In poll-bound Rajasthan leaders hiring pahalwans for protection and prestige

There is a huge demand for bouncers in Rajasthan and MLAs are hiring them for security and to enhance their reputation. The hiring price starts from Rs 11000 per day and they also get boarding and lodging.

Demand for bouncers and Pahalwan in poll-bound Rajasthan is peaking as political leaders are hiring them to keep them away from bodily harm from enthusiastic supporters and also to enhance their reputation in masses. According to Times Now report, female candidates from the urban as well as rural areas are also hiring these bouncers. Candidates from all the parties are looking for pahalwans to accompany them on campaign trails.

According to Chunni Kaptan the owner of Bhuri Singh Akhara in Bharatpur, pahalwans are being hired starting from Rs 11000 per day plus boarding and lodging by various politicians in the state. Bharatpur MLA Vijay Bansal is one of the people who has hired such pahalwan but refused to comment on camera.

Police officials off the record say that any candidate may accompany anyone as a worker or relative but if they indulge in any illegal acts than action will be taken against them.

The legislative assembly elections in the state are scheduled to be held on 7 December and will be held in a single phase.

The BJP Central Election Committee is likely to meet by November 9 or 10 to decide the name of the candidates for approval for the December 7 Assembly elections. CM Vasundhara Raje met BJP chief Amit Shah last week over the issue of finalising the candidates, but no decision was taken during the meet due to the rift between Shah and Raje.

The BJP had won the last elections in 2013 defeating the Congress led by Ashok Gehlot.

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Vasundhara Raje reaches out to Sangh ahead of Rajasthan elections

Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje reached out to RSS functionaries at the Sangh state headquarters in Jaipur on Diwali eve exactly one month before polling starts in the state on December 7. Her meeting with Sangh’s key functionaries including prant pracharak Nimbaram and co-pracharak Shailendra is likely to garner political gains for BJP in the upcoming elections.

The ruling party, grappling with massive anti-incumbency, would need RSS support to be voted back to power for a second term — a feat no incumbent government has been able to achieve in last 25 years.

This informal meeting is also significant in view of the proposed meeting of BJP’s parliamentary board on November 11, where the party is likely to finalise its first list of candidates for Rajasthan.
“The organisation of RSS is very strong in Rajasthan. BJP has been gaining from its cadre in all elections. Since anti-incumbency factor is very strong, Sangh support becomes even more vital,” said a BJP leader.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat visited Rajasthan several times in past few months to mobilise RSS leaders and cadre at ground level. BJP chief Amit Shah has also held meetings with RSS functionaries including Bhagwat, to draw strategies for victory in Rajasthan.

“Raje doesn’t enjoy a warm relationship with the Sangh. In the bypolls early this year, Raje fielded candidates in Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha seats without any consultation with RSS. The Sangh, then, distanced itself from the elections and BJP had to suffer severe defeat,” said a Sangh functionary.

In the upcoming elections, BJP is said to have consulted RSS over candidates in a large number of seats. Sangh is also said to have started canvassing in BJP’s favour.

“The canvassing will intensify once tickets are announced. BJP is likely to give more than 50% tickets to leaders with RSS background. This will help BJP synchronise its campaign with Sangh,” said a senior BJP leader.

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Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan victories needed to cement alliance with NCP : Congress

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have made substantial progress in their discussions about seat-sharing in Maharashtra for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, reaching an agreement on 40 out of 48 seats in the state, but Congress leaders said the prospective alliance would depend to a great extent on the outcome of the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

“At least Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan should go our way. Only then we can be sure that the NCP will shed its ambiguous position towards the BJP. If the results don’t go in our favour, then the NCP can be unpredictable,” said a Congress leader, who did not wish to be identified.

Congress leaders said that they had reason to be apprehensive about the NCP’s stance given NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s recent comments in an interview seemingly absolving prime minister Narendra Modi in the controversy over the Rafale aircraft deal by claiming that “people did not doubt Modi’s intentions”. BJP chief Amit Shah, they said, had seized on the remark and asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to take a lesson from it.
“The NCP being unpredictable is public knowledge. They unanimously called off an alliance with us for the Maharashtra assembly polls after coming to know that Modi had come to power,” said the Congress leader. “Then they announced support for a BJP government in Maharashtra even when the latter had not asked for support. They claimed that they were doing so because they didn’t want the government to fall quickly as the state could not afford elections.” The president of the NCP’s Maharashtra unit, Jayant Patil, remained unavailable for comments despite several calls and a message sent to his phone.

