YouTuber Manish Kashyap joins Prashant Kishor's party month after quitting BJP
Kishor targets illiteracy, corruption, current political leadership in Bihar
Kashyap quit BJP citing ineffectiveness, lack of protection last month
Months ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, famous YouTuber Manish Kashyap on Monday joined poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) on Monday. Kashyap joined the JSP at an event organised at the Bapu Bhavan in Bihar's capital city of Patna a month after he quit the BJP.
"Famous YouTuber Manish Kashyap has joined Jan Suraaj," the party wrote on X, sharing several photos showing party chief Kishor welcoming him into the party fold.
Kishor, who played a pivotal role in the BJP's successful poll campaign during the 2014 general elections as a strategist, heaped praise on Kashyap, who is known for raising issues of public interest despite political backlash.
"Manish Kashyap is not just a YouTuber for Jan Suraj, nor is he a former BJP leader, but he is a son of Bihar who has carved out his identity through his own strength, hard work, and wisdom, and wants to do something for the state," Kishor was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"Jan Suraj is a system that provides opportunities to every young man or individual who wants to contribute to Bihar. If he has joined Jan Suraaj, I see a significant role for him in playing a major part in this campaign for change in Bihar moving forward," he added.
This came a month after Kashyap quit the BJP, saying he felt let down by the party and suggested that his role within it had become ineffective.
In May, Kashyap had an altercation with junior doctors at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) when he reached there to plead for a patient, after which they allegedly locked him in a room and beat him.
"I couldn't protect myself while being in the BJP. How can I help others?' he said during a Facebook live session, explaining his reasons for stepping away.
Reacting to Kashyap joining his party, Prashant Kishor said that the coming together of the two young leaders will hold the key to JSP's poll campaign in the coming days.
"This is not just the coming together of two young men, but of thousands of youngsters who want to bring about a change in Bihar and get rid of the Lalu, Nitish and Modi rule. The forces who want Bihar to get rid of illiteracy, corruption, and economic exodus have come together," Prashant Kishor said while speaking to India Today TV.
The JPS chief said that the party is providing an opportunity to those who had no choice but to vote for the JDU, RJD and the BJP due to the lack of alternatives in the state.
While Prashant Kishor has constantly attacked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's government in Bihar and the RJD's past reigns, Kashyap has been at the receiving end of the backlash by respective governments for criticising them by raising issues of public interest, exposing civic and government apathy. JSP IN BIHAR ELECTIONS
Prashant Kishor, who launched his Jan Suraaj Party in October last year, has vowed that the JSP will contest all 243 seats in Bihar and will not join either the NDA alliance of the BJP, JDU and LJP or the Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and Left parties.
Over recent months, Kishor has raised his voice against illiteracy, unemployment, corruption, and crime in the state and has attacked the Nitish Kumar government for not being able to find a solution to them.
The 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls later this year, most likely in October or November. The term of the Bihar Assembly will conclude on November 22.
Months ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, famous YouTuber Manish Kashyap on Monday joined poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) on Monday. Kashyap joined the JSP at an event organised at the Bapu Bhavan in Bihar's capital city of Patna a month after he quit the BJP.
"Famous YouTuber Manish Kashyap has joined Jan Suraaj," the party wrote on X, sharing several photos showing party chief Kishor welcoming him into the party fold.
Kishor, who played a pivotal role in the BJP's successful poll campaign during the 2014 general elections as a strategist, heaped praise on Kashyap, who is known for raising issues of public interest despite political backlash.
"Manish Kashyap is not just a YouTuber for Jan Suraj, nor is he a former BJP leader, but he is a son of Bihar who has carved out his identity through his own strength, hard work, and wisdom, and wants to do something for the state," Kishor was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"Jan Suraj is a system that provides opportunities to every young man or individual who wants to contribute to Bihar. If he has joined Jan Suraaj, I see a significant role for him in playing a major part in this campaign for change in Bihar moving forward," he added.
This came a month after Kashyap quit the BJP, saying he felt let down by the party and suggested that his role within it had become ineffective.
In May, Kashyap had an altercation with junior doctors at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) when he reached there to plead for a patient, after which they allegedly locked him in a room and beat him.
