A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
(Full Story)
Search This Blog
Back to 500BC.
==========================
Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, June 20, 2017
BJP’s choice of Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate takes Oppn. by surprise
Current Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind. | Photo Credit: Ranjeet Kumar
Nistula Hebbar-June 20, 2017
Party’s parliamentary board picks Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate
rBJP
president Amit Shah on Monday declared Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind
as the party’s candidate for the presidential polls, taking the
Opposition by surprise. Mr. Kovind would also be the joint candidate of
the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), headed by the BJP.
The decision was taken at the party’s parliamentary board, presided over
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attended by Mr. Shah and senior
Ministers of the Union government.
“Ramnathji has always spoken for the deprived sections, and has had a
long career in speaking out for Dalits and oppressed sections,” said Mr.
Shah, while making the announcement. The reference to Mr. Kovind’s
attributes as the voice of the weaker sections and Dalits is a very
strong signal of the BJP’s moves through the years to shed its upper
caste image, and appeal to a wider section of society.
He will be the second Dalit President India has had since the late K.R.
Narayanan was elected to the office in 1997. As a party insider, having
held many posts in both the Uttar Pradesh BJP unit and at the national
level, Mr. Kovind will also be the first from the party fold to make it
to the Rahstrapati Bhavan.
BJP leaders said four sets of nomination papers had been prepared, with
the Prime Minister, the BJP chief, Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal
and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu as the first
proposers. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Anantha Kumar,
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and BJP
chief whip Rakesh Singh arrange for the other signatures on these
papers. The nomination papers will, in all likelihood, be filed on June
23.
ALSO READ
Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate: Congress says it was not consulted
A farmer’s son: PM
Mr. Modi, who called Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former PM
Manmohan Singh after the meeting, described Mr. Kovind as “a farmer’s
son, who comes from a humble background” and who has “devoted his life
to public service and worked for the poor and marginalised.”
“With his illustrious background in the legal arena, Shri Kovind’s
knowledge and understanding of the Constitution will benefit the nation.
I am sure Shri Ram Nath Kovind will make an exceptional president and
continue to be a strong voice for the poor, downtrodden and
marginalised,” Mr. Modi tweeted after the decision of the parliamentary
board meeting became public.
Mr. Kovind, 71, has been associated with the RSS and causes related to
Dalits. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha twice, from 1994 to 2006,
before being appointed Bihar Governor in 2015. He was the general
secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Koli Samaj in Kanpur (the Koli
community is mainly engaged in weaving), and the national president of
the BJP Scheduled Caste Morcha. A trained lawyer, he became advocate on
record in the Supreme Court in the 1970s. Mr. Kovind’s record within the
BJP has been steady, if uneventful.
His roots in rural Kanpur are also being seen as a way of bolstering the
party among the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh. The State’s Saharanpur
district has been the scene of violent clashes between the upper castes
and the Dalits after the new BJP government took charge. This move will,
BJP hopes,
reinforce its recent successes in co-opting Dalit communities into its
fold, the larger project of consolidation of a mass base that it
envisages for itself.
The move will also put several parties, including Bahujan Samaj Party
and the Janata Dal (United) in a spot over how to oppose a candidate
from the Dalit community, who has held high constitutional office
before.