Feature
After facing defeat in Assembly polls, now BJP worried of losing in UP too
Lucknow: With three major states in the Hindi heartland slipping out of its hands, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is worried in Uttar Pradesh where even party insiders complain about poor governance and growing lawlessness.
“What if this repeats here too?” is a question that is haunting many in the BJP. For a party that stormed to power after 16 years of political exile, the stunning 2017 Assembly victory is beginning to look like history.
Barely a year-and-a-half later, the popularity ratings of the state government, specially Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, are worryingly down.
Many of his decisions, like renaming Faizabad to Ayodhya and Allahabad to Prayagraj and his use of acidic language, have soured his appeal, even among BJP supporters. BJP’s allies too are openly speaking against the way the state is run.
“There is a lot of corruption all round. Officials are not even listening to the Chief Minister’s directives,” said Om Prakash Rajbhar, who heads BJP ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) and is a cabinet Minister.
A perpetual rebel who has often broken ranks with the ruling party, Rajbhar’s disillusionment, unlike that of others, is out in the open.
There are, however, many senior Ministers in the ruling party who complain in private over what they feel is the poor and lacklustre performance of the BJP government.
“The government is directionless and has failed to inspire confidence,” says a party veteran who taunts the party leadership for not meeting the people’s aspirations.
“We are bogged down by a haughty bureaucracy which refuses to fall in line. As a result, our party workers and supporters are disgruntled,” he added.
A BJP General Secretary is accused by a Minister of trying to corner major tenders in irrigation and PWD departments. The Minister moaned that party leaders failed to understand the public mood.
BJP fears-off facing defeat in UP after suffering major setback in Assembly polls:
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Abdul Hafiz Gandhi for once agrees with the BJP leaders’ assessment and points out that except for “hatred and rumour mongering”, the BJP government has failed to achieve anything in one-and-a-half years.
Lawlessness, he adds, continues in the state. And despite lofty claims and reckless police “encounters”, in which critics say many innocents have died, criminals continue to have a free run.
An Apple executive was shot dead by a policeman in cold blood. And now a police officer too was shot dead during mob violence in Bulandshahr. Many children have died in poorly-managed state-run hospitals.
“So what has changed?” asks a senior BJP leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Former Minister and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP) President Shivpal Yadav says the government was not only anti-farmer but was also fanning communal passions which he says was not in the interest of the state.
The BJP’s defeats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh show that the time for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “fast running out”, he added.
Another Minister, also not wishing to be named, told media persons that after initial bravado Adityanath had failed to control the bureaucracy and was dependent on a small coterie of officers.
He pointed out how while the previous Samajwadi Party regime made giant strides in infrastructure, the present one had not been able to deliver results.
“The 308-km Agra-Lucknow Expressway was built from scratch in 18 months flat. We have not been able to even start the Poorvanchal Expressway,” he rued.
The coming together of bitter rivals Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls is also sending the saffron camp into jitters.
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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