"I couldn't protect myself while being in the BJP. How can I help others?' he said during a Facebook live session, explaining his reasons for stepping away.
Reacting to Kashyap joining his party, Prashant Kishor said that the coming together of the two young leaders will hold the key to JSP's poll campaign in the coming days.
"This is not just the coming together of two young men, but of thousands of youngsters who want to bring about a change in Bihar and get rid of the Lalu, Nitish and Modi rule. The forces who want Bihar to get rid of illiteracy, corruption, and economic exodus have come together," Prashant Kishor said while speaking to India Today TV.
The JPS chief said that the party is providing an opportunity to those who had no choice but to vote for the JDU, RJD and the BJP due to the lack of alternatives in the state.
While Prashant Kishor has constantly attacked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's government in Bihar and the RJD's past reigns, Kashyap has been at the receiving end of the backlash by respective governments for criticising them by raising issues of public interest, exposing civic and government apathy. JSP IN BIHAR ELECTIONS
Prashant Kishor, who launched his Jan Suraaj Party in October last year, has vowed that the JSP will contest all 243 seats in Bihar and will not join either the NDA alliance of the BJP, JDU and LJP or the Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and Left parties.
Over recent months, Kishor has raised his voice against illiteracy, unemployment, corruption, and crime in the state and has attacked the Nitish Kumar government for not being able to find a solution to them.
The 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls later this year, most likely in October or November. The term of the Bihar Assembly will conclude on November 22. Join our WhatsApp Channel
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26 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
Pahalgam's aftermath in Assam: Terror charges, jail for social media posts by Muslim men
Four years ago, a friend helped 23-year-old Sahadat Ali, a mechanic in Assam's Dhubri district, open a Facebook account. Ali, who works in a garage in Tamarhat market, told Scroll that besides watching videos on the social media website, he does not do much else. 'My phone is mostly used by my friends at the garage, who make calls and play games,' he said. On May 13, six days after India launched military strikes on alleged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan as part of Operation Sindoor, the police arrived at Ali's garage. The officials from Tamarhat police station showed him an allegedly objectionable post made from his phone. 'I told them that I did not share it and I'm not aware of it. But they took me away,' Ali told Scroll. In the first information report against Ali, sub-inspector Pradipt Daimary said he had received information that Ali had allegedly 'shared a post' that was derogatory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his Facebook account. It asked: 'Why is he asking for forgiveness now?' When Scroll asked Ali about the post, he said he did not know about it. Ali was booked for terrorism under Section 113 (3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, as well as Section 152, which replaced the charge of sedition in the Indian Penal Code. '[His] action not only endangers the peace and security of the nation, but also [the] sentiments of the citizens and promotes hostility,' the complaint said. The police told the court that Ali 'is anti-Indian and found speaking against Hindus and promoting hatred against the Hindu community'. They also accused him of supporting Pakistan-sponsored terrorist activists against India in Jammu and Kashmir. Ali ended up spending two months in prison for a post he claims he did not write. He was released on bail on July 16. Ali was among the 97 people arrested in Assam in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack for statements made on social media. This was part of a crackdown against 'anti-national and anti-Hindu culprits', the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on June 23. Two leaders from Assam's Opposition parties were among those arrested for alleging a conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre in the Pahalgam attack. One of them has been held under the National Security Act. An analysis of the names of those arrested, posted on social media by Sarma, reveals that over 90% were Muslims. It is not clear how many of the 97 are still in prison. Scroll tracked down nine of those cases in which Assam residents were arrested for 'anti-national' posts or statements. Of the nine first information reports we analysed, among the common sections was Section 152 that is invoked in cases involving 'acts exciting