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13 - 19 August 2022
Dhankhar elected India's 14th Vice-President NDA nominee Jagdeep Dhankhar was on Saturday elected as the 14th Vice- President of India, defeating joint opposition candidate Margaret Alva after securing 528 votes against his rival’s tally of 182. Though the outcome of the vice-presidential contest was a foregone conclusion, Dhankhar’s victory was rich in symbolism as it signalled the continued dominance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP, with all key constitutional posts - President, VicePresident (who is also ex-officio Rajya Sabha Chairman) and Lok Sabha Speaker - held by the party. It also dealt a body blow to the anti-BJP camp, which had pitched the VP polls as a battle of ideolo-
Narendra Modi and Jagdeep Dhankhar
gies between “Constitution keepers and those who undermine it”, and whose claim to a grand oppo-
sition unity came apart in the runup to the contest when Mamata Banerjee’s TMC broke ranks and
decided to abstain from voting. Dhankar, 71, swept the polls with 72. 8% of the 725 valid votes cast, his wining margin of 346 votes being the highest in the last six vice-presidential polls since 1997. The record of the highest winning margin still remains with K R Narayanan, who got 700 of the 701 votes cast in 1992 against independent candidate Kaka Joginder Singh, alias “Dharti Pakad”. Unlike incumbent Venkaiah Naidu, who demits office on August 10, Dhankhar is not a blueblooded saffronite but drifted to BJP after starting his political career with Lok Dal and then having a stint in Congress.
The former Bengal governor’s victory came on the back of support from the NDA parties, which account for 441 MPs, five nominated members and non-NDA parties, including Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal, Jagan Mohan Reddy’ s YSR Congr ess, Mayawati’ s Bahujan Samaj Party, Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, Akali Dal and the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena, which together accounted for a total of 81 MPs. Alva, on the other hand, had to settle for a significantly lower tally of 182, accounting for a paltry 25.1% of the valid votes cast. The opposition camp, incidentally, was expecting over 200 votes for Alva.
Nitish Kumar quits NDA, joins hands with RJD Continued from page 1 This time, Kumar parted ways with the BJP and was elected leader of the RJD-led mahagathbandhan (grand alliance). He staked claim before Governor Phagu Chouhan to form the next government with the support of 164 MLAs of seven parties. “Will never compromise on the issue of corruption and do service to people of Bihar along with others”, Kumar told media persons after returning from the Raj Bhawan. Asked when he would be taking oath, he said, “it is up to the Governor to give time for the swearing-in ceremony”. Earlier, after submitting his resignation, Kumar told journalists outside the Raj Bhawan, “in
Former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi dismissed JD(U)'s allegations that the BJP wanted to break the party and made RCP Singh union minister without Nitish Kumar's consent. He said that JD(U) was looking for an excuse to Nitish Kumar break ties with BJP, and underlined that "BJP today’s [Tuesday’s] meeting of all will come back to power with a my party MPs, MLAs, Council thumping majority in 2024. It is a members and leaders they white lie that BJP had made RCP expressed their desire to snap ties Singh Union minister without with the BJP and immediately I Nitishji's consent. It is also a lie accepted their desire and came to that BJP wanted to break JD(U)," the Raj Bhawan to resign from my Modi said in a tweet. post of NDA’s Chief Minister”. Sushil Modi dismisses allegations Singh was made Union minis-
Bengal CID, Delhi cops in face-off over raid A Bengal CID team armed with a warrant to search the Chanakyapuri home of a communications professional allegedly linked to the cash-haul case involving three arrested Jharkhand Congress MLAs was prevented by Delhi Police from executing the court order on “technical” grounds. Another CID team visiting Guwahati to collect CCTV footage of the three MLAs’ arrival in the city on July 29 and departure to Kolkata the next day was allegedly stopped by the local police at the airport, stoking the political storm already steeping over the Delhi face-off. A Congress MLA from the state, Kumar Jaimangal, had filed an FIR in Ranchi last week, accusing Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma of the attempt to topple the Soren government by getting the arrested trio – Irfan Ansari (Jamtara), Rajesh Kachchap (Khijri) and Naman Bixal Kongari (Kolebira) - to throw cash at some of their legislator colleagues. Delhi Police accused the visiting team of violating rules.
950 from Gujarat used fake IELTS scores to move to US, Canada The Mehsana police which investigated irregularities in the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exams has brought seven centres - Rajkot, Vadodara, Mehsana, Ahmedabad, Navsari, Nadiad and Anand - under scanner. Officers said that at least 950 candidates are suspected to have falsely secured high IELTS scores this year by paying Rs14,00,000. All of them are now either in the US or Canada. The first case of irregularity came in April when a dummy student was caught taking the exam in Nadiad. Later, it was found that CCTVs in two centres were switched off to accommodate dummy candidates in Navsari and Mehsana. A man from Mehsana, who is in the realty business, is the kingpin of the scam, said police sources. The police came into action, after report was lodged that illegal immigrants from North Gujarat needed a Hindi translator in a US court despite having IELTS scores of seven and eight. They had taken the exam in September last. According to the officers, the US consulate general had directed Mehsana police to search the case after which the cops started an investigation. A police officer said that the scam of issuing IELTS certificates to US and Canada aspirants has been running for nearly five years. Six men who travelled to Canada on student visas were caught by the US agencies on April 28. They were rescued by the agencies on the border of Canada and US from a sinking boat in the St Regis river who were illegally crossing over into the US.
ter last year as JD(U) representative but forced to resign last month as his Rajya Sabha term ended and his party denied him another term. Startling allegations of backstabbing were made against the BJP by MLAs and MPs of the JD(U) after which Kumar pulled the plug on the alliance. According to sources in the JD(U), who did not wish to be named, information, including call details, were shared which suggested that former national president RCP Singh, who resigned from the primary membership last week, had contacted “about a dozen MLAs and a minister at the BJP's behest, with the intention to split the party”. The JD(U) lawmakers, who
unanimously backed Kumar's decision to dump the BJP, were of the view that things went fine till the 2019 Lok Sabha polls which the two parties, along with late Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, had swept, winning all but one of the 40 seats in the state. Several opposition leaders lauded Kumar for snapping ties with the BJP and embracing the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan to continue in office. This is the second time in nine years that Nitish left ally BJP out in the cold. While Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav termed Kumar’s move as a “good start”, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) stated that no ally can safeguard its identity in the saffron camp.
