loans. PMO has raised objection about Viral Acharya’s statement on govt interference.
Autonomous institutes are experiencing challenges ever since Sangh Parivar controlled Modi government came into existence. This government has a single point agenda of destroying every autonomous institution built by Nehru’s team. Soon as they assumed power, the government dismantled UGC and then dismembered five year plans. The strongest agency CBI is now marred by infighting. JNU’s autonomy has been stripped off and efforts are on to communalise it. Modi government is out to destroy everything the country was proud of, in the last seventy years. Reserve Bank alone is not responsible for NPAs in banks, but the economic policies of all governments that have been in power in the past are also responsible for it. Unless they are changed, the govt has no reason to attack RBI and question its autonomy while safeguarding the interests of capitalists who abuse the banking system the most?
This is not the first time RBI is in tussle with the Modi government. When NDA assumed office after elections, the then RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had resigned following differences of opinion with Modi. He had even criticized the government after his departure. Eventually, Modi brought his own Man Friday Urjit Patel who also went into his bad books a little later. The government had not informed RBI of the demonetization decision, which was the cause of contempt. Now Modi govt is trying to control RBI using 7th article, in order to safeguard the interest of capitalists. This was not used by any government in the past even during times of distress such as 1991 or 2008 of global meltdown. Now Modi government wants to exert itself on RBI and weaken its structure and decisions. People have to teach this government a lesson, else it would march towards arrogant dictatorship unhindered.
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NDA sweeps bypolls to four assembly segments in Bihar
Patna (PTI): The ruling NDA in Bihar on Saturday swept the bypolls to four assembly segments, retaining Imamganj and wresting from the INDIA bloc Tarari, Ramgarh and Belaganj, receiving a boost ahead of the assembly elections due next year.
Candidates of the Jan Suraaj, floated recently by former political strategist Prashant Kishor with much fanfare, lost deposits in all but one seat, in a clear indication that the fledgling party, despite claims of taking the political landscape in the state by storm, needs to cover much ground.
The biggest setback for the INDIA bloc, helmed by the RJD, came in Belaganj, a seat the party had been winning since its inception in the 1990s, but this time lost to the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the arch-rival of its founding president Lalu Prasad.
The JD(U) candidate Manorama Devi, a former MLC, defeated by a margin of more than 21,000 votes RJD’s Vishwanath Kumar Singh who made his debut from a seat that fell vacant upon election to Lok Sabha of his father Surendra Prasad Yadav, a multiple term MLA.
The margin of victory was greater than the 17,285 votes polled by Mohd Amjad of Jan Suraaj, whom the RJD may have liked to blame for its defeat by causing a split in Muslim votes.
JD(U) national spokesman Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said, "The people of Bihar deserve kudos for rejecting the negativity of the opposition and reposing their trust in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Under his leadership, the NDA will win more than 200 seats of the 243-strong assembly in 2025."
The RJD also suffered an embarrassing defeat in Ramgarh, where Prashant Kishor’s prediction of the party “finishing third or fourth” came true. The forecast had caused Sudhakar Singh, son of state RJD president Jagadanand Singh, the MP from Buxar who had won the assembly seat in 2020, to threaten that Jan Suraaj cadres in the constituency will be “beaten up with sticks”.
Singh’s younger brother Ajit finished a distant third after BJP winner Ashok Kumar Singh, a former MLA, and Satish Kumar Singh Yadav who fought on a ticket of the BSP, which has little foothold in Bihar.
Jan Suraaj, though, was hardly a factor in Ramgarh, where its candidate Sushil Kumar Singh polled less than four per cent votes.
The BJP also pulled off a stunning victory in Tarari, which falls under the Arrah Lok Sabha seat, currently represented by CPI(ML)’s Sudama Prasad, who had won the assembly segment for two consecutive terms.
CPI(ML) candidate Raju Yadav lost, by a margin of a little over 10,000 votes, to BJP debutant Vishal Prashant, better known as the son of local strongman Sunil Pandey, who was formerly with the JD(U) and had joined the saffron party a few months ago.
Jan Suraaj had initially announced that it was fielding a former Vice Chief of the Army in Tarari but later disclosed that he could not contest because of technical reasons. Its candidate Kiran Singh got less than four per cent votes.
The most respectable performance from Jan Suraaj came in the reserved Imamganj seat where its candidate Jitendra Paswan stood third, polling well over 20 per cent votes.
The seat, however, went to Deepa Kumari, daughter-in-law of Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who defeated RJD’s Raushan Kumar by a slender margin of less than 6,000 votes.
Manjhi, who heads the Hindustani Awam Morcha, vacated Imamganj earlier this year upon getting elected to Lok Sabha from Gaya.
With the exception of Ashok Singh in Ramgarh, the winners in all the seats shall be making their debut in the state assembly.
