BJP-RSS has shut doors of opportunities for poor; now they want to steal votes: Rahul in Bihar
Katihal (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday deplored "attempts to steal votes" in Bihar, ahead of upcoming assembly polls, in favour of the BJP which has allegedly "shut doors of opportunities" for the poor since coming to power at the Centre.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, who has been touring the state as part of "Voter Adhikar Yatra", addressed a rally in Katihar district late in the evening.
Waving a copy of the Constitution, he said, "This book authored by Babasaheb Ambedkar may have been less than a century old, but the ideas it stands for have been around for millennia. But the BJP and the RSS are opposed to those ideas".
The BJP and the RSS believe that Dalits must not be emancipated, the extremely backward classes must not be allowed to move up the social ladder and women should not be given more freedom; and so they are hell bent upon destroying this Constitution, alleged Gandhi.
The former Congress president said, "The BJP-RSS stand for a model in which all power is concentrated in the hands of one organisation and all wealth is controlled by a few big business houses like Ambani and Adani. This has resulted in shutting of doors of opportunities for the deprived sections".
Earlier, the Dalits, the EBCs and minorities could fancy a career in the public sector undertakings and in the armed forces as a way to come out of the clutches of backwardness, but now that option is closed, he claimed.
Gandhi said that in an apparent reference to the Narendra Modi government's stress on privatisation and the introduction of Agniveer scheme a few years ago.
He also said, "Even the option of starting a business seems out of the question. Big defaulters can still get loans worth billions from banks, which would shoo away a humble entrepreneur from Bihar. These defaulters also end up getting more relief in the form of a waiver of their debt.
The Rae Bareli MP alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shan and the RSS, to further their agenda, have been trying to snatch away a precious right bestowed upon the people through the Constitution.
“Every person has one vote and all votes are equal. They are trying to steal votes," he claimed.
"Votes were stolen in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana. We have flagged before the Election Commission instances of hundreds of people having been shown living in the same house and lakhs of voters having been added in the electoral rolls of Maharashtra, after the Lok Sabha polls,” Gandhi said.
It appeared that all the new votes went to the BJP, in a state where we had beaten them in the Lok Sabha polls just a few months ago, he alleged.
“We shared our concerns with the EC and, upon being told that there was an unusually high turnout in the evening hours, sought CCTV footage for verification. But the laws were tweaked by the Modi government in no time to deny us the right to inspect those tapes," the Congress leader said.
"Now, attempts are being made to steal votes, in a similar fashion, in Bihar, through the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. This is the reason why we decided to carry out the Voter Adhikar Yatra. The response over the last five days has been electrifying", said Gandhi.
However, he added, the media would try to tell a different story.
“The media is controlled by people who are more interested in wasting their screen time on obscenely lavish weddings of people with deep pockets and their ostentatious lifestyles. I would request you all to do a little experiment. Just chant after me: ‘vote chor, gaddi chor’ (stealer of votes, give up power)".
After roars from the crowds reverberated through the area, Gandhi said, "Lakhs of people seem to have come here so late in the evening. But the media will not like to show these. So I want you all to stick to your guns and be aware of the forces that are arraigned against you".
Notably, this was the first instance since August 17, when the Yatra was launched at Sasaram, for Gandhi to address a rally from a make-shift stage.
The Congress leader, who has covered eight districts before reaching Katihar, a Congress stronghold, had so far been making addresses from atop his open vehicle, speaking into a hand-held mic.
Those who spoke before him included the INDIA bloc's de facto chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav, who called the BJP-led NDA a full form for "nahi denge adhikar (will deny your rights), and CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya.
Others present on the occasion included Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Sivakumar, local Congress MP Tariq Anwar, and Shakil Ahmed Khan, the Congress legislative party leader whose Kadwa constituency happened to be the place where the rally was held before Gandhi left for the adjoining Purnea district.
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2019 mud attack on engineer: Maharashtra court sentences BJP minister Nitesh Rane to one-month jail
Mumbai (PTI): A court in Sindhudurg on Monday convicted Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane in a 2019 case of pouring mud on an NHAI engineer when he was in opposition, and sentenced him to one-month imprisonment, noting that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands.
Later, the court suspended Rane's sentence, allowing him time to appeal before a higher court, while acquitting 29 other accused in the case.
"Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh stated.
"If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.
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Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".
Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy. He was in Congress when the incident occurred.
All the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims.
However, the court found Nitesh Rane guilty of an offence under section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace) and sentenced him to one month's jail.
Rane, then a Congress MLA, had called the Sub-Divisional Engineer of the National Highway Authority, Prakash Shedekar, to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on July 4, 2019, for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
According to the prosecution, Nitesh Rane and his followers, frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, confronted the engineer. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.
The court, after perusing the evidence on record, noted that the informant (victim) was holding a high post in the National Highway Authority.
"Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.
The judge held that Rane compelling Shedekar to walk through the muddy water "was nothing but an intentional insult to the informant," and provocation which will cause him to break the public peace.
