39 Indians

“Yesterday, they (Martyrs Foundation, a body of Iraqi government) told us that 38 DNA samples had matched. The 39th had a partial match as he didn’t have (a sample from) any immediate family,” said Swaraj. The DNA of the Indian workers — 27 from Punjab, four from Himachal Pradesh, six from Bihar and two from West Bengal -- had been collected in last September, two months after the fall of Mosul.

Swaraj said that the search for the Indians intensified when none of them called home or contacted their families even after Mosul was liberated. She said that minister of state for external affairs, VK Singh, and Iraqi government officials were told by a local in Badush last year to inspect a mound in the village where several people had been buried. “We reached there and requested the Iraqi authorities to use a deep penetration radar, which detected many bodies under the surface,” she told Rajya Sabha. One fact that stood out, Swaraj later said at a press conference, was that there were exactly 39 bodies under the mound.

“We felt these were our people. So we contacted Martyrs Foundation to get the bodies exhumed,” she said. When the area was excavated, identification marks such as non-iraqi shoes, long hair, and kadas associated with the Sikh faith were found. This prompted DNA tests to be carried out to confirm their identities.

“Howsoever painful, the families will get the dead bodies after more than three years. This will hopefully bring some closure to them,” Swaraj said, adding that Singh would travel to Iraq to bring back the bodies as soon as the formalities with the Iraqi authorities were completed.

In July last year, Swaraj told the Parliament that she would not declare the 39 Indians dead without concrete proof or evidence of their death. “It is a sin to declare a person dead without concrete evidence. I will not do this sin,” Swaraj had said in the Lok Sabha.

Some of the relatives of the deceased, however, criticised the government for the way the issue was handled. Davinder Singh, brother of Gobinder Singh, one of the workers from Punjab who was declared dead on Tuesday, said that the government had failed to take the right action to bring his brother back safely. He said that though Masih had said the missing Indians were gunned down, the government kept “lying”. Gurpinder Kaur, sister of another victim from Punjab, Manjinder Singh, said she found it difficult to believe her brother was dead because Swaraj had assured her that he was alive. “I heard this on television... We should have been contacted as soon as they received the information. Had that been done it would not have been such a huge blow. We feel betrayed from all sides.”

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said the government had not done right by the families. “If they didn’t have any details, why did they keep telling everyone the people are alive? The government kept giving the families false hope for four years,” he said.

Swaraj countered the allegation. “I had told the House continuously for three years that until I get proof of their death, I will not close any file. It would have been a sin had we handed over anybody’s body claiming it to be those of our people, just for the sake of closing files,” she added.

“I can understand the anger of families. I see it as a natural reaction. But I would like to say that I have never kept them in the dark,” she told the media. ernment will have to think of ways to bridge the gap and ensure that the road tax waiver scheme is actually pushed aggressively among Delhiites. It is a great incentive otherwise,” she said.

The budget is also likely to introduce the concept of solar farming where interested farmers can get solar panels installed on their land at no cost by empanelled companies and earn money by selling a part of the electricity generated.

The government plans to launch the project first on a pilot basis with a solar plant installation of 15 MW. It is in talks with farmers in Delhi’s periphery , especially Najafgarh, for setting up the solar panels.

“The farmers will only have to give their land, without changing ownership, to solar energy developers who would build and operate the solar plant. A part of the money earned by selling electricity will be kept by the developer and the rest would be given to the farmer,” the second official said.

The farmers will be able to continue growing crops on the land as the panels will be installed at a height of three metres from the ground. Delhi’s current solar capacity is 77.34 MW, while the target was 186 MW in 2017 and is 1,000 MW by 2020.

This proposal has also been sent to the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) which is soon going to issue a virtual net metering policy. Once the policy is out, the scheme will roll out, with commercial power connection holders being able to buy power from the solar farms.

“Those who have electricity connections in the commercial category will benefit most from this as at present their power tariff is at least ₹9 per unit. Power from solar farms will cost them around ₹4.5 per unit instead,” a third official said on condition of anonymity.

The BSP could not win a single Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and won only 19 out of 403 it contested in the 2017 assembly election. The Kairana seat fell vacant after the death of BJP’S MP Hukum Singh in February.

A second BSP leader claimed that if an alliance does go through, the BSP may get to contest more Lok Sabha seats than the SP. In return, the SP may contest more seats in the state elections in 2022. That seems too-long a time-frame for a fledgling alliance-in-the-making between two parties that have traditionally been rivals, say analysts. Badri Narayan, a political commentator and author, said, “If you see it from the perspective of political interest, it is a compulsion for both BSP and SP to stay together till at least 2019, and maybe even 2022. If they don’t stick together, they will not be able to regain relevance at either the national or state level. But there will be ups and downs, there will be tensions, and there will be tough negotiations causing complications.”

Still, both SP and BSP leaders claim there’s a new warmth in the relationship now.

“We will not haggle over a few seats here and there but be guided by the large spirit of maintaining an understanding with the BSP,” a SP leader close to Akhilesh Yadav said.

Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters in Delhi on March 14, that he and his party “are grateful to the BSP and its workers who worked hard to ensure the victory of the SP candidate in these by-polls. As far as 2019 general election is concerned, just wait and watch. And hope for the best.”

The BSP considers Kairana a safe bet. The Kairana Lok Sabha seat includes five assembly segments of the Saharanpur district and is populated by Muslim, Gujjars, Dalits and Jats. Hukum Singh polled 5.65 lakh votes in 2014, compared to Samajwadi Party’s tally of 3.30 lakh votes and BSP’S 1.60 lakh votes. While BJP’S candidate was a Gujjar, the SP and the BSP fielded Muslim candidates in a communally charged contest.

The BJP retained its hold over 5 assembly segments – Nakur, Gangoh, Kairana, Thana Bhawan and Shamli – of Kairana Lok Sabha seat in the 2017 assembly election, but the BSP improved its tally.

The BJP polled total 4.33 lakh votes in these segments, and the BSP improved its tally to 2.08 lakh votes. The SP fielded candidates in 3 out of 5 seats and polled 1.60 lakh votes. Akhilesh supported the Congress in Nakur and Shamli.