Congress leaders said that the NCP had a pattern of switching sides on flimsy grounds or for reasons that made little political sense. For instance, in the 2007 Mumbai civic polls, the NCP had helped the Shiv Sena-BJP combine by deciding to break the alliance with the Congress over one seat, said a Congress leader.

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Ahead Of Rajasthan Elections, 42 BJP Workers Eye One Party Ticket

A total of 42 workers of Bharatiya Janata Party are in the fray to seek a party ticket from the Sri Dungargarh assembly constituency of Bikaner district.

With Rajasthan assembly elections around the corner, the political battle in the state has intensified — not just between the political parties but within the parties as well.

A total of 42 workers of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are in the fray to seek a party ticket from the Sri Dungargarh assembly constituency of Bikaner district.

All of them reached the party office in Jaipur on Wednesday to claim their candidature for the assembly seat. All of them travelled together to the state capital and are even staying at the same place.

However, the candidates said that there is no internal conflict among them.

One of the contenders, Krishna Ram, “As many as 42 of our party workers have applied for the ticket from Sri Dungargarh assembly constituency. We have conveyed it to our party leaders that all will support whosoever is given a ticket. We are all dedicated workers of the party.”

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Rajasthan election: Times Now-CNX pre-poll survey predicts win for Congress

The Indian National Congress is likely to come to power in Rajasthan with a comfortable majority after the state assembly elections to be held in December, a Times Now-CNX pre-poll survey has predicted.

The opinion survey predicts 110-120 seats for the Congress in a bipolar contest to the 200 Assembly seats, 70-80 seats for the ruling BJP, 1-3 seats for Mayawati’s BSP 1-3 seats, and 7 for the rest, including Jat leader Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party and Ghanshyam Tiwari‘s Bharat Vahini Party (BVP).

In the previous elections in 2013, BJP had coasted to power with 163 seats leaving the Congress a distant second with 21. Rajasthan has been alternatingly voting the two parties to power over the last 25 years.

The Times Now-CNX pre-poll survey predicted a 43.5 vote share for the Congress with an upswing of 10.4% from last time and 40.37 for BJP with s loss of 4,8%.

More than 65% participants expressed dissatisfaction over how her government handled the Padmavati film controversy, while 55.7% were unhappy at the encounter killing of Anandpal Singh, the gangster who had a Robin Hood image among the poor.

Despite the disappointment with Raje’s government, a majority of respondents expressed support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and were happy with his government’s performance.

Rajasthan goes to poll in a single phase on December 7 and the results will be declared on December 11.

The survey expected the Congress to lead the BJP in all the four regions – Harouti, Marwad, Mewar and Shekawati.

Agency CNX Media said it used its exclusive ‘Super 30’ methodology, interviewing 8040 people across randomly selected 67 constituencies.

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Rajasthan Assembly 2018: Hate crimes against Dalits and Muslims a major concern in the state

Last year, 55-year-old Pehlu Khan was lynched on a national highway in Alwar district by a furious mob on the suspicion of cow smuggling. The Rajasthan police acquitted six of the accused of Khan’s murder, while the victims were charged for cow smuggling.

Hate crimes have stained the map of Rajasthan through the sands of time. In the last couple of years, however, hate crimes have been on the rise in the state.

In July this year, Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group, ranked Rajasthan at number three for the largest number of heinous crimes against minority communities. According to the list, the largest number of hate crimes happened in Uttar Pradesh followed by Gujarat.

This came in the wake of the brutal lynching of Rakbar Khan on the suspicion of cow smuggling. Khan, a resident of Mewat in Rajasthan, was transporting bovines when they were stopped by locals in Lalawandi village near Alwar, and brutally beaten. The case has been deputed to DSP Jaipur range and the investigation is on.

However, this is not a one-off case. This is one gruesome deed in a series of others, several of which might not have even been reported. Amnesty’s Halt the Hate website lists such cases and marked eight hate crimes in 2018 until July. These include a Dalit groom who was attacked by upper caste men for riding a horse, and a Muslim man who was beaten to death for not chanting “Jai Shree Ram”.

Rajasthan has seen at least 39 such incidents from September 2015 until present day. In fact, it was in 1992 that the state witnessed its first incident of violence against minorities – the Kumher Massacre – where 15 Dalits were killed in Bharatpur district.

Then, in September 2010, Hindu activists mainly belonging to the Meena tribe attacked Muslims, destroyed their property – their farmland, equipment, standing crop and granaries, were plundered, damaged or burnt. Muslims had to flee Udaipur in the aftermath of the incident.

