'Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched a door-to-door campaign in Madhya Pradesh to drum up support for the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) and the National Population Register (NPR), it has been unable to quell discontent brewing among its own workers. The anger was apparent when two senior office-bearers of the Madhya Pradesh BJP Minority Cell resigned from the party in protest against CAA-NPR-NRC. Now, many of their colleagues have decided to follow suit and plan to hold a meeting on January 11 to discuss ‘en masse’ resignations from the party.
' On 27 December, members of the minority morcha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra held a press conference in Latur. Its district chief, Afzal Khan, and former mayor Akhtar Shaikh released the following statement at the event: “The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) are against the Constitution and against the Muslims. There’s injustice happening to our community.
'...Even the Bharatiya Janata Party’s own allies have expressed reservations about its willingness to bring in this divisive law, and follow it up with an NRC process that many fear will be a tool to harass Muslims... The Asom Gana Parishad, the BJP’s chief partner in Assam, after voting for the Act in Parliament, has done a u-turn and will now not only oppose it but is also party to the legal challenge against the law in the Supreme Court.
'Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the national trade union affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has come out against the government’s labour reforms, saying the proposed law against the interest of workers. The government tabled the Industrial Relations Code, 2019 in the Parliament on Thursday. The Bill seeks to offer a slew of benefits to industries by curtailing compliance burden as well as employee benefits.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday defended his party’s decision to field Pragya Singh Thakur as its candidate from Bhopal, saying it was a symbolic response to those who falsely labelled the glorious Hindu civilisation as “terrorist”. Modi accused the Congress party for creating “false narratives” on saffron terror. However, there was a time when the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of Modi’s party, had tried to distance itself from the “activities” of Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit and his associates, which included Thakur.
'Bihar has meshed into London, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi under fire from both ends. Protests against his visit have taken over the headlines in London, while the dissidents led by the old guard blaming him and BJP president Amit Shah directly for the defeat, have occupied the media spotlights at home. The Bihar defeat has impacted on the UK visit with the British media joining the world in highlighting this, and recalling the Hindutva generated violence, and PM Modi’s own Gujarat record.
'The Advani-Vajpayee years of leading the NDA coalition offer significant memories of how the duo outmanoeuvred the RSS and K Sudarshan, the then chief of the BJP's ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS. Despite knowing Advani's ambition of becoming Prime Minister, the Sangh chose a man with a liberal face for the top job while Advani was left to play second fiddle; the RSS wanted the duality to exist for the sake of balancing its own power game.
'Shiv Sena’s reprehensible attack on Observer Research Foundation’s Sudheendra Kulkarni yesterday (October 12), for organising former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch in Mumbai, is another step back for a party desperately trying to remain relevant both to its voting constituency as well as in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Maharashtra. Last week, it threatened to violently disrupt noted ghazal singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai, scaring the organiser into cancelling the event.
'The senior Supreme Court lawyer, who was in Patna to lend his support to veterans fighting for OROP, said the BJP did nothing to bring back black money, and had it done so, it would have been able to meet the demands of ex-servicemen.
'RSS ideologue and former BJP general secretary KN Govindacharya has hit out at the Narendra Modi government for shielding ministers who are facing allegations of corruption and impropriety. Speaking to The Hindu, Govindacharya said the central government’s support to such ministers “speaks of the political dishonesty of the establishment”. He slammed the NDA government led by Modi by calling it “power-centric”. It is a “a power-centric, not people-centric government in which issues and values have been given a goodbye”, Govindacharya told the national daily in an interview.
