CM Mamata to hold virtual meet with TMC MPs on August 4 amid logjam in Parliament over SIR
The meeting assumes political significance for several reasons, as it coincides with the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament.
Since the beginning of the monsoon session on July 21, the Trinamool Congress has been particularly vocal about the Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, both inside and outside of the Parliament.
A section of the Opposition parties considers the SIR process as a 'conspiracy' to exclude names of Opposition voters from the voter lists.
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Indian Express
4 minutes ago
- Indian Express
BJP, Centre behind maltreatment of Bengali migrants, flood: Mamata
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday alleged that the BJP and the Central government were responsible for the alleged maltreatment of Bengali migrants in other states and a flood-situation in southern districts of the state. Addressing a gathering during a programme at Kamarpukur Ramakrishna Mission and Math, Banerjee said, 'Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose all spoke Bengali. All their writings or creations are in the Bengali language.' Referring to flood-like situation in the state, Banerjee said, 'Due to the release of water from DVC (Damodar Valley Corporation), Maithon, Panchet and other dams, both North and South Bengal suffer from floods, which cause immense hardship to our people and drain the state's treasury. This time, DVC released 51,000 lakh cubic metres of water. Why hasn't dredging been done in the last 20 years? We will not tolerate this injustice.' 'After the 2026 Assembly elections, we plan to stop this forced water release by DVC. We have to create some of our own dams to counter this and manage the floods. If repeated appeals go unheard, we will have to act,' the CM said. She added, 'Bengal's funds have been blocked by the Centre, and we have had to do everything on our own. From roads to housing — we have done it all ourselves.' Later, Banerjee also visited a relief camp in Arambagh and distributed food to the flood-affected people. On a Cooch Behar resident receiving an NRC notice, the Chief Minister said, 'How is the Assam government issuing such notices? Bengali workers are being killed in Maharashtra. They are being tortured in other states like Delhi and Haryana. How dare they say there is no language called Bengali? This will never be tolerated. It is our oath to protect our mother tongue.' 'SIR brainchild of BJP-led Centre' The CM on Tuesday alleged that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar was the brainchild of the BJP-led central government with the connivance of the Election Commission. 'This (SIR) has been planned by the Centre, keeping the Election Commission with it. We do not agree with it,' she said, contending that it is not possible for everyone to preserve parents' birth certificates for the exercise. The chief minister said she will not accept any attempt to introduce the SIR in West Bengal, where assembly polls are due in 2026. 'People practicing all religions will suffer if the special intensive revision is introduced in the state,' Banerjee claimed. She also alleged that attempts were underway to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the name of SIR. After taking stock of the flood situation in Ghatal, Banerjee said funds will be disbursed to farmers who suffered losses, from the state's crop insurance scheme. Banerjee said her government has been providing funds for the 100-day job guarantee scheme, housing for the poor and rural roads. Meanwhile, during a virtual meeting with district-level party leaders, TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday raised the issue of the Delhi Police letter where Bengali was termed as 'Bangladeshi'. He slammed the BJP and party leader Amit Malviya for allegedly insulting Bengali. 'This is why we call them Bangla virodhi and zamindars. How dare they call the Bangla language Bangladeshi? Not a single MLA of BJP is protesting this insult on Bengal and Bengalis,' he said. The MP also stressed on making the 'Amader Para, Amader Samadhan' project a success, calling it 'historic'. — PTI inputs
Indian Express
34 minutes ago
- Indian Express
With Shah's counsel, Bengal BJP gets down to drawing Assembly poll roadmap
