Mangaluru: ‘Khamosh, ye ghalat kiya hai tumne’ Shatrugan Sinha to Modi on demonetisation and GST
Mangaluru: Former Union Minister and Bollywood superstar Shatrugan Sinha on Sunday visited Mangaluru’s Mudipu and addressed a public rally while campaigning for Dakshina Kannada Congress candidate for LS Election Mithun Rai.
Sinha made scattering attacks on BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi questioning their governance and silence over key issues of the nation. The former BJP MP was also in the awe of Congress President Rahul Gandhi and termed him as the ‘face of today and future of the country’.
Speaking about the reason behind his decision to leave BJP where he had been in the mix of the things for several years Sinha said “I left BJP because I have always believed in secularism. I have given so many years of my life to BJP, but since this government was formed the party has turned into ‘one man show and two men army’ it has become dictator’s party. People like LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and Kirti Azad who took the party to new heights are nowhere to be seen now in the party”
“Demonetisation was wrongly implemented, lakhs of people suffered for one bad decision. And then they introduce complicated GST before the nation could recover from demonetization. That was the double blow to the whole of nation. And that’s when I confronted them in the interest of the people of the country. I told them ‘Khamosh, ye tumne galat kiya hai’ (Whatever you have done is wrong).
“They also started threatening me to dispel me from the party as I have always been taking stands against what was wrong irrespective of who was doing it. For me party is more important than any individual and my country is more important than any party. So when I started taking stands against the wrong they were doing, it didn’t go down too well with them. That’s when I decided to bid goodbye to the party”.
Speaking of Congress Sinha added that there was no other party with more contributions to the country than Congress including its role in the freedom movement of the country and that is the reason he joined the grand old party.
Taking a dig at Modi wave and BJP’s 2014 election victory he said “What happened with these people is as they say ‘Power corrupts you and absolute power corrupts you absolutely’ so when they got into power, I don’t want to speak on how they got it. It might be with the help of EVM or something else. So when they came into power they decided to become dictators”.
Sinha also credited Congress’ election wins in MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh to the leadership skills of Rahul Gandhi.
“Within a year of taking charge as the president of INC Rahul Gandhi has displayed his leadership skills and shown to the opposition what he is capable of. He is the face of today and future of this country” he added.
Attacking Modi over Rafale deal, Sinha questioned his silence and reminded him that he was accountable to the people of this country and every single question by them has to be answered.
“I don’t say you are accused or involve in this scam or whether this is a scam or not. But there are questions and you need to answer them. Unless you answer them people will keep saying what Rahul Gandhi and others are saying that ‘Chowkidar chor hai’”.
Speaking of Mithun Rai, Sinha said his victory was the need of the hour for the development of Dakshina Kannada and the Country at large.
“It is important that Mithun Rai wins from here. This is young India and the youth can bring in a change. Under the young leadership of Rahul Gandhi, these leaders will be groomed and will take India to unprecedented heights. I am confident the youth of Dakshina Kannada will make the right decision and elect Mithun Rai” he concluded.
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EC begins phased publication of post-SIR rolls in Bengal; 1.18L names deleted in Bankura
Kolkata (PTI): The Election Commission (EC) on Saturday began publishing the post-SIR electoral rolls in West Bengal in phases, with figures from Bankura district indicating that around 1.18 lakh names have been deleted since the exercise commenced.
Hard copies of the updated rolls were put up in districts including Bankura and Cooch Behar, even as the lists were yet to be made available online on the designated EC portals and mobile application till reports last received.
In Bankura, where the electorate stood at 30,33,830 when the SIR exercise began on November 4 last year, the number in the draft rolls published on December 16 had come down to 29,01,009.
Following hearings and scrutiny during the subsequent phase of the SIR, around 4,000 more names were deleted. However, a few thousand fresh applications under Form 6, meant for the inclusion of new voters, were approved.
As a result, the final electoral roll of Bankura, considered a turf where both BJP and TMC have equal political dominance, now stands at approximately 29,15,000, indicating a net deletion of around 1.18 lakh names since the commencement of the SIR, a senior district official said.
Election Commission officials said the deletions were primarily due to death, migration, duplication and untraceability, while additions were processed after due verification.
Reports from other districts are still awaited.
The publication of the rolls is being carried out in phases across districts, and supplementary lists are expected to be issued as adjudication of pending cases continues.
According to officials, the publication classifies 7.08 crore electors, whose names appeared in the draft rolls issued on December 16, into three categories -- 'approved', 'deleted' and 'under adjudication/under consideration'.
Commission sources also indicated that in parts of north Kolkata, nearly 17,000 names were found missing from the approved rolls, further fuelling political reactions from rival parties.
The draft rolls published on December 16 had already seen the state's electorate shrink from 7.66 crore -- the figure based on names appearing in the rolls till August 2025 -- to 7.08 crore, with over 58 lakh names deleted during the first phase of scrutiny.
The SIR process, the first such statewide revision since 2002, began on November 4 last year with the distribution of enumeration forms. The commission took 116 days to provisionally complete the exercise and publish what officials described as a "final but dynamic" list, as adjudication in several cases is still underway.
The second phase involved hearings for 1.67 crore electors -- 1.36 crore flagged for 'logical discrepancies' and 31 lakh lacking proper mapping.
Around 60 lakh voters continue to remain under adjudication, meaning their inclusion or exclusion will be determined in supplementary rolls to be issued in phases.
Meanwhile, long queues were seen outside district election offices and cyber cafes across the state as anxious voters thronged centres to check their names in the updated rolls.
In districts such as Bankura, North 24 Parganas and parts of Kolkata, hard copies of the lists were put up on notice boards, drawing steady streams of residents since morning. Many were seen scanning page after page of printed sheets, some taking photographs on their mobile phones, while others sought help from officials to trace their entries.
At several district magistrate and sub-divisional offices, voters waited in serpentine queues for their turn to verify whether their names figured under the 'approved', 'deleted' or 'under adjudication' categories.
With the updated rolls yet to be fully accessible online, cyber cafes reported a sudden surge in footfall. In many neighbourhoods, small computer centres witnessed lines of people waiting outside, clutching voter ID cards and enumeration slips, reflecting both public anxiety and the high political stakes surrounding the revision exercise ahead of the assembly elections due in April.
