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| Anand Agrawal | Posted
on 15-Dec-02 12:17 PM
BJP sweeps back to power in Gujarat The Pioneer Sunday, December 15, 2002 Ahmedabad (Agencies) - The BJP Sunday swept back to power in Gujarat with a massive two-thirds majority in a win that could have a far reaching impact on national politics. Performing a hatrick, the party won 127 seats in the 182- member Assembly bettering its tally of 117 in the 1998 elections. Congress, which had 57 members in the dissolved House, fared much worse than predicted getting 50. Of the remaining four, three went to independents and one was bagged by JD-U. Election in one seat was countermanded. The triumph of Chief Minster Narendra Modi in a bitterly fought election in the wake of communal polarisation following the Godhra train carnage and subsequent violence makes him the undisputed leader of the State. This is BJP's first major victory after a string of defeats in the last two years and the success comes ahead of crucial Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi next year and the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Significantly in Rajasthan BJP won all the three Assembly by-elections Sunday. The newly elected BJP MLAs would meet Monday to elect their leader who in all probability will be the 52-year old Modi. The swearing in is likely to take place a couple of days later. |
| bipin | Posted
on 15-Dec-02 01:10 PM
http://www.ektaonline.org/ THE GUJARAT MASSACRES: THE COST OF SILENCE download pdf The state of Gujarat in India once renowned as the home of the peace activist, Mahatma Gandhi, is today home to over 100,000 victims of recent communal violence, most of them Muslims. Of these numbers, over 2000 were brutalized and killed in every way imaginable and in ways till now unimaginable--stoned; burned alive with kerosene; stabbed; butchered; raped and burned; and, raped and cut open with fetuses removed, displayed on a tip of a sword and then discarded in fires. The unfortunate survivors that witnessed entire families erased continue to suffer in over-crowded make-shift relief camps and now face a different specter of death in the form of disease, an unrelenting heat wave, the approaching monsoon, and starvation. The violence in Gujarat began soon after an incident on February 27, 2002, when the Sabarmati Express was stopped near Godhra and several compartments were torched leading to the death of 58 Hindu passengers, including women and children. While conflicting reports exist about the exact sequence of events, it is clear that a confrontation between Hindutva activists returning from the controversial site of Ayodhya and the mainly Muslim residents of Godhra escalated to the point of the train being deliberately set on fire. What ensued in the wake of the heinous attack on the Sabarmati Express was a state-wide retaliatory carnage of unimaginable proportions the social, psychological and economical damages of which defy quantification. Immediately following the train incident at Godhra, frenzied Hindu mobs across the state of Gujarat unleashed their fury on the Muslim population by brutalizing and obliterating entire families and neighborhoods, looting their property, and destroying places of worship. To date, the numbers are as follows: over 2000 dead and buried in mass graves, over 100,000 in inadequate relief camps, and an estimated Rs. 10, 000 crore ($2 billion) in property damage. The unaccounted damage to the people of Gujarat as a whole, to the cause of communal harmony, and to India as a nation far exceeds these numbers. As NGOs and activists for communal harmony seek ways to bring relief and justice to the victims of the Gujarat massacre, fact-finding reports point to the following critical findings: State participation and complicity in communal violence in Gujarat: The rest can be found in the link. |