'Dhanbad Police of Jharkhand has registered a case against more than 3,000 people on Tuesday under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including the law against sedition (124 A) for their involvement in a protest against the the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens... Notably, no violence and obstruction was reported during the protest. In fact, there is no mention of the same in the complaint. While there is a mention of inflammatory slogans, it does not go into what those slogans were.
'In its first decision, the Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand on Sunday dropped all cases filed against supporters of the Pathalgadi movement in 2017 and 2018, The Indian Express reported. The Pathalgadi movement started in 2017, when stone monoliths engraved with provisions of the Indian Constitution began to be installed in the villages of Khunti. The engravings highlighted the special autonomy granted to Adivasi areas under the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
'From 37 in the last assembly polls to merely 25, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s numbers in the Jharkhand assembly are headed for a steep fall. Since all BJP victories are automatically attributed by the party to Narendra Modi’s popularity, will the prime minister come forward to take the blame? Or will it be yet another case when the saffron party will make Raghubar Das, the first non-Adivasi chief minister of the state, the scapegoat?
'The Jharkhand assembly elections results suggest that the aggressive and extensive campaigning done by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party leaders Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath did not work in the party’s favour. According to media reports, in total the three leaders addressed as many as 32 election rallies in different parts of the state during the assembly election campaign. However, the BJP’s election performance suggests these rallies did not always serve their purpose...'
[Yet again, when the BJP loses an election, they question EVMs. If the ruling party, which won the Lok Sabha elections so convincingly, does not trust EVMs, then why should we trust the outcome of that election? After all, the BJP comprehensively controlled all the state machinery before the LS elections of 2019 - so if anybody could tamper with EVMs (or other associated devices like VVPAT), then they could.]
'As Jharkhand votes – in five phases from 30 November to December 20 and results on December 23 – to elect a new government, some of the state’s poorest citizens cannot access food grains due to a drive between 2014 and 2018 to weed out fake beneficiaries from the PDS. The solution has entailed a dependence on technology that shuts out beneficiaries, sometimes illegally... Of the state’s 33 million people, 71% or 23.3 million, are directly dependent on the PDS system. In the past five years, the PDS system has often failed the state’s most vulnerable.
'Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday reiterated BJP-led Centre's commitment to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country, adding that a grand Ram temple will be built in Ayodhya at the birthplace of 'Ramlala'. Singh was addressing an election rally in Jharkhand's Bokaro when he made the statement. Polls are ongoing in the state and the first phase has already concluded on Saturday. Speaking on the NRC, Singh said, "We will implement NRC across all states of the country. Every Indian has a right to know who the illegal immigrants are in their land.
'...The two candidates with the highest number of cases filed against them are both from the BJP. Both face murder charges. BJP’s Panki candidate Kushwaha Shashi Bhushan Mehta has 11 cases filed against him, including murder, attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, evidence tampering, and undue influence and personation at an election.
'The rampant issue of mob lynchings is absent from electoral campaigns of political parties in poll-bound Jharkhand – a state that has of late become infamous for the violence of rampaging mob. The state has witnessed 22 such killings between March 18, 2016 and September 22, 2019, for alleged smuggling or slaughtering of cows and over child-lifting rumours. It is also of concern that barring a few incidents of mob lynching, most incidents have occurred in remote rural or small town areas.
'A writ petition challenging mass sedition cases against Adivasis in Jharkhand’s Khunti district has been filed in the state High Court. The petition, filed in August by lawyer Sunil Vishwakarma on behalf of a newly formed village organisation called the Adivasi Nyay Manch, has asked for the cases to be transferred to a special investigation agency. As reported by Scroll.in, at least 10,000 Adivasis who participated in the Pathalgadi movement have been charged with sedition in 14 FIRs filed by the district police in 2017 and 2018.
