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Issue of terrorism is boiling among the political parties also. Congress hit BJP on the subject blaming the deaths of hundreds of Indians at the hands of terrorists were “soiled with the blood of BJP”.

BJP, earlier, targeted Congress on the issue and charged the party for going soft on terrorists. Now its turn to Congress, who raked up the Kandahar episode, recalling the release of three terrorists, including Maulana Masood Azhar, by the then NDA government in exchange for hijacked air passengers.

“Maulana Azhar after his release set up Jaish-e-Mohammed, which killed hundreds of people on this side of the border”, Congress spokesperson Kapil Sibal said.

“The Congress party can legitimately say that responsibility for deaths of hundreds of Indians, soldiers and civilians are soiled with the blood of BJP”, he said.

Blaming the BJP party, he added that if those terrorists had not been released, these terror acts would not have happened.

“You (BJP) released terrorists to the market”, Sibal said and accused the BJP of not “walking the talk” while “talking tough on terrorism”.

Charging the BJP with “double-speak`, he asked: “Where is the white-paper on terrorism that they (BJP) promised to release?”

Terrorism is a very critical issue for any country. Terror attacks are increasing day by day in India. Accusing each other will not give any solution to this critical issue. It is the responsibility of government to keep the citizens secure in every part of the country. Instead of blaming each other, government should use its energy to take necessary action to cease this problem. People should also be aware of their surrounding to avoid any mishappening of terrorist attack by giving intelligence inputs and forecasts to prevent any militants’ fabricated disasters.

Tags: BJP, Congress, India, Indians, NDA, Terrorism

The opposition NDA’s silent protest against Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s recent decision has worked as Chatterjee withdraws the notice referring 32 MPs, mostly from the BJP, to the Privileges Committee for their “unruly behavior”. Please see “Lok Sabha Speaker refers cases of 32 MPs to Privileges Committee!” for more information.

NDA on Monday decided to remain silent in the Lok Sabha for fours days beginning today as they termed this decision unfair. The decision was taken after the Lok Sabha was resumed followed by abrupt adjourn by the speaker till 2 pm today.

The alliance’s leaders had decided to remain silent in the Lok Sabha for fours days beginning today to protest against the decision referring to 32 leaders.

A meeting was held to resolve the issue where Chatterjee reportedly said that he was withdrawing the notice after MPs assured him of smooth conduct of the House.

Opposition leader L K Advani and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee formally urged him to do so and assured the Speaker that the Lower House would function smoothly without any disruptions. Chatterjee, on his part, said that he had taken the decision to refer the MPs to the Privileges Committee to ensure orderly conduct in the House. He also thanked Mukherjee and Advani for the assurance.

The adjournment came as Samajwadi Party leader Ramji Lal Suman sought to raise the issue of controversial anti-North Indian statements made by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray.

TDP leader K Yerrannaidu was also raised the issue of recent fire in the Guntur market, which destroyed produce worth crores of rupees.

Besides upsetting the BJP and its allies like the Shiv Sena, the Speaker`s action had also drawn flak from Samajwadi Party which said the chair was “neither a monarch, nor the members his subjects”.

Shiv Sena, a key constituent of NDA, whose two members have also been proceeded against, said that there was no question of being apologetic about raising a “burning” issue affecting the people.

Repeated disruptions in the House were seen and the immediate provocation was the incidents of April 24, which saw opposition members storming the well shouting slogans without paying heed to the chair.

Tags: Advani, BJP, India, Lok Sacha, NDA, Samajwadi Party, Somnath Chatterjee

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday dropped 10 of his ministers inducting 19 new ones in their place to improve the performance of his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. It is his first reshuffle during his 28 month long ministry since November 2005.

Eight among the ten dropped ministers belonged to JD(U). Those ministers include Rural Development Minister Vaidyanath Mahto, Building Construction and Housing Minister Monajir Hasan, Youth, Art and Culture Minister Janardan Sigrawal, Welfare Minister Rameshwar Paswan, Minister of State for Food, Supply and Commerce Suchitra Devi, Minister of State for Information and Public Relations Arjun Rai, Minister of State for Transport Ajit Kumar, Minister of State for Minority Welfare Manjar Alam and Minor Water Resources Minister Vishwa Mohan Kumar.

While the other two were Health Minister Chandra Mohan Rai and Arts and Culture Minister Janardan Singh Sirgriwal from BJP.

Governor R.S. Gavai administered the oath of office to the 17 new cabinet ministers and two ministers of state at Raj Bhawan in Patna.

Of the 17 cabinet ministers sworn-in, Renu Devi, Giriraj Singh, Bhola Prasad Singh, Ramnarayan Mandal and Awadhesh Narain Singh are from BJP, while Nagmani, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Chedi Paswan, Dinesh Prasad, Damodar Rawat, Ramanandan Singh, Harinarayan Singh, Shahid Ali Khan, Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha, Dinesh Chandra Yadav, Rampravesh Rai and Hari Prasad Sao from JD(U).

Jamshed Ashraf of JD(U) and Vyasdeo Prasad of BJP took oath as ministers of state.

The strength of the council of ministers has now gone up from 27 to 36.

Tags: Bihar, BJP, CM, JDU, NDA, Nitish Kumar

The National Democratic Alliance will cancel all the schemes being implemented by the United Progressive Alliance Govt. leaded by Manmohan Singh, to “appease a particular community”. The BJP has said that if NDA will come into power then it will cancel the minority appeasement schemes implemented by UPA.

BJP president Rajnath Singh told PTI in an interview that “If NDA comes to power at the Centre in the coming Lok Sabha polls, we will cancel all those schemes announced by the UPA government on the basis of religion to appease a certain section”.

According to BJP the welfare schemes announced by the UPA Govt. to provide benefit to a particular community is dangerous for the country and NDA will revert all the schemes if they came to power.

“We will not give scholarship to somebody on the basis of whether he is Muslim or Christian. Our welfare measures will be based on economic condition of the people,” Rajnath Singh said, strongly criticizing certain schemes in this year’s union budget.

Though there is one thing that BJP president is confident that NDA will come back to powers and will make the next Govt.

Tags: Centre, India, NDA, Union Budget, UPA

Former Defence Minister George fernandes described as an ‘error’ the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s decision to recognize Tibet as a part of China and commented China as “potential threat number one” to India. He also criticized United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to dispensation for allowing it to be “bullied”.

While showing his concern and anger over the matter of Tibet crisis and India’s response to it, Fernandes said that the Olympic Torch should not be allowed to enter India. Regarding the efforts in this direction he asked his “colleagues” and others to make “whatever effort” to prevent the flame’s run in this country.

Over the matter of India’s decision to recognize Tibet as part of China during the previous Atal Bihari Vajpayee government he said, “It was not a mistake but an error. It should not have been done.”

Commenting on the recent incident of Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao being summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry past midnight, Fernandes said New Delhi had “surrendered” over the issue.

Rao was summoned past midnight to register concern over breach of security at Chinese Embassy in New Delhi.

When asked whether India was being “bullied” by China, he replied “absolutely, and it accepts it.”

Tags: China, Fernandes, India, NDA, Olympic, Tibet, UPA