Siddaramaiah blames BJP for reaping political benefit out of border row
Bengaluru, Dec 8: With the border row between Karnataka and Maharashtra over Belagavi still persisting, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday accused the BJP of reaping political benefits instead of resolving the issue.
In a series of tweets, the Leader of Opposition said people were facing hardship owing to the controversy.
"It is in the DNA of @BJP4Karnataka to reap political benefits out of controversies. Belagavi border issue, which could have been resolved through negotiations, is now allowed to grow so that BJP can take benefits," the Congress leader said.
Siddaramaiah said the people were facing problems as the transport departments of both the States have stopped the Belagavi-Maharashtra inter-State bus service.
"People of both the States are anxious about the developments, & @BJP4Karnataka govt have to intervene & establish peace," the former Chief Minister said.
He further said the coalition government in Maharashtra has been trying to target Kannadigas residing in the neighbouring States and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai should immediately intervene, reach out to his counterparts in Maharashtra and protect Kannadigas.
"It is not just enough to claim it is a double-engine govt. @BJP4India should step up whenever it is needed to solve the crisis. This time it has failed to resolve the issue...," the Congress leader said.
The border row was several decades old with Maharashtra claiming the merger of Belagavi with it on the ground that the district has substantial Marathi-speaking population.
Karnataka has refuted the claim by saying the issue has been settled long ago.
The border row once again flared up with the decision of two Maharashtra Ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, who have been appointed by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to coordinate with their legal team to deal with the issue, to visit Belagavi on December 6.
Since then, Belagavi city and parts of the city bordering Maharashtra have seen protests on both sides.
Today too, there were protests in Gadag where the pro-Kannada organisation members staged demonstrations and reportedly burned an effigy of Shinde.
It is in the DNA of @BJP4Karnataka to reap political benefits out of controversies.
— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) December 8, 2022
Belagavi border issue, which could have been resolved through negotiations, is now allowed to grow so that BJP can take benefits.
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'One nation, one election' is unconstitutional and impractical: Prashant Bhushan
Nagpur, Dec 24: Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan on Tuesday strongly opposed the idea of 'one nation, one election', calling it as "ridiculous and unconstitutional", and said holding simultaneous polls was impractical in a parliamentary democracy.
He also hailed the recent apex court judgements that gave a stay on lawsuits about reclaiming religious places, especially mosques, and 'bulldozer justice'.
Bhushan spoke at Parwana Oration 2024 organised here on the topic "Whither economic democracy in India' organised by Comrade H L Parwana Memorial Trust.
Answering reporters' query on 'one nation, one election' after his speech, he said, "It is ridiculous and unconstitutional because one cannot have simultaneous polls in parliamentary democracy for the reason that the government depends on enjoying the confidence of the majority in the House."
Two bills that lay down the mechanism to hold simultaneous elections were introduced in the Lok Sabha after a fiery debate last week.
"If there is a split in the party or if some people defect, then the government can fall and if the government falls and no other government can be formed then what will you do? Either you impose President's rule for the remaining term and if the central government falls, what do you do? You cannot impose President's rule there. Therefore, you will have to have fresh elections otherwise it is against democracy," he noted.
"Now, they are saying that fresh elections will be only for the remainder of the term. So how is that helping? You are now increasing the number of elections because now you are holding elections only for the remaining two years if say two years are left. This is totally bogus...There is no way this is practical and in my view this is totally unconstitutional," he said.
Equating 'bulldozer justice' with a lawless state of affairs where might is right, the Supreme Court last month laid down pan-India guidelines and said no property should be demolished without a prior show cause notice and the affected must be given 15 days to respond.
Recently, the apex court restrained till further directions the courts in the country from entertaining fresh lawsuits and passing any effective interim or final orders in pending ones seeking to reclaim religious places, especially mosques and dargahs (a Muslim shrine).
Speaking about it, he said, "We have seen that a few good things happened in the Supreme Court. One is the stay on all these suits about mosques being taken over for temples or being investigated as to whether there are temples below that or not."
"They (SC) have said that for the time being, these suits will not proceed. This is a very important development that has taken place," he said.
The other important decision is about ' bulldozer justice', he said.
"They have passed a very good judgement effectively putting a stay on it. They have also passed many judgements regarding the misuse of powers of the Enforcement directorate. ED has become the main instrument of harassing opposition leaders or activists, journalists, etc, wherein anything can be said to be money laundering and therefore ED gets into anything, whatsoever," he said.
Fortunately, in the recent last few months, there have been a number of judgements which have put brakes on the power of the ED, he added.
On a query about Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's statement that 18 per cent GST will be imposed on the margin value of used car sales, Bhushan said it should be scrapped.
"I don't know whether she misunderstood what the scheme is and if this is the scheme it will have to go. It will also struck down in the court," he said.
When asked about Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' statement that pro-urban Naxal organisations supported the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' of Rahul Gandhi, Bhushan said, "That is all absolutely bunk. I mean they call any dissenter urban Naxalite..."
Addressing the gathering earlier, Bhushan called for the need to understand the difference between 'economic democracy' and 'political democracy'.
Economic inequality has increased so much that 10 to 20 families of this country own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent people of this country together, he claimed.
"We say that we have political democracy, but is the system in the country is run by the opinion of the people?" he asked.
A lot could have been done to reduce the economic inequality by implementing progressive tax, which means that tax will increase as the income increases. Maximum personal income tax in India is around 35 per cent, which is less than most of the other countries that are regarded as capitalist countries, he said.
Secondly, progressive wealth tax could have been implemented be it one, two or three percent, but we did not apply wealth tax, he said.
Bhushan made a pitch for inheritance tax, and said corporate tax has decreased in the country in the recent past.
The government should ensure that a person lives a dignified life with basic food, education, health care and shelter, he said.