To cite more recent examples, last year, 55-year-old Pehlu Khan was lynched on a national highway in Alwar district by a furious mob on the suspicion of cow smuggling. The Rajasthan police acquitted six of the accused of Khan’s murder, and the victims were charged for cow smuggling.

In yet another horrendous hate crime, Mohammed Afrazul, a migrant labourer from Malda in West Bengal, was hacked and burnt alive by one Shambhu Lal in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan. Shambhu Lal’s minor nephew caught the entire incident on tape and video footage of the ghastly crime went viral. Lal confessed to committing the crime in an attempt to prevent jihad and surrendered the next day. He was charged with murder.

In fact, in an incident, the Rajasthan police gunned down Talim Hussain in Alwar on the December of 2017 on the suspicion of cow smuggling. Although the state police claim it to be an encounter, activists say they didn’t find any evidence of counter-firing from the alleged cow-smugglers.

These incidents paint a grim picture of lawlessness in Rajasthan. Activists and minority leaders have accused the government of apathy and even shielding the perpetrators of such crimes.

Pinning the blame on “population explosion and frustration due to joblessness” Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said, “It happens all over the world, that’s not something happening in Rajasthan alone and if somebody is trying to say that why wasn’t she listening and why wasn’t she doing anything… it is very difficult because if at 12’o clock in the night in some remote part of Rajasthan, something like this happens, I would have to be god to know exactly what is really happening.”

The ruling BJP government will have to tread a tightrope in order to woo the minorities who clearly seem disenchanted with the ruling dispensation. Otherwise, they might hand a point to the Opposition in the state.

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Rajasthan Polls 2018: Will BJP be able to overcome the deep-rooted resentment by Dalits?

According to the 2016 NCRB report, Rajasthan accounts for the third-highest number of crimes involving atrocities against the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), with Jaipur accounting for more than half the number of such crimes in metropolitan cities.

An interesting statistic that came out of that report was that Rajasthan was the only state that disposed of 38 such cases using the method of plea bargaining. A total of 1,063 cases were disposed of by the Rajasthan police in 2016 for want of evidence.

This is not the only indicator of the growing resentment that the Dalit community has against the ruling BJP government in the state.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had read down the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, saying a preliminary inquiry would be conducted before registering an FIR against alleged perpetrators and that the accused will now have a right to seek anticipatory bail. This enraged the Dalits, triggering mass protests across the country.

The tremendous anger in the Dalit community of Rajasthan was mobilized into aggressive protests on April 2 and nationwide bandhs. According to The Caravan, 311 FIRs were filed against people belonging to the SC/ST community after April 2, and none of them have been withdrawn.

The incident may have reminded the community of the Dangawas violence of 2014. In May 2014, there was a dispute between the Meghwals (belonging to Scheduled Caste) and the Jats over a 15-acre plot of land in the Dangawas village of Nagaur district. The dispute escalated quickly into a violent altercation, killing five Dalits, who claimed to be the caretakers of that land.

At that time, Meghwals ran from pillar to post seeking justice, but in vain. In fact, 16 of the 32 MLAs of seats reserved for SCs are Meghwals. Yet, none of them allegedly lent their support to the community at that time, including the MLA of Dangawas.

Rajasthan’s Dalits comprise around 18 percent of the total population, out of which Meghwals constitute more than 50 percent. The Meghwals are concentrated in the central and western part of the state.

Meanwhile, the other half of the Dalit community comprises the Bairwas, the Raigars, and the Jatavs who are concentrated in the eastern districts that border Uttar Pradesh. Besides, more than 20 percent of the community is urban and comprises the entrepreneurial Khatiqs, the Valmiki and the Jingar sub-castes.

Amongst these, Meghwals have been the most vocal about their exasperation with the ruling dispensation, and are most likely to vote for the Congress. The voting patterns of the Jatavs is similar to that of their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh and they are likely to vote for Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. While the urban Dalits are more inclined towards the saffron party, the Bairwas are torn between the Congress and the BJP.

The BJP, it seems, has taken cognizance of the issue and is treading on the path of course correction. As a part of their outreach programme, the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government announced a loan waiver amounting to Rs 114 crore in September this year.

However, the Dalits are piqued with their scanty representation in the higher judiciary and education sector, and the saffron party will have to work really hard to earn back the Dalit vote.

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Rajasthan : Case Against Minister for Allegedly Promoting Enmity

A video has gone viral on social media in which Minister Dhan Singh Rawat can be seen as purportedly saying, “If Muslims can vote unitedly for Congress, then all Hindus can also unite and go with the BJP and make it win with a thumping majority.”

