‘Polarisation Replaced Vikaas’: Shivam Singh on Resigning From BJP
Video Editor: Abhishek Sharma
“The 2014 Lok Sabha election was fought on a plank of development, but 2019 seems to be fought on polarisation. Right now, the party is governed by two strong individuals whom everyone is really scared of. No one really voices their concerns to them,” said Shivam Shankar Singh, who was until recently an active Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker.
Singh joined the party in 2013, when it was riding the high tides of the Narendra Modi wave – “trusting” the then Gujarat chief minister’s development vision for the country. However, in May 2018, the former BJP worker decided that he could no longer be associated with the party.
Singh, who had earlier handled data analytics for the BJP, wrote a blog – ‘Why I Am Resigning From BJP’ – which went viral just hours after it was posted. In the post, he listed the good, the bad and the ugly of the four-year-old Modi-led government at the Centre, and argued that he could no longer support the BJP, “which is pushing the national discourse in a dark corner”.
“This isn’t something I signed up for,” he wrote in his piece.
Also Read: Why I Am Resigning From the BJP
In an interview with The Quint, Singh talked about what he signed up for when he joined the BJP and what made him change his mind.
Why Did He Resign From the BJP?
Singh said one of the predominant reasons for his resignation comes from the party not delivering the promises it made ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He said while party members and karyakartas spoke about the problems the government was facing, “nothing was actually done about it.”
When asked for an example, Singh pointed at the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, a flagship programme that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – in which each MP was required to adopt three villages and develop them into ideal villages.
Hidden Serial Numbers on Electoral Bonds Another Reason
The former BJP worker, who has worked actively for the party in Tripura and Manipur, also alleged that electoral bonds were a huge issue.
An investigation by The Quint has revealed that the much-hailed electoral bonds, which were meant to usher in an era of taint-free financing for political parties, carry a secret number “visible on the top-right corner of the original document showing fluorescence, when examined under Ultra Violet (UV) Light.”
“But even graver was the secret hidden numbers on the bonds, exposed by The Quint”, said Singh. He reiterated that the presence of the secret number meant that donors could be traced, which defeated the purpose of anonymity of the bonds.
“This also explains how corruption is reduced at the ministerial level – it isn’t per file/order, it is now like the US – at the policy level,” wrote Patna-based Singh.
‘BJP Resorting to Religious Polarisation’
Speaking to The Quint, Singh claimed that the ruling party is resorting to religious polarisation because “there is no message of development anymore.”
‘Was Not Threatened By Anyone’
Singh claims that when he wrote the blog, it was done to “simplify” his life as people questioned him about his anti-BJP social media posts, thinking he was still working with the party.
“I just wrote a blog so that I could share the link with everyone. I was tired of explaining why I decided to quit the BJP. To my surprise, the blog went viral. But what is even more surprising is that I did not receive any threat from the party supporters,” says the ex-BJP worker.
He said people told him that he raised “genuine” questions through his blog, questions that “everyone in the country wanted to raise.”
‘Stand Up to the Leaders’
Singh made an appeal to the other BJP workers, to raise these questions with the party leaders. He further appealed to the “reasonable people” in the party to stop supporting the alleged agenda of polarisation. He said:
While his long-term goal is to work on policy issues related to Bihar, right now he is planning to educate voters about the importance of their votes ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Courtesy: www.thequint.com
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After poll debacle, defeated MVA candidates to seek verification of EVM-VVPAT units
Mumbai(PTI): The Maha Vikas Aghadi candidates who faced defeat in the recent Maharashtra assembly polls have decided to seek verification of the EVM-Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) units in their segments, a leader of the opposition alliance said.
Many losing candidates of the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) pointed fingers at the functioning of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during their interaction with party head Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday.
Thackeray took stock of the lacklustre performance of his party at a meeting held at his residence in Mumbai.
The poll verdict last week saw the Mahayuti coalition, comprising the Shiv Sena, BJP, and NCP, retaining power with a massive mandate, pushing the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to margins.
The Mahayuti won 230 seats and MVA only 46 in the 288-member House.
The Thackeray-led Sena (UBT) emerged as the largest party in the opposition camp by winning 20 seats, followed by Congress which bagged 16 constituencies, while the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) sits at the bottom with a tally of 10 seats.
Talking to PTI on Tuesday, Congress leader Arif Naseem Khan, who lost the election from Chandivali assembly constituency in Mumbai, said he held a discussion with Thackeray, who also said he has got complaints from his party workers that EVMs could have been tampered.
"We are getting complaints from different parts of the state expressing doubts over the results. In a democracy, complaints need to be verified and many of us, including myself, (who faced defeat) are in the process of applying for the verification," Khan said.
As per the Supreme Court's judgement on April 26 this year, the burnt memory/microcontroller in 5 per cent of the EVMs - the control unit, ballot unit and the VVPAT - per assembly constituency shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from manufacturers of the EVMs, after the announcement of results, for any tampering or modification, he said.
A written request for this has to be made by candidates who are in the second or third position behind the highest polled candidate.
Such a request has to be made within seven days of declaration of the result, Khan said.
A candidate making the request will have to pay the expenses of Rs 41,000 which will be refunded in case the machine is found to be tampered with, he said.
The microcontroller is a one-time programmable chip embedded into the three units of EVM-Ballot Unit, Control Unit and the VVPAT - at the time of manufacturing, as per the SC.
A Sena (UBT) MLA from Mumbai has claimed there were discrepancies between the votes polled and the votes counted in the EVMs.
"Almost all candidates raised doubts over the EVMs," the legislator said.