Allaying concerns over Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, countering the Trinamool Congress's (TMC) narrative on language and culture, and an emphasis on women's security and other issues will be the BJP's focus as it heads towards the crucial Assembly elections in West Bengal next year. West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, the party's national general secretary in charge of the state, Sunil Bansal, and other senior leaders met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Monday to apprise him of the situation in the state at the moment and discuss the party's poll strategy. Shah is learnt to have instructed the state unit to prepare for the SIR, an exercise already underway in Bihar amid the Opposition's protests that it will lead to disenfranchisement of millions. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee has said she will not allow the Election Commission (EC) to conduct the voter verification drive. The TMC has referred to the SIR as 'silent intensive rigging' and linked it to the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). The party's Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra is among those who have moved the Supreme Court challenging the SIR. The BJP has not denied the benefit of an SIR, saying it will weed out ineligible voters from the rolls. It has accused the TMC of taking advantage of an inflated voter list over the years. At the meeting, it was discussed that the party should ensure a significant presence of its workers for political messaging at the booth level when the SIR is conducted. It is learnt that Shah advised the state leadership to take steps to ensure there is no panic over the exercise. 'Stop Trinamool's misinformation' The Home Minister is also learnt to have emphasised that the state unit should 'clearly communicate' to people that the BJP is against infiltration and not Bangla or Bengalis. With Bangla speakers getting detained in several BJP-ruled states on suspicion of being undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants, the TMC has accused the party of linguistic profiling. On July 27, Mamata Banerjee launched a statewide 'Bhasha Andolon (language movement)' to protest against the alleged harassment. The BJP has since shot back at the CM, accusing her of 'manufacturing issues' ahead of the Assembly polls that are less than a year away. Samik Bhattacharya has alleged that Mamata is more interested in 'protecting Bangla-speaking infiltrators from Bangladesh'. At the meeting, the BJP leaders discussed the TMC-fuelled narrative that portrays the party as one of 'outsiders', something that has damaged the party in previous elections. To stop this misinformation from spreading, state BJP leaders had been asked to organise public outreach programmes, sources said A senior leader who attended the meeting said it was agreed that women-related issues should be at the centre of the party's campaign. The consensus was that there should be a focus on women's safety in the wake of the R G Kar rape-murder case and the recent case of alleged rape at a law college in Kolkata in which a member of the TMC's student wing is the main accused. Another BJP functionary said the party would also focus on the Central government's initiatives for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. 'An all-out effort must be made to win the 2026 elections in Bengal. The party is working on it. We have been told that we must communicate how much the BJP has worked for the SC/ST communities,' said the leader. The meeting with Shah came just days after the Bengal BJP started the process to form 43 organisational district committees. In March, the party had announced the names of 39 district presidents. On July 18, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the tone for the party's election campaign in his address at a massive rally in Durgapur in Paschim Bardhaman district. After launching several development projects, Modi lashed out at the TMC government and accused it of enabling 'infiltration' and hindering the state's development through corruption and violence. 'The TMC is actively helping infiltrators. I want to say this very clearly that those who are not the citizens of India and have entered illegally will be dealt with fairness in accordance with the Constitution.' Since recording its best-ever electoral performance in Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha election — winning 18 of 42parliamentary seats — the BJP has struggled to provide a sustained challenge to the TMC. In 2021, though it increased its tally to 77 seats, only five years after opening its account in the 294-member Assembly, organisational reverses and infighting set it back, and in the Lok Sabha elections last year its tally dropped to 12. The party has been hamstrung by internal feuds over the years and is attempting to overcome these challenges to effect a turnaround under Bhattacharya.
