Tag: Bharatiya Janata Party

Ex-hockey captain lauds Jharkhand sports talent.

Source – dailypioneer.com

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, it was ‘chai pe charcha’ that took the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to newer avenues of power, the State BJP in similar and new avtar on Wednesday carried out ‘Coffee with Youths’ the party’s new strategy to connect with youths.

Targeting youths ahead of year-end Assembly election, the State BJP on Wednesday carried out Coffee with Youths at RIMS auditorium, which was attended by ace hockey player and former Indian Hockey team captain Sandeep Singh.

Last month Olympic medalist Yogeshwar Dutt, Commonwealth gold medalist Babita Phogat and former Indian Hockey captain Sandeep Singh joined the BJP ahead of Haryana Assembly elections.

Sandeep, who is a BJP candidate from Pehowa Assembly seat in Haryana during an hour long interaction with youths talked about politics, sports and the values which a youth should have.  Sandeep interacting with youths said, “Before casting the vote one should keep it in their mind that my first vote is for Country. There is no issue bigger than nationalism.” On a query posed by a youth on prospects of sports in Jharkhand, Singh said, “Jharkhand has always remained as sports hub of country.  The State is known for giving finest sportspersons to the country. Everyone knows about MS Dhoni one of the finest sportspersons, but at the same time Jharkhand has given 65 international Hockey players many of whose statues are installed in England.”

 Singh, whose biopic Soorma, which hit the silver screens last year, also praised Chief Minister Raghubar Das’ effort for promotion of sports in State along with sports policy. He said, “The Jharkhand sports policy is finest as inspired with Chief Minister’s vision of setting up sports academy in Jharkhand I too set up sports academy in my state for promotion of sports in my State.” Singh said, “In State earlier, stadiums were lying unused but now these stadiums witness sports activities, which is State level to national and even international level.” Urging the youths to once again support BJP Government in State, he said, “A State can progress only if there is stable Government.

The State has witness development but it needs five years more to make Jharkhand a progressive State.”

The ace Hockey player also asked youths to say no to junk food, mobiles and speeding bikes saying that these things distract youths. He also asked the youth to elect corruption free Government.

The function was also attended by BJP leader Tarun Jung, Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth among others. Large number of youths which included college and RIMS students attended the function.

6 held for pelting stones at BJP lawmaker’s car in Ranchi

Source: hindustantimes.com

Police in Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi have arrested six men for allegedly attacking the BJP’s Rajya Sabha lawmaker Samir Oraon’s vehicle with stones on the outskirts of the city on Monday, officials said on Tuesday.

The arrests on Tuesday morning came after Oraon lodged the first information at the Itki police station after the incident near Gadgaon area.

“Six persons – Gulam Sarvar, Arman Mansoori, Sohrab Mansoori, Aryan Mansoori, Irfan Mansoori and Umesh Lakra – have been arrested in this connection,” said Itki police station in-charge Prithvi Sender.

“All the accused used to smoke marijuana at their fixed base on the road flank. They have confessed that one of their friends pelted stone on the vehicle but he is absconding,” Sender said.

He added, “We are investigating the case further to ascertain if it was a coincidence or a planned activity.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader was coming back from Lohardaga district after attending the Budhu Bhagat Football Tournament when he was attacked. On his way back at around 8.30pm, some men started pelting stones on his Scorpio SUV. The parliamentarian and other passengers escaped unhurt.

“It appeared that bullets were being fired from all sides. We speeded up the vehicle to escape and finally took a halt at a petrol station. We then informed the police,” Oraon said.

He added, “We were six people sitting in the vehicle, including Binod Kumar Bhagat, the leader of Jharkhand movement, and my brother Alok Oraon. But we all escaped unhurt.”

The member of Parliament said they were escorted by a police team to Ranchi. He also said he doesn’t know why he was targeted and who the attackers were.

“It can’t be deduced for sure that I was the target. It may be a coincidence but it’s a serious issue and ought to be investigated thoroughly, “ he said.