secession, armed rebellion and endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India'. In four of the cases, including Ali's, the Assam police invoked sections involving terrorism. Strikingly, in all cases but one, it was the Assam police that took suo motu action against the accused. In some cases, the accused were arrested for sharing a post, or even questioning whether the attackers in Pahalgam had actually singled out their victims by religion. In one instance, a PhD student was arrested for a post that criticised what he thought was misreporting on the attacks, even though he went on to condemn the killings of tourists in Kashmir. Scroll sent the Assam Police, with detailed queries about the number of people still in jail for such posts and allegations from the accused's families that their relatives were being framed. The article will be updated if they respond. Legal experts have questioned the police action, citing past orders that refused to consider saying 'Pakistan Zindabad' an offence. As recently as July 11, an Allahabad High Court dismissed a case of sedition against a resident of Uttar Pradesh, saying that 'merely showing support to Pakistan without referring to any incident or mentioning the name of India, will not prima facie attract the offence under Section 152 BNS'. Gauhati High Court advocate Dipesh Agarwala agreed. 'Merely posting on social media without any incitement for violence does not attract the ingredients of sedition,' he said. 'However, it becomes difficult to argue bail in these cases because most often it's not the law which decides the outcome but nationalistic sentiments.' Congress leader and senior advocate HRA Choudhury pointed out that it is not the first time that the Assam police has arrested people for mere Facebook posts. In August 2021, the police had arrested 16 people under the stringent anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 for Facebook posts allegedly 'supporting' the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Within two months, 14 of the 16 had been granted bail by lower courts due to lack of evidence. 'These are politically motivated [arrests] done for polarisation, to show Hindus that many Muslims are being arrested,' Choudhury said. 'He [Himanta] also knows these people will be freed. They are just victims of Hindutva politics.' 'Pakistan is a normal country' Among those slapped with a terror charge for an allegedly 'anti-national' Facebook post is Dhubri resident Arif Rahman. The 19-year-old was arrested on May 9 after a suo motu complaint was made by a police officer. Rahman was booked under a section invoked in cases of terrorism because he had posted an Instagram reel with a tagline, 'Pakistan is just a normal country', according to the first information report. Legal experts cautioned against such excessive police action without a proper inquiry. Agarwala, the High Court advocate, pointed out that the Supreme Court has laid out guidelines to 'prevent misuse of criminal law to stifle free expression' in cases involving speech, writing or expression. 'According to its order in the Imran Pratapgarhi vs State of Gujarat case, the court said the police must conduct a preliminary enquiry before registering an FIR,' he said. 'Also, the police cannot mechanically add offences. It must see if the act attracts the ingredients of the offences.' On June 6, Dhubri additional Sessions Judge SB Rahman granted Rahman bail after noting that 'no other incriminating material was recovered to establish the link with any terrorist organisation'. As the chargesheet in the case was already filed, he said no further investigation is required. However, the judge directed Rahman to appear before the investigation officer in the case and chant 'Jai Hind' three times in the morning for 21 days. 'The accused is also directed to make a video of the same and upload the said video on his personal Facebook account or any other social platform daily," the order said. A similar condition was imposed on another Dhubri resident, Abu Bin Miraz Uddin Sheikh, who was named in the same FIR as Rahman. Sheikh had allegedly celebrated the shooting down of 'five Indian jets' by Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. He was also booked under Section 113 (3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with terrorist acts. Terror charge for sharing a post On May 9, Gautam Chakrabarty, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, tagged the Assam police in a tweet. He was flagging the fact that a Facebook handle, 'Jobbur Islam', had shared 'posts in favour of Pakistan'. A day later, the police filed a suo motu complaint and registered a case against Mohammad Jabbur Islam, a resident of Biswanath district. The sub-inspector of Biswanath Charali police station alleged in the complaint that 'Islam had shared posts on social media like Facebook that are seditious, misleading, and potentially detrimental to the unity and Integrity of our nation'. Besides sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita dealing with sedition, the police had also booked Islam under a terror charge. The post for which Islam, a teacher, is in jail on a terror charge was originally posted by a handle called 'Bangladesh Jamiate Islami'. The handle had shared an image of a fallen aircraft with the text: 'They will come. If they do, there will be trouble. Pakistan Zindabad.' Islam had allegedly shared the post from his account. Lutfar, a relative of Islam, said he was not guilty. 