A Rajasthan minister has been booked under the Representation of the People Act for allegedly promoting enmity between two groups in his speech at an election rally last week, officials said.

A video has gone viral on social media in which Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Minister Dhan Singh Rawat can be seen as purportedly saying, “If Muslims can vote unitedly for Congress, then all Hindus can also unite and go with the BJP and make it win with a thumping majority.”

At the public meeting in Banswara district on Saturday, the Bharatiya Janata Party legislator had claimed that his party was a “protector” of the “sanatan sanskriti” (traditional culture)’ of India and termed the Congress a “party of Muslims”.

State Chief Electoral Officer Anand Kumar said the district election department had lodged an FIR and the matter was being investigated.

A case has been registered against Rawat at Banswara Kotwali police station on Monday under Section 125 (promoting enmity between classes in connection with election) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, Circle Officer Ghanshyam Sharma told PTI.

The officer added that investigation was on in the matter.

Days after Rawat’s purported comments drew criticism, state BJP president Madan Lal Saini clarified that the party does not discriminate on the basis of caste and religion.

“We represent every Indian living in the country. Development of each section of society is our slogan and we do not represent any particular community,” party vice-president and Rajasthan in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna said.

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Vedanta wins 10-year extension for Rajasthan oil block

Vedanta Ltd has won a 10-year extension of its contract for the prolific Rajasthan oil block, but on condition that it pays a higher share of profit to the government, the company said Monday.

The 25-year contract for exploration and production of oil and gas from Barmer block RJ-ON-90/1 of Vedanta, formerly Cairn IndiaNSE 0.81 %, is due for renewal on May 14, 2020.

“The Government of India, acting through the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has granted its approval for a ten-year extension of the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for the Rajasthan Block, RJ-ON-90/1,” the company said in a regulatory filing.

The tenure of the RJ Block PSC has been extended for an additional period of 10 years with effect from May 15, 2020.
“Such extension has been granted by the Government of India, pursuant to its policy dated April 7, 2017, for extension of pre-New Exploration Licensing Policy (pre-NELP) exploration blocks PSCs subject to certain conditions,” it said.

The government had in last year approved a new policy for extension of PSCs that provided for an extension beyond the initial 25-year contract period only if companies operating the fields agree to increase the state’s share of profit by 10 per cent.

Vedanta has challenged the policy and the matter is in courts now.

“The applicability of the pre-NELP Extension Policy to the Rajasthan Block PSC is currently sub judice,” the firm said.

The company feels that the May 1995 Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for the block provided for an automatic 10-year extension on same commercial terms if there are oil and gas left to be produced. But now, the government has midway retrospectively changed fiscal terms in the name of extension is unjust to it.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), which as a government nominee picked up 30 per cent stake in the Rajasthan block in 1995, also was of the opinion that PSC provides for an extension on same terms.

ONGC had first in May 2015, then again on at least two occasions in 2016, concurred with Cairn’s interpretation of the PSC for extension of the Rajasthan contract by 10 years on same terms.

Vedanta had challenged the conditions for the extension of the contract in Delhi High Court. The Delhi High Court in July this year ordered extension be given on old terms and conditions.

The Centre, however, has challenged the court order and the matter is sub judice currently.

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Rajasthan polls: Vasundhara Raje to Contest From Home-turf Jhalrapatan

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Sunday announced that she will contest the upcoming Assembly election in the state from the Jhalrapatan constituency in Jhalawar district.

“I have a 30-year-old connection with the people of Jhalawar. The people here have showered love and affection. I have done whatever I could do for Jhalawar and Baran districts,” she said.

Raje has been elected thrice from the Jhalrapatan seat in 2003, 2008 and 2013. She said although her focus would be to win all the 200 Assembly seats in the Rajasthan Assembly, special attention would be on 100 seats.

Raje exuded confidence that the BJP would form a majority government in the state once again.

She said BJP workers have created a situation that Congress’s PM-face Rahul Gandhi is forced to hold Assembly-level public meetings. “In the 2008 Assembly election, the BJP was eight seats away from making government in the state. The BJP had won 78 seats despite tough circumstances. Also, four seats were won by the JD(U) and the BJP dissidents. The Congress had won 96 seats,” the chief minister said.

“Of the eight seats, six seats were from Jhalawar and Baran districts. People of Jhalawar-Baran would not make any mistake this time and saffron would bloom in the state again,” she added.

Rajasthan will go to the polls on December 7.

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