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Political Notes |
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Dalits embrace Buddhism, Christianity
Hundreds of Dalits on Saturday, Oct. 14, embraced Buddhism and Christianity at a programme organised in Nagpur, where copies of the Gujarat Government’s anti-conversion Bill were burnt.
Dalits from Orissa, Karnataka and Gujarat attended the programme held by the All-India Conference of SC/ST Organisations and the All-India Christian Council on the occasion of World Religious Freedom Day, organisers said.
The conversion to Buddhism was performed by priests, while pastors from the council led by Joseph D’Souza baptised the Dalits.
The police foiled an attempt by a group to burn an effigy of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to protest against the introduction of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill, 2006. The activists raised anti-Modi slogans.
Railways Godhra panel held illegal
In a setback for the Railways Ministry, the Gujarat High Court on Friday, October 13, set aside the Union Government’s Sept. 4, 2004 notification creating the Justice U.C. Banerjee Committee to probe the 2002 Godhra train burning incident and nullified its findings. The Committee in its interim report had attributed the incident to accidental fire. Justice D.N. Patel of the High Court held the constitution of the Banerjee Committee illegal, unconstitutional and outside the jurisdiction of the Union Government. He observed that the panel’s interim report was released just before the Bihar Assembly elections with mala fide intentions.
Allowing a petition by a survivor of the train fire, the High Court ruled that the Banerjee committee repot would not be tabled in Parliament and declared all further action on it null and void.
The BJP has demanded that Railway Ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav should resign or the Prime Minister should drop him from the Cabinet after the Gujarat High Court verdict on the Banerjee committee.
The Congress said that the Centre would challenge in the Supreme Court the High Court order terming the constitution of the Banerjee committee as illegal.
Consensus on delimitation
An all party-meeting held in New Delhi on Friday, October 13, has agreed that the Delimitation Commission should continue its work and speedily complete it before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The consensus at the meting was that the issue of changes in constituencies resulting from reservation for women, whenever decided, should be delinked from the delimitation exercise.
Reports say that the delimitation is expected to lead to an increase of six reserved seats each for the scheduled castes and the schedule tribes.
Reports say that the Congress was in favour of stalling the delimitation process pending a decision on the Women’s Reservation Bill, but the BJP as well as the Left parties came together at the meeting to throw a spanner in the Congress’ move.
Jharkhand Ministry expanded
The Jharkhand Ministry was expanded with the inclusion of three more Ministries on October 8. But Chief Minister Madhu Koda did not succeed in his effort to induct controversial MLA, Bhanu Pratap Sahi, who has three warrants of arrest pending against him. Governor Syed Sibte Razi refused to include Sahi in the Ministry despite Koda’s verbal recommendation to induct him along with the three others. The Governor informed Koda that he had on Sept. 24 sought from the state government the factual position on Sahi, who did not turn up to take oath. As the Governor was yet to get a reply, he did not consider Sahi’s case, the communique said.
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