'He did not write anything...a post from Bangladesh was shared from his account without his knowledge,' he said. The post is no longer visible on Islam's account, he said. Lutfar added: 'When I met him in jail, he told me he did not share it. He did not have any anti-national intentions or ill intention. Whenever I go to meet him, he only cries.' On June 16, Islam approached the Gauhati High Court for bail saying he had already spent 39 days in custody. Advocate TN Srinivasan, who represented him in court, said the period of detention undergone by Islam in custody should be taken as a ground to release the petitioner on bail. The High Court rejected the bail application stating that Islam was 'indulging in anti-India activities'. It added: 'Therefore, such persons do not deserve to be released on bail.' Two Facebook accounts, same name. A set-up? On May 17, almost a month after the Pahalgam terror attack, a 29-year-old man working with an architecture firm in Guwahati was picked up from his home by the Assam police. Two days earlier, Azad Imran Hussain had allegedly made a Facebook post that said 'Pakistan Zindabad'. Hussain was arrested for 'posting anti-national statements through his Facebook account which are in support of Pakistan', according to the case filed by the police before a local court. He was booked for sedition and promoting enmity between groups, among others. If convicted for sedition, Hussain could be imprisoned for life, or be sentenced to seven years in jail plus a fine. But his family insists that Hussain is being framed. 'My son's last post on Facebook was a video on interior design on July 24 last year,' his mother Rehena Aktar said. 'He has not put up a single post since then.' She alleged that the Facebook profile from which the objectionable post was made is impersonating Hussain and does not belong to him. 'The account from which 'Pakistan Zindabad' was posted is a fake account and it is not run by my son,' Aktar told Scroll. For the last two months, Aktar, who is in her 50s, has been going from police stations to courts, in order to secure her son's release from the Barpeta district jail. A district-level badminton player from Assam's Barpeta district, Hussain's Facebook account, which goes by the name of 'Azad Imran Hussain (Rupam)', identifies the user as a reel creator and has over 5,000 followers. However, the post for which he has been booked – 'Pakistan Zindabad' – is not on his Facebook profile. Scroll has confirmed that the last visible post on his profile was a video on interior design, as his mother has asserted. The post for which Hussain has been in prison for two months was made by another Facebook profile, with the name 'Azad Imran Hussain', his brother Rahul Azad alleged. 'The police could not differentiate between a fake and real Facebook account,' Azad alleged. 'This fake post has only 11 followers.' Hussain's family allege that his troubles are a fallout of a relationship that did not end well. Three years ago 'Hussain had married a girl but they got separated after staying together for a year', his mother Akter said. 'The marriage was not registered but had social sanction as both the families had accepted. But it did not work out.' Akter said the young woman's family had even filed a case against Hussain, in which he was acquitted. Hussain's relatives suspect that the woman's current boyfriend, Rashid Sheikh, also a Barpeta resident, created a fake account to frame him. Hussain has named Sheikh in a statement to the police, Akter said. 'Based on the statement, Sheikh was arrested,' Akter said. Sanidul, Sheikh's younger brother, confirmed to Scroll that he was arrested on May 22. 'The police said that he was arrested for some Facebook post made from his phone,' Sanidul said. He denied that his brother was involved in framing Hussain. In a complaint filed with the Assam cyber crime portal, Azad claimed that the fake Facebook account was created on May 15. Azad claimed that the account's settings were changed from public to private on May 17. 'On May 20, the account was all of a sudden deactivated,' Azad said in the complaint. 