Plugged-In: The impeachment saga & 3 days to Karnataka elections

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The petition two MPs moved in the Supreme Court challenging Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu’s rejection of the impeachment motion was withdrawn Tuesday. Kapil Sibal, who appeared on behalf of the two MPs, told the bench that they should “share the administrative order under which this bench was constituted and we will decide if we accept it or challenge it”. He was referring to the five-judge bench constituted by the CJI to hear the plea. When the bench did not comply, The Indian Express reports, Sibal said, “In that case, I will withdraw the petition.”

Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha
Congress leaders Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha during a press conference  | PTI

This indecision in India’s highest court of justice “exposes a terrifying reality about political & judicial leadership”, ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta writes. Read his column for a breakdown of the crisis.

The Supreme Court has admonished the Centre for not drafting the Cauvery scheme within the given deadline. Calling it “sheer contempt of court”, the apex court adjourned the case to 14 May, “after the Karnataka assembly elections on 12 May and before the counting of votes on 15 May,” The Hindu reports.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has said he is ready to be the Prime Minister if the party wins a majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Hindustan Times reports.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi at an event in Bengaluru. | PTI / Shailendra Bhojak

The Bombay High Court has upheld the validity of a law that lets the government collect the premium, transfer fees and a share of profits when the rights of a leased government property are transferred from one party to another. This will be a “major boost for state coffers”, and “in effect, the state gets a share of the ‘unearned income’ of any such transaction”, The Times of India reports.

‘No,’ said BJP president Amit Shah, when asked about the possibility of early Lok Sabha elections. He also said India wasn’t ready for simultaneous elections next year since a political consensus was yet to be formed, The Indian Express reports.

2019 wont be a cakewalk for BJP, Amit Shah
BJP president Amit Shah | Santosh Hirlekar /PTI

Under severe criticism for the worsening security situation in Kashmir, J&K chief minister has called an all-party meeting today for a discussion on the issue, Rahiba Parveen reports for ThePrint. Sixteen people, including eight militants, seven locals and a tourist have been killed in the Valley in the past four days.

Former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif is being questioned about allegedly laundering $4.9 billion to India. Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), ordered an inquiry against him Tuesday, “claiming that the incident was mentioned in World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Book 2016”, The Times of India reports.

File image of Nawaz Sharif | @pid_gov

Karnataka assembly election with ThePrint

Voting on 12 May, Saturday
Counting on 15 May, Tuesday

To make a chief minister out of B.S. Yeddyurappa, PM Modi will have to run through the caste barrier, D.K. Singh reports. Yeddyurappa, the BJP’s chief campaigner, inspires little confidence among non-Lingayats, who constitute over 80 per cent of the population. So, now he is seeking to craft a nationalist narrative to counter CM Siddaramaiah’s sub-nationalism and identity politics.

PM Narendra Modi with the BJP’s Karnataka CM candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa | PTI

Both Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi addressed rallies Tuesday in the Lingayat stronghold of Vijayapura. Basavana Bagewadi, the home of the Lingayat philosopher and social reformer Basavanna, is located about 40 km from the district. The Lingayats constitute 17 per cent of Karnataka’s population and can reportedly influence the outcome in 100 of the state’s 224 assembly seats, Sakshi Arora explains.

Check out the series of articles about the high-octane election written by award-winning author and historian Vikram Sampath. In his seventh essay, he tells us that while central Karnataka might be where leaders are mutt-hopping, the real and neglected issue is the water crisis.

Business Class

Beleaguered business tycoon Vijay Mallya has lost a lawsuit in the UK filed by Indian banks to recover their money, reports Bloomberg.

Walmart-Flipkart deal: The Indian income tax authorities are keeping a close watch on the soon-to-be announced acquisition, reports The Economic Times. The authorities have asked for details of the transaction from Walmart as well as Flipkart.

Flipkart
Flipkart | @Flipkart

News it’s just kinda cool to know

10,000 voter ID cards were found in a Bengaluru apartment, triggering another row between the BJP and the Congress ahead of this week’s Karnataka election. Read the NDTV report to know more.

Women in Saudi Arabia can start driving from 24 June, The Economic Times reports the country’s General Department of Traffic director general Mohammed al-Bassami as saying Tuesday. For context, in September last year, “a royal decree announced the end of a decades-long ban on women driving — the only one of its kind in the world”, the daily tells us.

The ban on women driving was lifted by Saudi Arabia this week.
A Saudi woman at the wheel | Source: CBS Evening News

Google doesn’t want you to use your phone that much. The next version of Android OS will feature a ‘Wind Down’ mode that makes your screen grey after a pre-set time, and shows how many hours a day you use various apps, Quartz reports on the Google 2018 I/O developers conference.

Several apps of Google displayed on a smartphone | Carsten Koall/Getty Images
Several apps of Google displayed on a smartphone | Carsten Koall/Getty Images

Point of View

Striking down a provision of the Uttar Pradesh (Salaries, Allowance and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1981, the Supreme Court Tuesday stripped former UP chief ministers of their official accommodation. In its editorial, The Indian Express has welcomed the move.

With the BSP and the SP almost finalising an alliance for the 2019 general election, the political landscape is heating up in Uttar Pradesh. The Times Of India, in its editorial, writes the alliance “could reshape heartland politics in India”.

BSP supremo Mayawati addresses a press conference in Lucknow | PTI
BSP supremo Mayawati addresses a press conference in Lucknow | PTI

After China, it’s Nepal on the Prime Minister’s itinerary. Former diplomat Rakesh Sood, in his column in The Hindu, welcomes this resetting of the ‘neighbourhood-first’ policy of the Modi government. But he points out that it would be incomplete if Pakistan were not included.

Hardly a day goes by without reports of gruesome rape-murders. Lok Sabha MP Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda, in his column in The Times Of India, writes that tougher laws are no solution to this problem. “Better policing is,” he says.

Shia leaders seem to have developed a deep bonhomie with the BJP government in UP. The only Muslim in Yogi Adityanath’s council of ministers is Mohsin Raza Naqvi, a Shia. Christophe Jaffrelot and Haider Abbas Rizvi, write in their column in The Indian Express, “Shia leaders are drawing closer to the Hindutva agenda in UP under Yogi Adityanath’s chief ministership.”

Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi in Lucknow | Ashok Dutta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Yogi Adityanath, Amit Shah and Narendra Modi in Lucknow | Ashok Dutta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

The two Congress MPs who challenged the VP’s dismissal of the opposition’s impeachment motion decided to withdraw their petition from the Supreme Court. Maneesh Chhibber, in his column for ThePrint, writes, “Can a CJI who is at the centre of an impeachment debate and against whom a requisite number of MPs have moved an impeachment motion, use his powers as ‘master of the roster’ to constitute benches to hear matters that directly concern him?”