Who needs MJ Akbar's resignation?
As expected MJ Akbar has refuted all allegations against him and said he will not resign from his post of union minister. For the moment even Congress is set aside the Rafael scandal and is hell bent upon seeking Akbar's resignation. One cannot rule of the chances of Modi seeking Akbar's resignation to indicate that he cares for the women of India. MJ Akbar is not great asset to BJP. He does not even represent the party with its full values and ideals. He has always been an opportunist who has remained in power since a long time across governments. He has used the same strategy to bag a plum position in BJP trading whatever little loyalty he can claim to have. He has nothing to lose except for that post.
As for BJP, they won't lose much if they lose him. In fact it may even help their poll image if he goes or they drop him. Instead, it may even help BJP's image. What remains to be seen now is whether a party that has a history of assaulting women would even come forward to get Akbar's resignation. Hence Akbar gets away with very sweeping allegation of a political motivated conspiracy being mounted against him. If this was a one off incident with only one woman accusing Akbar of sexual misconduct, no one would have taken it seriously. but along with Priya Ramani there are at least more than 10 women who have made similar charges against Akbar of sexual harassment. all of them are well educated and occupy most dignified positions in the society. There could be limitations to elevations against Akbar.
As in some of the harassment may be a physical and most of it may be psychological too. These allegations sure cast a shadow on akbar personality. The onus of proving his character lies on Akbar now. With this, he can prove that is not like other politicians. If the writer inside him does not feel compelled to resign, or if he is not experiencing any internal conflict, it means Akbar has lost all his sensibilities. At the press conference on sunday, that is exactly what he declared that the writer inside him has died.
Through the #metoo movement Akbar has already been informally penalised. Metoo movement is a very sensitive one at the moment. It rests on the basis of sensibilities. To prove the allegations is going to be a big challenge because the incidents happened in the past and there is probably no supporting evidence to this. more than anything else the victims of these incidents have hardly complained to their higher ups on this matter. There are no corresponding witnesses. People who made this allegations maybe forced to stand in the court of law as culprits. maybe forced to pay compensation for defaming Akbar.If the opposition party sits on a dharna against Akbar, all these risks exist. Because there is a huge gang of people that sits on vantage positions within this government, who have treated women badly.
Has Prime Minister Modi acted against them? If Akbar has to resign, Modi will have to go first because he is facing allegations of spying a woman using state machinery. When such a person is the PM of the nation, how can we expect Akbar to face the fact and resign? There are so many people sitting inside the government that should have resigned by now. Economy is being destroyed and border security is being compromised. Mob lynching and fake gau rakshaks are increasing. Home minister has to resign taking that responsibility. More than anything else, Modi has to resign for having compromised on national security over Rafale deal, to please his friend. Let's not lose focus of the fact that MJ Akbar's resignation may well be a very small compensation for all this.
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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.
