QBullet: Amit Shah to Meet NDA Allies; Karnataka Cabinet Expansion
Here are the top headlines of the day.
1. Amit Shah Lines up Meetings With Allies as BJP Shifts to Outreach Mode
Amidst rumblings within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and a setback in the recent bypolls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah will reach out to key allies of the party including the Shiromani Akali Dal and the disgruntled Shiva Sena over this week.
The meetings come against the backdrop of the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) outmanoeuvring the BJP to form the government in Karnataka and the efforts of opposition parties to cobble together a broad-based coalition against the Narendra Modi government for next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
Shah will be in Mumbai on Wednesday, 6 June, as part of the ongoing “Sampark for Samarthan” (Contact for Support) initiative and meet Shiva Sena chief Uddhav Thackreya at the latter’s residence. He will travel to Punjab on Thursday to meet SAD patriarch Prakash Singh Badal and former Punjab deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal.
The date for Shah’s meeting with Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar has not been finalised.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
2. Karnataka Cabinet Expand, But JD(S), Congress to Leave Vacancies
Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy will carry out the first expansion of the Cabinet on Wednesday, 6 June, but neither the Congress nor the Janata Dal (Secular) will fill up all the berths while the lone Bahujan Samaj Party MLA N Mahesh is set to take oath as a minister.
The oath-taking ceremony, two weeks after Kumaraswamy took charge, is set to take place at 2:12pm at the Governor’s residence, which is an ‘auspicious time’, a senior Congress leader said.
The two parties had decided to split the 34 ministries in the ratio of 2:1. As a result, the Congress will get 22 ministries and the JD(S) 12, including the chief minister’s post.
Neither the Congress nor the JD(S) has revealed the names of the MLAs set to take oath or their portfolios.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
3. Court Admits Charges Against Shashi Tharoor, Summons Him on 7 July
A Delhi court took cognisance on Tuesday, 5 June, of the charges of abetment of suicide and cruelty against Shashi Tharoor in the case of the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. The court found "sufficient ground" to proceed against the Congress MP, summoning him on 7 July.
On the last date of hearing, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal had heard Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava, who sought cognisance of the charge sheet filed under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) and 498A (cruelty) against Tharoor.
(Source: The Times of India)
4. Incitement to Violence, Propaganda on Social Media Akin to Waging War: HC
Declining bail to an alleged member of terror group Babbar Khalsa International, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that propaganda and incitement to violence on social media is equivalent to collecting men for waging war against the Government of India, as defined under IPC Section 122.
The High Court made this observation while ruling against the bail plea of Arvinder Singh, a resident of Pallian Khurd in Nawanshahr, who was arrested in May 2016. The FIR against him said he had arrived from Doha in Qatar seven-eight months earlier, and was recruiting youth for “terrorist activities.”
The FIR stated Arvinder had been in touch with Pakistan-based BKI activists while in Doha where he had gone for employment in 2011.
(Source: The Indian Express)
5. Rahul’s Mandsaur Rally to Kickstart Congress’ MP Election Campaign
Congress president Rahul Gandhi will hold a rally in Piplya Mandi town near Mandsaur on Wednesday afternoon, 6 June, to honour six farmers killed in police firing in June 2017, a move that positions farm distress as one of the party’s main poll planks in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly election.
Madhya Pradesh will go to the polls along with two other BJP-ruled states – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh – in the latter half of the year.
The Piplya Mandi rally is expected to kickstart the Congress’ election campaign in the state, where the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has been on the backfoot over the deaths of the farmers in Mandsaur on 6 June last year.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
6. Madhya Pradesh: Congress-BSP Pact Would've Denied BJP 41 Seats in 2013
As the Congress and BSP negotiate the contours of a possible seat-sharing deal ahead of three crucial Assembly elections, a pooling of votes polled in the 2013 Madhya Pradesh Assembly election show that the BJP tally would have reduced by 41 seats had the Congress and BSP come together.
While the BJP would have still formed government in MP, the BJP tally in Chhattisgarh would have reduced by 11 seats and the Congress-BSP alliance would have been in a position to form the government. And in Rajasthan, the BJP’s tally could have decreased by nine seats.
The BSP had contested 227 of the 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh in 2013 and won four with a vote share of 6.42 percent. Incidentally, the difference in vote share between the BJP and Congress was 8.4 per cent. Then, the BJP had won 165 seats, while the Congress secured 58.
If the total votes polled by the Congress and BSP in every MP Assembly segment in the state are pooled, the two parties would have won 103 seats — that’s a difference of 41 Assembly seats.
(Source: The Indian Express)
7. Army Will Abide by Govt Peace Plan: Nirmala Sitharaman
The decision to suspend military operations in Jammu and Kashmir during the month of Ramzan was a government decision and would be respected by all, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday, 5 June.
“It was the Government of India’s decision, and we all abide by it,” she said when asked whether the Army was consulted before the decision was taken. The Home Ministry had announced the suspension of operations against militants during Ramzan, starting 17 May.
However, Sitharaman said while the Defence Ministry respected the announcement made by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, there was room for retaliation, if attacked. “It is our duty to keep our borders safe. We shall be alert and ensure that no unprovoked attacks go without our responding,” she said.
(Source: The Hindu)
8. Muzaffarnagar Riots: Court Rejects Clean Chit for Six Accused
In a twist to Kawal village murder case, which had triggered riots in Muzaffarnagar in 2013, a local court on Tuesday, 5 June, trashed the clean chit given by Special Investigation Team (SIT) to the six accused and directed them to surrender before it.
Shahnawaz, 25, was stabbed to death on 27 August, 2013, in Kawal village, allegedly by a group of eight persons in a group clash. Soon after the murder, a crowd caught two of the attackers and lynched them. Remaining six accused had managed to escape.
At least 63 people died and over 50,000 were displaced in the riots that followed.
(Source: The Times of India)
9. World Bank Asks Pakistan to Stop Pursuing Water Dispute With India at ICA
The World Bank (WB) has asked Pakistan to stop pursuing the Kishanganga dam dispute in the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) and instead accept India’s offer of appointing a “neutral expert.”
The Pakistani daily Dawn reported on Tuesday, 5 June, that the World Bank president Jim Yong Kim had last week advised the government to not take the matter to the ICA. Incidentally, the bank had on November 10, 2016, even picked a US chief justice, the rector of Imperial College, London, and the WB president to appoint a chairman of the court to resolve the dispute over the dam.
Pakistan had opposed the construction of Kishanganga dam, considering it a violation of a World Bank-mediated treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus and its tributaries.
New Delhi believes that the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) allows it to build ‘run-of-river’ hydel projects that do not change the course of the river and do not deplete the water level downstream.
(Source: The Times of India)
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