New Delhi: With the US set to vote today in the presidential election and Bihar voting in the second phase of assembly polls, prime time was full of voter turnouts, wins and losses. Also, an alleged scholarship scam in Jharkhand.
First up, NewsX focused on Bihar elections in the debate ‘Bihar Battleground Heats Up’
When asked about the possible outcome, BJP spokesperson Sudesh Verma was quite confident and said that the first phase of polling will be in favour of the incumbent BJP-JD(U) government.
“The so-called anger [towards Nitish Kumar] which we hear about a lot in the media is not being seen on the ground…people are by and large happy with this government,” he said.
Political analyst Desh Ratan Nigam saw a difference in approach to the campaign between the RJD and other parties. “RJD has chosen smaller grounds strategically so that it sounds very appealing as a visual for the media… compared to other parties which have chosen larger grounds.”
On the annual floods in Bihar, Congress spokesperson Anshul Avijit said he travelled around flood-affected areas and the people had complained that nobody from the state administration came to inquire about the situation.
He added, “The government has been in power for six years at the Centre and well this is a reflection on them and their incompetence.”
On India Today, Rajdeep Sardesai discussed the US presidential elections and particularly the Indian-American voters, which he said were part of “one of the most rapidly growing immigrant groups”.
Sardesai noted that Modi-Trump events like ‘Howdy Modi!’ in Texas and ‘Namaste Trump’ in Gujarat “seems to suggest that the Republicans and the Indian government have found a new form of romance. (Politicians can) no longer take the Indian-American vote for granted?”
Ajay Jain Bhutoria, a National Finance Committee member of the Joe Biden campaign, said, “Indian-Americans understand that Donald Trump has done nothing to advance (relations) between India and the US beyond photo opportunities…”
Sridhar Chityala, Indian Voices for Trump, said there isn’t much gravitation among Indian-Americans towards the “persona” of Kamala Harris, the Democrat vice-presidential nominee. Harris is an American of Indian origin and has referred to her roots several times during her campaigns.
“Trump is the only president who has stood by India on several issues like China,” he added.
Puneet Ahluwalia, candidate for lieutenant governor in Virginia, talked about a major shift among Indian-Americans towards the Republican party. “A large shift has come by the policies of the Democratic party… the rioting, the looting and then the defunding of police…”
Mirror Now’s Tanvi Shukla focused on the alleged scholarship scam in Jharkhand, where reports revealed that there have been cases of fraud and corruption across the state in the distribution of pre-matric scholarships for 2019-20 sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs through the National Scholarship Portal (NSP).
Shukla said it was “the worst kind of scam you can imagine” because it concerns government welfare funds meant to help poor children with their education.
BJP spokesperson Sudesh Verma was on the backfoot here , “Whatever has happened is bad, we condemn [it]. A proper investigation has to take place…”
He also defended the use of Aadhaar in the disbursal of scholarships via direct benefit transfers (DBT) into the bank accounts of eligible applicants.
“One who has cheated the system should be punished, it’s not that Aadhaar is wrong,” he added.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said this is just another example of how DBTs is being used as DSTs — “Direct Siphoning of Funds”.
On Zee News, anchor Sudhir Chaudhary spoke about “religious conversions”, particularly emphasising that he will not use the word ‘love jihad’. He was speaking in the context of the recent judgment by the Allahabad High Court, which noted that religious conversion for the sake of marriage was “unacceptable”.
Why do girls change their religion when the Constitution provides for two people of different religions getting married without converting, asked Chaudhary.
He then discussed two cases of conversion — one, where the woman was a Muslim and converted to Hinduism for marriage, and another where the woman was a Hindu and converted to Islam.
He read parts of the Allahabad HC judgment and said it is clear from the judgment that to marry someone one does not to change their religion.
On NDTV India, anchor Ravish Kumar said that Delhi was slowly becoming the ‘fine (challan) capital of India’. He noted that while more than 3.92 lakh people had tested positive for Covid-19 in Delhi, over 4 lakh people had been fined.
Kumar said that most people were being fined for not wearing masks.
While more than 5,000 daily cases were being reported in Delhi, Kumar noted that several people were recovering as well.