oppn parties BJP Becoming Mirror Image Of Congress

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
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BJP Becoming Mirror Image Of Congress

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

Having attained a brute majority in the Lok Sabha through popular mandate, the BJP is itching to acquire a majority in the Rajya Sabha too. If left to electoral ways, it will take another year for the NDA to achieve that. But the BJP is impatient as it knows major reforms cannot be carried out without a majority in the upper house.

So what does the party do? It has started poaching MPs from other parties. First, four Telugu Desam MPs switched colours and then the single MP of the Lok Dal did likewise. Now, Neeraj Shekhar, son of former PM Chandra Shekhar, left the Samajvadi party and joined the BJP. Since he cannot do so as per the Anti-Defection law, he had to resign from his Rajya Sabha seat. To compound the problems of SP and Akhilesh Yadav, some reports say that all the remaining 12 Rajya Sabha MPs of the SP are in talk with the BJP to switch sides. If that happens, the SP will be wiped out of the parliament and the NDA will get a majority in a jiffy.

But is this ethical? The BJP and the turncoats might say that every person has the right to reconsider his or her political views and join the party he thinks best as long as he or she does not break the law. But it is clear from the goings-on that horse trading is taking place on a large scale all over the country. Not satisfied with the huge mandate and almost achieving its goal of Congress-mukt India, the BJP now wants to rid the country of other parties as well.

But the party must remember that what goes around comes around too. It has its own example at hand. The party was reduced to just 2 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984. But it has managed to come back strongly and has got a historic second term now. Hence, it should desist from employing underhand tactics and follow democratic norms to serve the people. It does not behove the party to use the same methods employed by the Congress for the last 7 decades, especially as it wants the country to be rid of the Congress. Just removing the Congress from legislatures will not do, the BJP has to remove the ugly Congress culture. But its actions prove that the having got power, the party is no longer interested in that. In fact, the party is embracing the same culture to become a right-wing mirror image of the Congress.