Elgar Parishad event: Arrests undermine basics of democracy, says former CJI RM Lodha
AUGUST 30 : Former jurists, including former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha, have come out strongly against the arrest of five civil rights activists and lawyers by police probing an alleged Maoist link to the Elgaar Parishad meeting in Pune a day ahead of the January 1 violence in Bhima Koregaon.
Justice Lodha told The Indian Express that the government’s actions are “an attempt to suppress the dissenting voice”
He said the arrests were “an attack on freedom of speech… and an act to undermine the fundamentals of Constitutional democracy”.Justice P B Sawant, former judge of the Supreme Court and one of the organisers of the Elgaar Parishad meeting on December 31, 2017, said: “I don’t know why these persons have been arrested. The police are alleging they are connected to the Naxalite movement and are also organisers of the Elgaar conference on December 31 last year. Did they realise this after eight months? I have never seen them. Only one of them, a lady advocate, visited me earlier for some legal advice some time back…. when some other arrests were made, the police had then said that nothing was found to connect them to Naxalites. Now, they are organising another spate of arrests.”
“What can we infer from all this except that the police are acting at the instance of the government. So is there law in the country? Is there democracy or the Constitution prevailing in this country? How do we evaluate this? The state, and I have no doubt the central government is urging them on… They have become desperate and want to divert from all other news in the country,” he said.
On Elgaar Parishad meetings, Justice Sawant said: “We are going to organise more such conferences all over the country, more so because the government and police are after us.”.
Courtesy: indianexpress.com
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Vijay''s TVK wins an impressive 108 seats in TN polls
Chennai (PTI): Vijay-led TVK secured an impressive 108 seats trouncing the incumbent DMK led by M K Stalin which finished with only 59 seats in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections held on April 23, as per the final tally of the ECI on Tuesday.
The opposition AIADMK won 47 seats while its allies the PMK obtained 4 and the BJP and AMMK clinched one seat each respectively in the election, according to the data available on the Election commission of India's website.
The DMK's allies - the Congress managed to win 5 seats, the IUML, CPI, CPI (M), and VCK: 2 each and DMDK secured one seat, among a total of 234 Assembly constituencies in the state.
The votes were taken up for counting on May 4 and the final tally was announced on Tuesday.
Actor-politician Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam on Monday created a record of sorts in the electoral history of Tamil Nadu and emerged as the single largest party by delivering a shock defeat to DMK and its president Stalin in his Kolathur constituency, while the AIADMK was pushed to a distant third spot.
Vijay won from both Perambur and Tiruchirappalli East constituencies.
The TVK has clocked nearly 35 per cent (34.92) vote share in its debut polls.
This will be the first time in Tamil Nadu that a party will assume power a little over two years after its founding in February 2024.