'My brother was in judicial custody [at the time] and his phone was seized. How come he could use that account when he was in judicial custody?' The Barpeta police have claimed that the cyber cell had identified the phone number linked to the Facebook account from which the posts were made to Hussain's. But Hussain's mother alleged that the police are yet to produce a forensic report on the post even two months later. 'That report will establish the device from which the post was created,' she said. A lawyer, who has represented many cyber crime cases, told Scroll that the report will establish the Facebook account from which the post was created, the URL of the post and the account and the phone number linked to the Facebook account. 'Anyone can be framed like this,' Azad told Scroll. 'Suppose a fake id is created in a police official's name and anti-national comments are made from the account. Does it prove that the official made those posts? Will you arrest the official?' Pranab Das, the inspector at Sorbhog police station in Barpeta district, who is the investigating officer in the case, told Scroll on July 15 that the case is under investigation and refused to share more information. 'We have not filed the chargesheet yet,' he said. 'This is what Muslims do' Soon after the Pahalgam attack on April 22, a post-graduate student from Barak Valley found his friends making scathing comments on Muslims on social media. 'They kept saying, 'This is what Muslims do,' the student told Scroll. 'It made me angry. It was a terrorist attack but it was being given a communal colour.' In a fit of rage, he took to Facebook to counter what he believed at the time was misinformation. 'They were sharing posts that Hindus were singled out in the attack after they were asked to say Islamic prayers or being asked their religion. But this information did not come from verified government agencies,' the student said. In his long post on Facebook, which used mildly abusive language, the student questioned why there was silence when 'Muslims are killed for not saying 'Jai Shri Ram' or eating beef or when men, women and children in Palestine are killed by Jews'. But he also added: 'I condemn this [Pahalgam] terror attack as much as I condemn those attacks [against Muslims].' A complaint against the post was filed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the Bharatiya Janata Party's student wing, and he was arrested from his home. The student got bail within 24 hours from a Silchar court. He had deleted the post and apologised on social media even before the police arrested him. 'He did not post any anti-India or pro-Pakistan statements,' a person who knows the student told Scroll. 'He has been taking medicine for anxiety and to control his anger since 2021.' 'He does not know how to write' Three days ahead of the panchayat elections in Assam, 33-year-old Shahidul Islam, a daily wager in Barpeta's Mandia Pathar village, stepped out to attend the election campaign of a relative, leaving his phone at home, according to his relatives. That day, May 4, the officer in charge of Barpeta police station received information from the district's cyber cell that a Facebook account in Islam's name had left several 'anti-national comments supporting Pakistan'. The inflammatory comment was mostly in Assamese, except for one sentence in English – 'I love Pakistan.' It was posted 25 times on different social media posts. A first information report was filed by sub-inspector Mintu Saikia of Barpeta police station and Islam was arrested from a market in Govindpur, after the account was found linked to his mobile phone. Islam was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita relating to acts inciting secession, hatred or contempt against the government, promoting enmity and jeopardizing the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, among others. The police complaint also accused Islam of 'motivating the youth nearby him to enroll in social media terrorism'. However, Islam's family disputed the police version. They claimed that he could not have made the comments because he is illiterate. 'He cannot read or write. He did not even pass Class 4,' his father Abdul Sattar said. 'We don't believe that he has written such a statement.' Islam's sister Jesmina Begum said, 'He uses the phone to upload videos of jaatra gaan [a form of folk theatre music] on Facebook and watch the news. But a few other friends also have access to the account.' She added: 'He won't even be able to read these comments, forget writing them.' However, the FIR alleged that Islam had confessed to writing the comment, a claim his family denies. 'That's a lie,' Sattar, the father, who met him in the jail, told Scroll. Islam has filed for bail. 'He is the only breadwinner of the house and he has been languishing in jail for almost two months,' his father said.
