'Demonetisation, NRC are Futile Exercises'
IAS Officers who resigned from Govt. dub these diversionary ploys
Bengaluru: The two IAS cadre officers who recently resigned from the Government service in protest against abrogation of the Article 370 and measures like NRC, on Sunday (December 1) called for protest against anti-people policies of the Modi Government.
The two officers—Kannan Gopinathan and Sasikanth Senthil—were speaking at a meeting organized to discuss ‘Challenges to Democracy’. Kannan was Collector of Kollam (Quilon district in Kerala) while Senthil was Deputy Commissioner of Mangalore district in Karnataka. The session was moderated by Ms. Rohini Mohan, an independent journalist based in Bengaluru.
Sparing the rich
Mr. Kannan said the Modi Government’s policy to demonetize currency notes of Rs. 500 and 1,000 notes only caused inconvenience to the common men but spared the rich, the hoarders of ill-gotten money and ones who evade taxes. He said it is quite well known that informal economy is very large in India and one who buys a bread, pays a medical fee to the local doctors, shells out money for school fee of kids and brings homes vegetables and grocery, does all the transaction only through cash. But the Modi-Shah duo only attacked this section and the ones who had stashed the black money in millions. They simply got away by bribing the bankers and further facilitating the process by releasing the Rs. 2,000 notes in place of their previous Rs. 1,000 notes.
More than dumb
Kannan said the Modi-Shah duo running the country was more than dumb and has learnt no lesson from futile exercise in Assam where Rs. 1,600 crore were spent over a period of six years to identify foreigners from among three crore people. Furthermore, the people also spent Rs. 800 crore to gather documents validating their claim for citizenship.
Aimed against Poor, Women
Kannan dubbed the exercise anti-women, anti-minorities, anti-dalit and anti-poor. He said by expanding the NRC exercise over the entire nation, they would like to harass the poor who do not generally possess any documents. He said women too become easy victims as they are married away from their ancestral homes and do not carry their identity proof to new homes. He said while demonetization shifted the burden of proving their money to be legitimate to the poor, the NRC puts the onus of proving their citizen bona fides to the citizens while this was a duty of the government.
Exclusion of Muslims
He said the NRC and Citizenship Amendment Act when read together make it clear that the Government is now planning to exclude Muslims from the mainstream by making them ‘foreigners’ and thereby declaring them stateless and incarcerating them in detention camps. He said in Assam, of the 19 lakh people declared ‘illegal residents’, nearly 12.5 lakh were Hindus and remaining Muslims. But through the Citizenship Amendment Act the Union Government would declare Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians as ‘refugees’ and eligible for grant of citizenship. He said it is Islamophobic exercise and is akin to Hitler’s exclusion of Jews who were asked to carry yellow tags in public.
Kannan asked, if identifying illegal residents among three crore people took six years, how long it would take to scrutinize the claims and documents of 130 crore people.
‘Dehumanizing’
Sasikanth Senthil dubbed the NRC and Demonetisation as clear-cut fascist in nature as they are being implemented to create an ‘out-group’ and kick up a phobia against them. He said all such measures were diversionary ploys and meant to trigger hyper nationalism and a ruse for dubbing anyone questioning it as deshdrohi (anti-national). He dubbed NRC an exercise aimed at dehumanizing an outgroup. He said the initiatives were clearly aimed at hiding the Government’s failure in arresting economic slowdown and all-pervasive unrest over unemployment.
During an interaction, Kannan said all institutions that sustain democracy are being systematically sabotaged by the current dispensation in Delhi. He said the first symptom of authoritarian regime is to demand complete loyalty while democracy welcomes dissenting voices and differing opinion. He asked the intellectuals, students and all those who were anxious to retain the peace, amity in a plural India to protest the anti-people measure of the Modi Government. He said they resigned in protest against the anti-people measures of the Union government responding to the call of their conscience. “Love for nation demands that one should protest when something is being done to damage the national social fabric”, he added.
They also questioned the legitimacy of the abrogation of Article 370 and said national integration did not mean imprisoning people and politicians.
The audiences in the packed hall of the Institutions of Agricultural Technologists listened to the two former officers in rapt attention.
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Fully confident of winning bypolls to 2 Assembly constituencies in Karnataka: CM Siddaramaiah
Davangere (Karnataka) (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday asserted that he was one hundred per cent confident that Congress will win by-polls to two Assembly Constituencies in the state, claiming the BJP will face defeat, similar to what they experienced in earlier byelections.
He also played down the disgruntlement among the other ticket aspirants in the Congress, saying that everyone will be convinced and come together to ensure the party's victory.
Bypolls for the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly constituencies will be held on April 9. The polls were necessitated following the deaths of senior Congress MLAs H Y Meti and Shamanur Shivashankarappa, respectively.
"I'm one hundred per cent confident that we will win both seats. BJP may claim that they will win, but where have they won? They had made similar claims in the previous bypolls, didn't we defeat sons of former CMs Basavaraj Bommai and H D Kumaraswamy?" Siddaramaiah asked in response to a question.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the BJP may claim things, but the Congress government has fulfilled its promises and walked the talk by implementing five guarantee schemes.
"People of the state are in our (Congress) favour. We have proved it in the previous byelections. People, including Dalits, backward class people, poor, farmers and minorities -- all of them are with us," he added.
When questioned about claims by some BJP leaders that the bypoll results would indicate the outcome of the 2028 Assembly polls in the state, the CM asked, "When they won't win, what indicator is that?"
"We are in power, we won three by-elections earlier, and I'm confident that we will win these by-elections too," he added.
Congress in November 2024 had swept the by-polls to three Assembly constituencies -- Sandur, Shiggaon and Channapatna.
Responding to a question, Siddaramaiah claimed that the BJP will face defeat in all four states -- Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and the union territory of Puducherry -- which are going for polls.
After several rounds of discussion amid stiff competition for the party tickets, Congress on Sunday announced Umesh Meti and Samarth Mallikarjun as the party candidates for Assembly by-polls to Bagalkot and Davangere South assembly constituencies, respectively.
The Congress gave tickets to family members of the late legislators in both constituencies. While Umesh Meti is the son of H Y Meti, Samarth Mallikarjun is the grandson of Shamanur Shivashankarappa.
Expressing confidence that the disgruntlement within the party, following candidate selection, especially in the Davangere South constituency, will be resolved, the CM said, adding that the candidate selection was a unanimous decision by the party.
Pointing out that ticket aspirant Sadiq Pailwan has announced he will contest as a rebel in Davangere South, he said, "We will try and convince him."
When asked whether Muslims would be compensated, Siddaramaiah said, "Nothing has been discussed, but we will try to give representation to minorities."
There was a strong demand from Muslims for the Davangere South ticket, as the community has a significant presence in the constituency. Some factions within Congress had opposed giving the ticket to the Shamanur family.
