Amit Shah arrives in Manipur to set tone for 2019 polls
Imphal, June 30: As part of the exercise to prepare strategy for the parliamentary elections next year, BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday arrived in the city. He will hold meetings with the BJP chief ministers of the northeastern states.
Shah is also scheduled to hold meetings with the party presidents of states in which the BJP is not in power. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sources said the party is launching an all-out pre-election exercise to win all Lok Sabha seats in the Northeast.
All chief ministers, ministers and party functionaries are putting up in a three-star hotel in Imphal for holding the meetings round-the-clock.
Manipur unit BJP chief and Rajya Sabha MP K. Bhabananda said: "Amit Shah held talks with the leaders of every northeastern state, discussing how to win all Lok Sabha seats in all the eight states."
Both Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh and Bhabananda met Shah.
Manipur has been organising the people through "Go to Hills" and "Go to Village" missions. Under these projects, selected persons are given various benefits, including free gas connections.
However, senior Congress leader and former Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh said: "All developmental projects had been started during the Congress rule of 15 years. All that the BJP-led government has done now is that it inaugurated those projects."
He said that a party which restricts the food habit of communities cannot find a permanent foothold in the Northeast. He recalled how some BJP functionaries had resigned in Meghalaya in protest against ban on cow-slaughter, and added that "beef is a part of culture of the people of the state".
Another senior Congress leader and former Manipur Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam said: "Despite all the eye dazzlings, BJP will be wiped out in the 2019 parliamentary elections."
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Neutrality of polls can't be assured if EC dependent on contestants: Justice Nagarathna
New Delhi (PTI): Supreme Court judge Justice BV Nagarathna, while highlighting that the Election Commission is the primary institution entrusted with maintaining the integrity of polls, has said if those who conduct elections are dependent on those who contest them, the neutrality of the process cannot be assured.
The apex court judge raised a critical concern regarding the structural independence of those tasked with overseeing the ballot while delivering the Rajendra Prasad Memorial Lecture at the Chanakya Law University in Patna on Saturday.
Citing a 1995 verdict where the Supreme Court recognised the Election Commission as a constitutional authority of high significance, entrusted with ensuring the integrity of elections, she said, "The concern, once again, was structural: if those who conduct elections are dependent on those who contest them, the neutrality of the process cannot be assured."
Justice Nagarathna said elections are not merely periodic events but a mechanism through which political authority is constituted.
"Our constitutional democracy has amply demonstrated smooth changes in government due to elections being held on a timely basis. Control over that process is, in effect, control over the conditions of political competition itself," she said.
The Supreme Court judge said power is not exercised only through formal institutions but also through the processes that sustain them, including elections, public finance, and regulation.
"A constitutional structure that seeks to restrain power must therefore go beyond its classical forms and address these fourth-branch institutions. A set of institutions, while not always fitting within the classical tripartite scheme, is nonetheless central to the maintenance of constitutional order," she said.
Justice Nagarathna said the unmistakable lesson of history is that constitutional collapse occurs through the disabling of its structure, and the violation of rights merely follows.
"The dismantling of structure, in turn, occurs when institutions stop checking each other. At that moment, elections may continue, courts may function, laws may be enacted by Parliament, and yet, power is effectively not restrained because the structural discipline no longer exists," she said.
The apex court judge also urged the Centre to view states as "coordinates and not subordinates" and asserted that the separation of powers was a "constitutional arrangement of co-equals."
Justice Nagarathna also called for keeping aside "inter-party differences" in the matter of "Centre-state relations", underscoring that governance must not depend on "which party may be ruling the Centre and which other party may be ruling at the state level".
