AAP wants Yashwant Sinha to contest from New Delhi?
NEW DELHI: The Arvind Kejriwalled Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is in talks with former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha to contest the 2019 elections from the national capital on the party’s ticket.
The AAP wants Sinha, a former cabinet minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government and a vocal critic of PM Narendra Modi, to contest from the New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.
Sanjay Singh, AAP Rajya Sabha MP, has been tasked with convincing Sinha to contest on the party’s ticket as the AAP considers him a formidable candidate in the upcoming polls, a party leader said. “Yes, talks are on with Yashwant Sinha,” said an AAP leader who did not want to be named. “But everything is speculative in politics unless confirmed,” the leader said.
Sinha said he did not consider it appropriate to comment on the matter. “Arvind Kejriwal asked people in a public meeting in Noida whether I should contest (polls) or not and people said yes,” Sinha said.
Sinha, who quit the BJP in April 2018, had last won the Lok Sabha polls in 2009, from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. His son and BJP leader Jayant Sinha has been representing the seat since 2014.
The seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi are held by the BJP. Until now, the AAP has announced likely candidates for five of these seats. The party is yet to announce names for two seats — New Delhi and West Delhi.
Party treasurer Raghav Chaddha from south Delhi; Atishi, a former advisor to the Delhi education minister, from east Delhi; Pankaj Gupta, AAP national secretary, from Chandni Chowk; Dilip Pandey, party spokesperson, from North-east Delhi and Guggan Singh, the former BJP MLA who had joined AAP ahead of Bawana bypolls last year, from North-west Delhi could be likely AAP candidates for 2019 polls.
The party, however, is yet to issue a formal list of candidates.
“He (Sinha) doesn’t want to lose the election, which is why he has not agreed yet. Maybe he wants to know who the BJP and Congress will field from the New Delhi seat,” the AAP leader said, when asked about whether Sinha was considering the party’s proposal. BJP’S Meenakshi Lekhi is the incumbent MP from New Delhi.
Sources said the AAP is also in touch with BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha to field him from the west Delhi seat. But the actor-turnedpolitician is interested in contesting from his current Lok Sabha seat Patna Sahib in Bihar on an Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket.
Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha shared a stage with Delhi CM Kejriwal during the Jan Adhikar rally held in Noida earlier this month. While the MSRDC has managed to acquire 95% of the land it needs to build the expressway, it is yet to receive bids for three crucial sections in the Thane district. With environmental and forest clearance pending, the work on the Expressway is unlikely to take off before December, senior MSRDC officials said.
The bids for the project are higher perhaps because MSRDC did not consider cost of additional components, such as building smaller roads connecting to the highway, in its initial plan.
The mammoth project is divided into 16 construction packages, and so far, the MSRDC has awarded 13 of these construction packages — all at bids higher than the estimate.
“In 11 packages, we received bids higher by 3% or 5% of our estimated cost. We have approved these bids,” said AB Gaikwad, chief engineer, MSRDC. “In two other packages, we got bids higher by more than 9%. We negotiated with the bidders and the MSRDC board will approve them soon,” Gaikwad said. The higher bids increase the construction cost by ₹2,000 crore. Earlier this month, the state government already cleared a proposal to revise the project cost from ₹49,000 crore to ₹55,000 crore.
What has added to the cost is the state’s decision to use concrete instead of asphalt as the material for the road. “Earlier, the road from Nagpur, up to 620km, was going to be asphalt. This has now been changed to concrete. The cost difference between asphalt and concrete works to around 6%,” Gaikwad said.
The state also plans to construct a 3-inch thick wall along the 701-km stretch that will act as a barrier and prevent wild animals from wandering into the expressway. “The cost of the wall is estimated to be around ₹1,000 crore,” Gaikwad added.
He was representing India in the Golden Globe Race 2018 (GGR), a punishing 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe on unpowered yachts.
When rescuers reached him, Tomy was lying on a bunk inside the yacht. Tomy became the first Indian to circumnavigate the globe on board Mhadei -- solo, non-stop and unassisted in 2013. He was awarded India’s secondhighest peace-time gallantry award, Kirti Chakra, for the feat.
The minister said the government was yet to go through the 1,448-page judgment in detail, but added that the judicial review gives it the ‘dos and don’ts’ about the law. “Some may be areas where you can’t go in and some may be areas where they say it has to be backed by law,” he said.
“Therefore, the prohibited areas do not assume are perpetually prohibited. They could be procedurally prohibited or they could be prohibited as such,” he said. Jaitley said it appeared the SC has barred usage Aadhaar by private entities in absence of a legislative backing. “Section 57 (of the Aadhaar act that has been struck down by the SC) says that there can be special enabling power to allow other entities or body corporate (to use Aadhaar). I can give you my information (about the judgment). That is not permissible unless it is backed up by law. That seems to be the spirit of the judgment,” he said.
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the court held that the purpose of issuing Aadhaar is legitimate and no surveillance is possible. He said the court has also upheld that the Aadhaar Act, which mandated assigning unique identification number for Indian citizens, was a money bill. “This judgment is a judgment of empowering democracy, good governance, service delivery and also empowering the ordinary Indian,” Prasad said. BJP chief Amit Shah, too, hailed the ruling.
