NEW DELHI: Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of Bengal, today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time since he took power in May.
Ms Banerjee said she had asked the prime minister to waive Bengal’s debts but sources say she got no assurance from him.

“The huge debt burden left on us, as a legacy of the previous Government, has made West Bengal No.1 debt-stressed State in the country,” Ms Banerjee tweeted after the meeting.

Barring an accidental encounter at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in December, Ms Banerjee has avoided PM Modi in the past 10 months, not even sending a representative to the first meeting in February of the Niti Aayog, which has replaced the Planning Commission.

Her meeting with PM Modi was seen as significant in the middle of the government’s last-ditch attempts to bring the opposition on board on its controversial land bill, which it wants to push in Parliament this week.

But Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress remained firmly opposed to the bill, which the opposition says is anti-farmer.

“We are against the forceful land acquisition bill,” said Ms Banerjee, whose spectacular rise to power in Bengal was credited to her agitation against land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram.

“Your government is by the corporate, of the corporate, for the Corporate,” shouted her party lawmaker Kalyan Banerjee in the Lok Sabha.

Sources say the government is reaching out to smaller parties in a bid to splinter opposition unity and isolate the Congress, which said today that it would not back any changes to its 2013 Land Act.

New Delhi: Removal of senior leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) will be discussed in the AAP’s National Council meeting later in March, party sources said.
The National Council, which has around 300 members is supposed to meet once every year. This year, the NC will meet on March 28.

“Many issues including removal of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the PAC will be discussed in the meeting. There are some other administrative issues, which is also likely to come up for discussion.

“However, there will be more clarity in what the agenda will be after Arvind (Kejriwal) comes back from Bengaluru,” sources said.

The Delhi Chief Minister is on a 10-day break and is seeking naturo-therapy at Bengaluru, owing to persistent high sugar level.

Bhushan and Yadav were voted out from the PAC in the National Executive meeting held last week after a section of the party alleged that they wanted to remove party chief Arvind Kejriwal from the post of the National Convenor.
The National Council is the third most important body in the party after all powerful Political Affairs Committee and the National Executive.

The last NC meet, held here in February last year, saw a heated debate over former minister Somnath Bharti courting controversy after leading a vigilante midnight raid on a Delhi colony and demanding that certain resident Africans be arrested for drug-racketeering.

Mumbai: A day after it threatened to corner the Maharshtra government over Muslim reservation in the ensuing budget session of the state legislature, Opposition parties today stepped up its attack on the BJP saying the decision to scrap the minority quota exposes the “communal” face of the party.

While Congress said that BJP’s decision on Muslim reservation has shown that it has been working with a certain “hidden agenda”, NCP said it is a ploy to consolidate the party’s votebank and that they do not understand the social realities of the minority community.

“The decision do away with Muslim reservation, which was agreed upon by the last government and the Bombay High Court is very unfortunate. It shows the real face of the communal forces on whose behalf the decision has been taken,” Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil told PTI.

“By doing away with the reservation, the government has shown its hidden agenda. The Congress has been consistently demanding reservations be implemented for Muslim community which has been agreed upon by the court and we will definitely take this issue up in the Assembly session,” he said.

Former Maharashtra cabinet minister and NCP leader Jitendra Awhad said, “The message is loud and clear that they want to polarise the whole issue and send a message that we only care for people who vote for us. Muslims have not voted for this communal party from the last 60 years. They have failed to understand the social realities of the Muslims.

“All three committees – Sachar, Ranganath Mishra and Mohammed Ur Rehman – have categorically stated in their reports that the financial, social and educational conditions of Muslims are worse than that of Dalits. It is just a game played to consolidate their votebank,” he said.

PTI

What I witnessed is that when I heard that he wasn`t campaigning, I went to meet him and to tell him to leave aside all grievances, as it was very important for the AAP to win the polls in Delhi. here, he said, `it is essential for the AAP to lose Delhi. It was very shocking for me,” she told ANI here.

“A lady client was there who told Prashant Bhushan that there were some workers from South India who would like to come for the campaigning. But then Prashantji, infront of me, said that he himself was not campaigning, and so there was no need for anyone to come. How could he tell this in front of his juniors and everyone?” she added.

Damania also said that it was Prashant Bhushan who wanted to make Yogendra Yadav the national convener.

“What I had heard is that Prashantji wanted that, if the AAP gets 20-22 seats in the Delhi polls, then Arvind would be replaced as convener, and instead, Yogendra Yadav would be given the post. This is what I had heard,” she added.

ANI

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and national executive member Mayank Gandhi has strongly objected to the way senior PAC leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan were removed from the PAC.
In an aggressive blog, Gandhi said he decided to go by his conscious and break the National Executive diktat of not speaking to anyone outside about what transpired in Wednesday’s meeting.

Describing himself as a disciplined soldier of the party, Mayank Gandhi said that the removal of both Yadav and Bhushan from the PAC went against the volunteer spirit of the AAP, and was downright dishonest in both thinking as well as in action.

“My presence in the National Executive is only as a representative of the volunteers. And I would be dishonest to accept the gag order. The volunteers cannot be removed from the equation; they are the source of the party. Rather than get information from selective leaks and stray statements, I have decided to give some factual details of the meeting in the public domain,” Gandhi said in his blog.

He said that he was warned about disciplinary action being taken against him if he revealed anything about Wednesday’s national executive meeting.

He said, “My first allegiance is to the higher truth.”

Gandhi said that during the Delhi campaign, Prashant Bhushan had threatened multiple times that he will hold press conference against the party, because of his concerns on candidate selection, but the threat was staved off till the elections.

“It was alleged that Yogendra Yadav was conspiring against Arvind and some evidences were produced. There were also operational irreconcilable differences and trust deficit between AK, PB and YY,” he added.

He confirmed that Kejriwal had said that he would not be able to work as convenor as long as both Bhushan and Yadav were part of the PAC.

He said that Yadav had said that he understood that Kejriwal did not want them in PAC, and had suggested that while both should not be singled out, two formulas could be considered to resolve existing differences.

That the PAC be reconstituted and new PAC members be elected through voting. PB and YY will not put their candidature. That PAC continues to function in the present form and YY and PB would not attend any of the meetings.

Gandhi said that Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others conferred with the Delhi team of Ashish Khetan, Asutosh, Dilip Pandey and others, and they proposed a resolution that Yadav and Bhushan be removed from the PAC.

This, Gandhi said, was seconded by Sanjay Singh.

Gandhi said that he abstained from the voting process citing two contrary reasons

1. Arvind needs a smooth working in the PAC. So, I agreed that PB and YY may be out of PAC and take some alternate important roles.

2. I was taken aback by the resolution of removing them publicly, especially as they themselves were willing to leave. Also, this decision to sack them was against the overwhelming sentiments of volunteers from all over the world.

“So, while I agreed that they can step down from the PAC, the manner and intention behind the resolution was not acceptable. Hence, the decision to abstain,” Gandhi said.

“This is not a revolt, nor is this some publicity ploy. I will not go to the press. There may be some repercussions overt and covert against me. So be it,” added Gandhi.

ANI

New Delhi: The resignation of Arvind Kejriwal from the post of AAP’s National Convener, which “still stands”, will be discussed at today’s National Executive meet where the party will take a call on the fate of senior leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan.

PTI

Patna: After a gap of one year, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday resumed his public interaction programme which aims at solving people’s problem on the spot.

PTI

Mumbai: Hitting out at AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for demanding reservation for Muslims in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena Tuesday said that if the minority leader wants his demands to be met on religious grounds, then he should go to Pakistan and try his antics there.

PTI