Udupi: MLC and former minister Kota Srinivas Poojary has said that the BJP was in support of the Shakti scheme, giving free travel for women in government buses, as the party was always in favour of projects for the welfare of the economically backward classes.
Addressing reporters in Udupi on Tuesday, Poojary admitted that the BJP expressed doubt about the implementation of the guarantees promised by the Congress government, explaining that the party took the stand as finance experts and retired officials had said that it would be a very difficult task.
“The power tariff is hiked in January every year, based on the proposal submitted by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC), yet, our government had not approved of a hike in tariff this year. The hike might have been approved after the declaration of elections,” said Poojary, adding, “I request Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and Power Minister KJ George to cancel the order to hike the power tariff in the interest of the people.”
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Referring to the cow slaughter ban, the former minister said, “The Congress government has declared that it will cancel the bans on cow slaughter and religious conversion. The government can similarly cancel its order to hike power tariff, since it is merely a matter of withdrawal of its circular and not an amendment of an act.”
He called it an act of injustice towards the people that the power rate is hiked in order to give 200 units of electricity for free and demanded that the tariff be revised to the earlier rate.
“The people of the state have supported the Congress in the elections conducted as per the rules of democracy. Implementation of the promised guarantees is the responsibility of the government. The BJP will, therefore, fight for the people as long as the promises of the Congress remain unfulfilled.
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New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