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
‘Thank You, Gandhi' Reimagines the Mahatma as Moral Compass in Fractured India
Published : Aug 05, 2025 21:48 IST - 5 MINS READ In 1969, the Gandhi centenary year, Jainendra Kumar, the eminent Hindi writer, noting the possibility of Gandhi being forgotten, envisioned a future when he will be 'reinvented not as an individual, but as a non-personal, almost mythical presence' and hoped from that point in time 'a new era of human history will begin'. Presented in a form which is part interesting novel and part intense reflections, Thank You, Gandhi is essentially a set of conversations among two boyhood friends and with Gandhi 'the almost mythical presence' and above all with 'India's deceptive selfhood'. Thank You, Gandhi By Krishna Kumar Viking Pages: 210 Price: Rs.599 The two friends, Viresh Pratap Singh (nicknamed 'Munna') belonging to a minor royal household in Bundelkhand, and 'K,' the narrator, underwent their primary education under the Gandhian Nai Talim method infused with ideals of the national movement. Later, K went on to become an academic, and Munna joined the IAS to fulfil the 'dreams of nation-building along Gandhi and Nehru's vision of a modern yet kind, considerate nation which was also determined to alter its old self'. A gradual distortion Both Munna and K are witness to the gradual distortion of this vision. The landslide victory of an ardent admirer of Godse and a terror accused from Bhopal in the Lok Sabha election serves as a take-off point for anguished reflections on the distressing developments over the last decade. In this period, not only have the leaders of the national movement been vilified, but there have also been concerted efforts to destroy the vision of 'modern yet considerate nation' that inspired not only Munna and K but many, many more. This is most frighteningly evident in the officially sanctioned propagation of lies, the normalisation of violence, the apathy towards mob lynchings, and the heartlessness on full display during the COVID-19 pandemic. Munna himself succumbs to COVID-19 while helping its victims and leaves the task of editing and publishing his reflections on contemporary India with 'Gandhi as a moral compass' to K, who does it with his comments at places, thus continuing his conversation with his friend, who is physically no more. Also Read | RSS and Gandhi: Sangh Parivar's belated attempts to appropriate national heroes in quest for legitimacy Munna puts down his reflections in words, because 'We can't stretch Gandhi. He is no plastic figure. His metal and stone busts are mere selfie spots now. Words alone can protect him from predators.' In the age of visuals dominating all kinds of communication, this faith in words is poignantly edifying. Gandhi is a moral compass because his experiments with truth 'could hardly be all about truth in the common sense of fidelity to facts'; these experiments led him to 'playful reversal'—from God is truth to Truth is God. He perceived 'truth as a symbol of the ideals he saw as ingredients of morality'. Such appreciation does not, however, imply endorsing all his perceptions. Thank You, Gandhi is not a sentimental eulogy but a probing conversation. Munna unhesitatingly notes Gandhi's failure in recognising the implications of the fact that 'Jati is the real structure and Varna an idea'. Ambedkar was obviously closer to reality on caste oppression. Similarly, Gandhi's comment that 'citizens of Hiroshima could have prayed for the bomber pilot before they perished' was 'vacuous'. Gandhi writing a letter to 'dear friend' Hitler 'tells us how ignorant he was and how innocent too. This he would have acknowledged had he lived long enough to visit Dachau or Auschwitz as a tourist.' Critical empathy What Munna concludes about Hind Swaraj would be completely applicable to Gandhi's perceptions and actions taken as a whole: 'It was a code, politically encrypted but essentially moral. It was a new version of old ideas from different philosophical sources, but also from traditions that were still alive in villages and small towns.' Approaching this 'whole' with critical empathy will likely lead to neither deification nor vilification but to a genuine gratitude. These reflections contain a trenchant critique of deliberate attempts being made by Hindu nationalist forces to destroy democratic institutions and norms of civilised behaviour. More importantly, it also underlines the genealogy of moral apathy leading to acceptance of or indifference to these attempts. Munna, a retired civil servant, reminds us: '...handling the ravages of the Union Carbide leak in Bhopal included muzzling the truth and editing of ghastly experiences of thousands of poor people so that everything could be neatly adjusted in the grand narrative of the government.' Therefore, '[i]t is hard to wake up when you are rolling down a gentle slope at a comfortable speed. That is how India was, Bhopal was, before Gujarat happened.' Also Read | Rereading Gandhi Munna's reflections are quite pessimistic. At the very end, K longs for his friend to hear him say, 'India is a great teacher my friend and it never fails to teach whoever tries to bend it.' Despite feeling closer to Munna, this reviewer would like to endorse K as 'where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it'. This book is indeed 'uncategorisable' (as mentioned in the blurb) for the library cataloguing system, but for anyone concerned with humanity's present and future, it undoubtedly belongs to the category of essential. Purushottam Agrawal is a historian of early modern bhakti poetry and a well-known public intellectual. He has engaged with Hindu nationalism for five decades. His recent books include Who is Bharat Mata? (Speaking Tiger), a collection of Nehru's writings and writings about him with a long introduction. He is currently writing a book on the Mahabharata.
