‘Petulant, churlish’ TMC abandons VP poll; GST hikes pour oil in fire; Putin forges alliance of sanctioned
Opinion Watch
The Raisina Hills makes endeavor to curate contents for thinking minds. The opinion watch adopts a conversational style to examine editorials carried in The Indian Express (IE), The Hindu (TH), The Times of India (ToI), The Pioneer (TP) and Deccan Herald (DH).
Trinamool Congress has long been known as India’s most theatric political party. The party lived up to its reputation by dramatic announcement to stay away from the Vice President’s election.
IE has come down heavily against the TMC in its Edit ‘Abdicating space’, noting that the decision casts the party in poor light, while also describing the move as ‘petulant and churlish’.
A leaked photograph of the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with her Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Vice Presidential nominee Jagdeep Dhankar renders all arguments of party MP Derek O’Brien for boycotting the election bogus.
IE, while noting that the TMC has 221 MLAs, 23 and 13 MPs in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha respectively, commented “this amounts to abdicating space in an important and consequential process, at a time when parties of the Opposition, singly and together, must already contend with a fast shrinking foothold in Parliament and outside it”.
The daily tells the TMC that its stance on VP poll is a self-goal.
IE has been mild in its criticism of the TMC because circumstantially it has become evident that the West Bengal ruling outfit’s credibility as an Opposition party should be questioned, while Banerjee needs to explain what she was doing with Sarma and Dhankar in a congenial atmosphere while she serves for a public consumption an image that she is always on a warpath.
When fire rages, conventional wisdom mandates that one should not pour oil. The Chandigarh GST Council meeting has just done that when the middle and the low-income class people are bearing the brunt of price rise.
DH has in a scathing editorial has sharply commented on the decision to withdraw tax exemptions for a few items and change the rates for others, which came into effect on Monday, with pre-packed, labelled food items like atta, rice, milk and pulses and others becoming costlier.
The daily also stated “small traders and retailers fear that the exemption of large packs of 25 kg or 25 litres or more from GST might prompt customers to move away from them and make unbranded packaged items uncompetitive”.
The Monsoon session of Parliament has been paralysed on account of the GST hikes, and the government indeed is showing no empathy for the tax burdens of the vast majority of the people.
Haryana is India’s worst performing state when it comes to social indicators, besides forest coverage. The real-estate and politician nexus in the state has already made the remnants of the Aravali Hills disappear.
ToI in its lead Edit ‘Saving the Hills’ has lauded the Supreme Court judgment that states that all land in Haryana covered under the Punjab Land Preservation Act will be treated as forest land.
Haryana has a mere 3.6 per cent forest cover against the national average of 21.7 per cent, noted the daily, adding the 2013 World Bank report that estimated India’s annual cost of economic degradation amounted to USD 80 billion or 5.7 percent of the GDP.
But the Supreme Court verdict has come at a time when the maximum damage has already been done, and retrieving the green cover may remain an elusive dream.
TH in its Edit “Union of the sanctioned” has taken note of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Iran and signing of oil pact worth USD 40 billion, besides his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The daily has termed Putin’s first such meetings after he invaded Ukraine as an attempt to forge an alliance with countries facing western sanctions.
TP has hailed the Supreme Court decision to allow a woman to abort her 24-week fetus, while reminding that until the unveiling of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 women could have faced three-year jail term for abortions.
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