Indian Express
26 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Over 1,000 cops deployed ahead of next eviction drive in Assam, 2,000 families likely to be affected
The Assam government is gearing up to conduct one of its most high-decibel eviction exercises yet Tuesday, which is likely to affect more than 2,000 families in Eastern Assam's Golaghat district. Officials estimate that around 15,000 bighas (around 4900 acres) of land in the Rengma Reserve Forest in the Uriamghat area of Golaghat district in which around 2,700 families – mostly Bengali-origin Muslims — had been residing will be cleared of encroachment over two phases. The first phase, which will affect around 2,000 families, will be conducted Tuesday. 'The forest department has divided the area into nine blocks and the residents have been given notices to vacate the area in seven days. In preparation for the eviction, more than 1,500 forces including police, commandos and forest protection personnel have been deployed there,' said a district official. This will be the latest in a spate of evictions in the state, mostly affecting Bengali-origin Muslims, which the Assam government has called a means to stem 'demographic invasion' by 'people of one religion'. The Uriamghat eviction in particular has seen a two-week long campaign, led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, leading up to it with him holding it up as a prime case of Bengali Muslims from Central and Western Assam – where their population is concentrated – moving into Eastern Assam, which he has been declaring needs to be protected from 'demographic invasion'. He has stated that encroachers have cleared forests in this area for widespread betel nut cultivation. 'More than 90% of the people have already cleared their possessions and left. Apart from Bengali Muslims, 42 Manipuri Muslim and 92 Nepali families have also been asked to evacuate from the area,' BJP's Sarupathat MLA Biswajit Phukan, in whose constituency the eviction will take place, told The Indian Express on accusations of the eviction being a targeted exercise. He went on to say: 'There are 150 Bodo families who also live, but they will not be evicted since they have forest rights certificates in line with the 2006 Forest Rights Act. Representatives from the All Assam Minority Students Union also met the Chief Minister when he visited the site last week and the government will consider giving lawful compensation if there are families who were there before 1971, but first the eviction will have to be done'. In anticipation of the eviction, the Nagaland government has also gone into high alert in the past week. The affected area is located along the Assam-Nagaland border and the Nagaland government has stationed police and district administration personnel along the border in a bid to prevent evicted people from entering the state. On Sunday, the Niki Sumi faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), added another layer to the matter by issuing a statement alleging that the eviction is being used by the Assam government for a 'well-planned and precisely executed plan' to 'occupy' and permanently station police personnel on disputed land along the inter-state border.
Indian Express
26 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Goa tourism minister's latest grievance: ‘People from Delhi… who bought second homes here during Covid'
'Unregistered homestays' being operated from residential units purchased by people from Delhi and other states are being misused for renting out to tourists, Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte on Monday said, flagging these as a 'concern' for the state's tourism sector. The issue was raised during Zero Hour in the legislative assembly by BJP MLA Michael Lobo. Lobo, who represents Calangute constituency, said that many units that were originally purchased as 'second homes' within residential complexes are being illegally leased out for holiday rentals through the online aggregators, alleging that they often attract 'unruly' tourists and cause inconvenience to residents. 'There is a growing concern among Goans regarding illegal homestays in buildings and unregistered homes and estates. This unregulated activity is causing anxiety among the residents and raising concerns of safety, security and infrastructure strain. In buildings, if there are 50 flats, ten are given on rent for short-term holidays. No one keeps a track of who moves in and out. They drink in the common spaces [of the building complex]…play loud music,' Lobo said. Lobo added, 'I urge the government to take decisive action to crackdown against unauthorised homestays and ensure strict enforcement of registration norms and protect the interests of residents.' Tourism Minister Khaunte said the department is actively monitoring accommodations listed on online travel agency platforms to ensure they are registered with the authorities. 'We are keeping a regular watch on accommodations listed on online travel agencies. The government has ensured that all the inventory of hotel rooms and guest houses is registered with the tourism department. The issue is…that people from Delhi and other places who bought second homes here during Covid. Tourists come and stay in those homes and residential buildings. We have no details of these registrations. This is a serious issue because we are losing business [to unregulated and unregistered guest houses],' he said. He said that 'many second homes and residential buildings are being misused for tourist stays without informing the authorities.' 'The people who come to these second homes and operate them as tourist accommodations often do so without proper registration. This needs to be addressed on priority,' said Khaunte. The Minister said the government will work towards finding a sustainable solution that protects the interests of both residents and the tourism sector. Khaunte added, 'The Registrar of Cooperative Societies should be taken into confidence. Societies must remain alert and are encouraged to call the tourism department's toll-free number 1364 to report unregulated stays. The department is in continuous coordination with municipalities and panchayats to address this issue.' Goa government notified the 'Homestay and Bed and Breakfast Policy' to standardise services to tourists through homestays and Bed and Breakfast [B&Bs] establishments in December 2023. The objective of the policy was to streamline registration and to regulate the operation of homestays and B&Bs and augment the supply of accommodation units to cater to the growing demand in the state. Its primary focus was intended to promote tourism in the hinterland talukas of the state. According to data shared in the assembly last year, at least 230 homestays and Bed and Breakfast establishments have been registered with the Department of Tourism in the state.