But the Congress countered that there was enough in the judgment to suggest that the Speaker’s decision on what constituted a money bill could be subject to judicial review. “We will approach a seven-judge bench to consider this verdict again if brought as a money bill. One important part of the judgment is that if in future the Lok Sabha Speaker declares a bill as money bill, then court can review this and revert,” Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.
Commenting on the claims and counter-claims of both parties, Neelanjan Sircar, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, said: “I don’t think either party will benefit or lose from this judgment. This is not a key electoral issue which will swing support of large groups. Both parties can see Aadhaar has a degree of popularity. They want to claim credit while blaming the other.” mate. Government claims it saved ₹90K crore , a number disputed by activists.
Keeping in view the larger public interest, collection of biometrics such as iris scan and fingerprints under the program was a minimal invasion into the privacy rights, the court held. “By no means it can be said that it has disproportionate effect on the right holder,” the order said.
Identity bestowed by Aadhaar is unparalleled and “we find that the Aadhaar Act has struck a fair balance between the right of privacy of the individual with right to life of the same individual as a beneficiary,” said the judgment which relied heavily on the Right to Privacy judgment delivered last August.
The sole dissenting judge on the bench, justice DY Chandrachud, declared the law as unconstitutional. Clearing it as a money bill was a fraud played on the Constitution, he said. Justice Ashok Bhushan, who wrote a separate ruling, endorsed the view taken in the majority verdict.
The SC verdict, running into 1,448 pages, came on batch of 31 petitions with the first one being filed in 2012 when the executive order introducing Aadhaar was challenged before the court. The first petition was filed by former Karnataka high court judge KS Puttaswamy. Subsequently, several activists joined the fray.
In 2016, the NDA government brought in a law and pushed Aadhaar enrolment in a big way for its welfare programmes. The hearing continued for 38 days, spanning over four months, before the judgment was reserved on May 10.
Advocates say the hearing was the “second longest” one in terms of days of hearing after the Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.
Still, even as it found no fault with the Aadhaar law, the court insisted on safeguards. It ordered data cannot be stored for more than six months and also directed the government not to give Aadhaar to illegal immigrants. The provision that allowed access of data for national security, too, was struck down.
The court said that if the government wants to reformulate this provision then a joint secretary-level officer and a judicial officer should be members of the oversight committee to hear complaints against sharing of data.
The court rejected the argument that Aadhaar could lead to real-time surveillance, calling it ‘far-fetched’. Information of an individual can’t be released without hearing him or her, it said.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley hailed the verdict as historic, while law minister Prasad said it “empowered democracy”.
Welcoming the verdict, Congress leader Kapil Sibal told reporters his party supports the views of justice Chandrachud. Sibal said it will certainly move court if amendments in the Aadhaar Act brought after this verdict are not brought in Rajya Sabha for discussion. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed the verdict and termed it as a victory of the people.
Advocate Udayaditya Baner- jee, who represented the petitioners before the court, said the judgement will enable citizens to de-link their Aadhaar from their bank accounts or mobile phone accounts. “Although the judgment does not say it expressly, the consequence is that one can de-link Aadhaar now,” he said.
The petitioners’ demand to delete data collected prior to the enactment of the law in 2016 was also turned down. The court said the problem can be solved by eliciting “consent” of all those persons enrolled prior to passing the act. “Since, we have held that enrolment is voluntary, those who specifically refuse to give the consent, they would be allowed to exit from the Aadhaar scheme. Those who need to avail any subsidy, benefit or service would need Aadhaar in any case. It would not be proper to cancel their Aadhaar cards,” the court said.
The court did not concur with the petitioners’ concern that Aadhaar should be shelved since authentication failure of biometrics resulted in the exclusion of the needy. “We are only highlighting the fact that the government seems to be sincere in its efforts to ensure that no such exclusion takes place and in those cases where an individual who is rightfully entitled to benefits under the scheme is not denied such a benefit merely because of failure of authentication. In this scenario, the entire Aadhaar project cannot be shelved,” the court said.
In addition, the government also sought that the concept of creamy layer – the practice of excluding people who are wellto-do from reservations – be done away with.
The court denied the requests, but said one of the yardsticks laid down in the 2006 ruling – that of needing to gather quantifiable data for backwardness – does not hold.
“Collecting quantifiable data to determine backwardness of the SC/ST communities as laid down in the Nagaraj judgment was bad in law,” the order said.
The court also said the ‘creamy layer’ concept of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community will apply in the matter of promotions for SCS and STS.
“The whole object of reservation is to see that backward classes of citizens move forward so that they may march hand in hand with other citizens of India on an equal basis. This will not be possible if only the creamy layer within that class bag all the coveted jobs in the public sector and perpetuate themselves, leaving the rest of the class as backward as they always were,” said the order by the bench on Wednesday.
The court also said that the administrative efficiency will continue to be a factor while the reservation policy is applied.
Several high courts had struck down decisions for reservation in promotions, prompting many states to move the SC.
The matter was then referred to a five-judge bench.