Producer of incendiary song, “Jo na bole jai shree Ram,” claims its writer is a “patriot”

Source: caravanmagazine.in

These are the opening lyrics to a new song uploaded on YouTube on 23 July, on a channel called “Varun Bahar official.” The three-minute-long song, titled, “Those who will not chant victory to lord Ram, send them to the graveyard,” is by a Bhojpuri singer, Varun Bahar Upadhyay. The video features Bahar dressed in an all-saffron outfit, sporting rudraksh beads—seeds that are used as prayer beads, usually by followers of the Hindu god Shiva—against a fixed backdrop splashed with images of the Hindu god Ram. The video switches between Bahar singing, images of young men carrying swords and threatening bystanders, and groups of saffron-clad boys and girls dancing. An unidentified graveyard—the cemetery is dotted with Christian crosses—makes an appearance every time Bahar sings the chorus, accompanied by some fist-pumping for added effect. The hashtags accompanying the song are equally unimaginative: “#saffron#terrorist#varun.” The description has a single line in Hindi which translates as “after singing this song, the media has declared Varun Bahar as a saffron terrorist.” A casual search on Google did not reveal any such media reports.

The song has, however, been shared widely on social media, drawing sharp reactions, and scathing criticism for inciting lynching and mob violence against minorities. The unequivocal exhortations in the song’s lyrics are undeniable. Bahar’s YouTube channel, which had 549 subscribers as of 6 pm on 24 July, has been online since 2013, but the oldest video is from just a year ago. The channel is an absurd mix of devotional songs, Bhojpuri love songs, videos proclaiming and seeking support for the prime minister Narendra Modi and content that can only politely be termed titillating.

Bahar’s mobile phone has been switched off since the morning of 24 July, following the furore on social media, and I could not get in touch with Santosh Singh Yadu, the writer of the song and a co-curator of the channel. Rajesh Verma, who runs a YouTube channel called Janta Musical And Pictures, produced and directed the video. Verma told me that the video was originally uploaded on his channel “two or three days ago, but we removed it from Janta music because it became controversial.” He said that some “Pakistani channels and local channels” contacted him and told him that “it’s wrong to say ‘send them to the grave,’ and so we took it down.”

Verma denied that the lyrics were inflammatory and said that “the singer did not take names” of any religion. He argued that “both Hindus and Muslims use graves.” When I pointed out that Hindus are cremated and so the song targets minority communities who bury their dead, Verma claimed that “only married Hindus are cremated, unmarried and single Hindus are buried.” He appeared to have forgotten that the Bharatiya Janata Party patriarch, Atal Bihari Vajpayee—an avowed bachelor—was cremated with full state honours. “I am not anti-Muslim,” Verma told me, when I pushed him to explain the anti-minority lyrics of the video. “I visit dargahs every Thursday and do pranam whenever I go past a mosque.”

Verma’s Janta Musical channel has released 598 videos as of 24 June. One song is titled, “’If you don’t like saffron, get out of India” and boasts of 5.5 million views. Another is called “Every Hindu’s call: Temple first, government only after that,” and has 252,000 views. All the songs feature violent imagery of men dressed in saffron, carrying swords and other similar tropes of majoritarian assertion. The channel also contains several videos supporting Modi and the BJP.

“Bahar and Yadu came to me with the idea of the song,” Verma said. He added that Bahar hails from a village called Mankapur, “near Ayodhya.” He noted that he had heard the song before uploading it but justified the offensive lyrics and its call to violence. “Some people are saying we won’t let the Ram temple be built,” Verma told me. “We are devotees of Ram, so we have made a song in praise of Ram.”

Verma was puzzled by the objection to providing a platform to the song: “If it was a matter of hurting anyone, why would we upload it?” When I asked him who the video was addressed to, he blithely responded, “The writer of the song is a deshpremi”—a patriot—“and he may have had the stone-pelters in Kashmir in mind while writing the song.” Verma also denied any connection to a political party or group and said he was an “independent music producer.” Janta Musical has a Twitter account, which tweeted on 23 July, “We apologise for the rumours spread due to the song of one singer. It was not the intention of Janta Music to hurt the religious feelings of any group.”

While Verma claimed that he removed the video soon after uploading it, the song was available on the “Varun Bahar official” channel till around 6 pm on 24 July. It has now been removed but is still being shared widely on other social-media platforms. The singer and writer, though unavailable, seem to have no regrets about the song or its content. Just hours before the video was removed, at around 3 pm on 24 July, Bahar and Yadu posted this statement, from their official account, in the comments section: