The Evening Wrap: Farm unions will campaign against BJP in states headed for assembly elections

The Hindu Newsletter - Here are the biggest news stories of the day [The Hindu Logo]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Linkedin]( [Instagram]( Tuesday 02, March 2021 [alt_text]( The Evening Wrap Here are the biggest news stories of the day [alt_text]( Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying safe. Farm unions will campaign against BJP in states headed for assembly elections [Ratcheting up the pressure on the BJP, protesting farm unions have decided to campaign against the party]( in the upcoming Assembly elections. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) general body on Tuesday decided to send teams to the four election-bound States and one Union Territory. “They will not ask for support for any particular party, but they will appeal to the people to not vote for the BJP,” said veteran Punjab farm leader Balbir Singh Rajewal, who heads his own faction of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. “They will tell people that the Modi government is not treating farmers fairly, and counter the propaganda of the BJP,” he added. “This government only understands the language of elections, of votes, of seats. So we will go to all the five poll-bound states,” said Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav. In Bengal, the campaign will kick off on March 12, when SKM leaders will take part in a farmers’ rally in Kolkata, he said, adding that vehicles will also go to all assembly constituencies in the State “to tell them the reality of what is happening to farmers”. Following a meeting with trade union leaders on Monday, the SKM also announced that it will support the March 15 call of ten Central trade unions to protest against privatisation and corporatisation. On March 6, to mark 100 days of the campaign’s arrival on Delhi’s borders, protestors plan to block the entire length of the Western Peripheral Expressway or Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway for five hours between 11 am and 4 pm. The six-lane highway surrounding the capital connects the main border protest sites at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur. Those who support the protesting farmers in other parts of the country are encouraged to unfurl black flags on their homes and offices or wear black strips on their clothing on March 6, which will be observed as a black flag day, said SKM leaders. The SKM will also launch an ‘MSP Dilao Abhiyan’ to show that farmers across the country are not really getting minimum support prices for their crops in the markets. This campaign to expose the reality of the government’s promises on MSP will begin in Karnataka on March 5, and then move to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well, added Yadav. Tens of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have been camped on Delhi’s borders for three months. At spectrum auction, Jio is biggest buyer [India’s first auction of telecom spectrum in five years ended on Tuesday with ₹77,814.80 crore of airwaves]( being bought, mostly by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. [ Reliance JIO Telecom logo. File ] Reliance JIO Telecom logo. File Over 2,250 MHz of spectrum that carry telecom signals, in seven bands worth nearly ₹4 lakh crore at the reserve or start price, was offered for bidding in the auction that began on Monday. Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash said 855.60 MHz of spectrum was bought for ₹77,814.80 crore in the two-day auction. Reliance Jio bought ₹57,122.65 crore worth of spectrum and Bharti Airtel acquired radiowaves worth ₹18,699 crore, while Vodafone Idea Ltd picked up ₹1,993.40 crore worth of airwaves. Priyanka Gandhi launches five-guarantee campaign in Assam [Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra on Tuesday launched the party’s five-guarantee campaign]( for the upcoming Assembly elections in Assam. The five guarantees are: bringing a law that nullifies the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, providing five lakh government jobs, raising the daily wage of tea plantation workers to ₹365, free electricity up to 200 units per household, and ₹2,000 as monthly income support to all homemakers. [ All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joins tea workers at Sadhuru tea garden in Biswanath, Assam. ] All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joins tea workers at Sadhuru tea garden in Biswanath, Assam. “This election is an election of trust. The people of Assam were cheated five years ago by a party that promised them 25 lakh jobs but gave them CAA instead. The Congress party is not making empty promises but undertaking five guarantees,” Vadra said at a rally in Tezpur. State president Ripun Bora explained the rationale of the guarantees. He said the party had during its ‘Asom basaon ahok (Come, let’s save Assam)’ yatra identified these five major issues the people were facing. Campaign committee chief and MP Pradyut Bordoloi said the first guarantee was based on the feedback from the people. “We have already asked lawyers to start drafting a law towards stopping the CAA from being implemented in Assam.” Fellow MP and manifesto committee chairperson Gaurav Gogoi said the promise of jobs was honest and realistic, unlike the 25 lakh jobs that the BJP had promised. “The figure was arrived at after studying the State budget and consulting economists,” he said. Congress workers burn effigy of Ghulam Nabi Azad for praising Modi Members of the [Congress on Tuesday burnt an effigy of senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to protest]( against his “anti-party activities” and for “praising” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Mr. Azad held a meeting of the G-23 (group of dissidents) in Jammu to weaken the Congress party. He is doing it at the behest of the BJP. How can a Congress worker bear it that Modi, who snatched the statehood of J&K, is being praised by Azad,” a protesting Congress leader in Jammu told the media. [Congress activists burn an effigy of senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad during a protest, in Jammu, on March 2, 2021.]Congress activists burn an effigy of senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad during a protest, in Jammu, on March 2, 2021. He said Azad had been a Rajya Sabha member several times and even Chief Minister of J&K. “The Congress party always had Mr. Azad at top positions. At a time when the Congress is at its lowest, Mr. Azad should have used his experience to resurrect the party and not weaken it,” the Congress leader said. The protesters, carrying party flags, said they will fight against any force questioning the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Meanwhile, sources said J&K Congress chief G.A. Mir left for Delhi on Tuesday to meet the top leadership of the party. The development comes days after Azad held a meeting of a faction of top Congress leaders in Jammu, which is seen as an open revolt against the party leadership. CJI must step down over ‘will you marry the victim’ remarks, says letter by concerned citizens and women’s groups Reacting strongly to Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde’s remarks to a rape accused yesterday, asking him if he would marry his victim, more than 4000 concerned citizens, including representatives of India’s women’s movements, progressive groups, students, lawyers, and filmmakers have signed an open letter asking the CJI to issue an apology, retract his comments, and step down from his post. The letter said that the CJI’s comment “not only legitimises any kind of sexual, physical and mental violence by the husband, but it normalises the torture that Indian women have been facing within marriages for years without any legal recourse.” The letter further added, “From the towering heights of the post of CJI of the Supreme Court, it sends the message to other courts, judges, police and all other law enforcing agencies that justice is not a constitutional right of women in India. This will only lead to the further silencing of girls and women, a process that took decades to break. To the rapists, it sends the message that marriage is a licence to rape; and that by obtaining such a licence, the rapist can post facto decriminalise and legalise his act.” In U.P.’s Hathras, father of sexually harassed girl allegedly killed by accused out on bail The [BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday got into a blame game after a man whose daughter was sexually harassed]( was shot dead, allegedly by the main accused out on bail since 2018 and his associates, in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh. [ Special Arrangement: Police with the arrested accused Lalit Sharma ] Special Arrangement: Police with the arrested accused Lalit Sharma While SP president Akhilesh Yadav targeted the BJP government over the murder, BJP leaders alleged that the main accused Gaurav Sharma was affiliated to the SP. SP leaders retaliated by posting pictures of the accused along with BJP MP from Aligarh Satish Gautam. Meanwhile, police arrested one of the four named accused persons, Lalit Sharma. A daughter of the deceased, Ambarish Sharma, said her father was shot by six-seven people. The incident took place around 4 p.m. in Naujarpur village in Sasni on Monday. Hathras Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal said Ambarish was shot by Gaurav and his friends and he died on the way to hospital. Inspector General Aligarh Piyush Mordia said Ambarish’s body was found in a potato field by police. In the police complaint, the daughter said the accused had threatened them to withdraw the sexual harassment case and fired at her father indiscriminately. In June 2018, Ambarish had lodged an FIR against Gaurav on charges of chedkhani” (molestation or eve-teasing), said Jaiswal. The next month, Gaurav was sent to jail and released on bail after a month, the officer added. Following the police complaint, there was continued bad blood between the two families, said police. On Monday, when Gaurav’s wife and maternal aunt had gone to a temple in the village, they got into an altercation with both the daughters of Ambarish over the sexual harassment incident, said the SP. Gaurav and Ambarish soon reached the spot and there was a heated argument between the two, Jaiswal said. Gaurav called some boys belonging to his family to the spot and fired at Ambarish, said the police. On the complaint of the victim’s family, an FIR was registered against four named accused. Breaking down before the media, Ambarish’s daughter begged for justice. “Please give me justice,” she said with folded hands. “First he committed ‘chedkhani’ with me. My father filed a case. And he shot my papa out of annoyance.” Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The[number of reported coronavirus cases from India]( stood at 1,11,37,148 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 1,58,727. The Union Health ministry today said that people can take the first and second dose of the coronavirus vaccine at different locations as well as change the dates of their inoculation schedule. “When you schedule a reservation and take your first jab, the second jab is also scheduled automatically at the same place, where you took your first jab,” RS Sharma, the chairperson of Empowered Group on Covid-19 vaccination, said at a press briefing. “...Now, in case you think you are not able to go to that place because of various reasons... you may change that also.” Sharma also said that 50 lakh people have so far registered for getting inoculated in the second phase of the vaccination process, which covers people above the age of 60 and those above 45 with comorbidities. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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