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Lalu Prasad daughter Misa Bharti to contest LS election from Pataliputra seat
Patna: Lalu Prasads elder son Tej Pratap Yadav on Thursday asserted out of turn that his eldest sister Misa Bharti will contest the coming Lok Sabha election from Pataliputra again.
Tej Pratap, who was speaking on the sidelines of his daily ‘Janata Durbar’ at the RJD state headquarters here, also said that he would start campaigning in Pataliputra for his elder sister from today itself even though the party is yet to come out with any official word on the candidature for the seat.
Responding to queries about a recent statement by Maner MLA and chief RJD spokesman Bhai Virendra wherein he had expressed his desire to contest from the seat, he said The people of Pataliputra want Misa didi. Voters cast their votes in the name of Lalu Prasad. Neither Bhai Virendra nor I can do anything about it,” Yadav told reporters.
“Bhai Virendra had not got a ministerial berth and may be that is why he suffers from anxieties,” he told newsmen.
Carved out in the 2008 delimitation, the Pataliputra seat is seen as a prestige issue for the ‘first family’ in RJD as both Prasad and his daughter have unsuccessfully contested from there.
The RJD president had lost to his former protg Ranjan Yadav in 2009, when the latter was contesting on a JD(U) ticket. Misa fought in 2014 and lost to Ram Kripal Yadav, another former close aide of her father who had gravitated to the BJP.
Tej Pratap Yadav eldest sister Misa Bharti will contest LS poll from Pataliputra seat:
The comments of the mercurial elder son of Prasad and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi come in the backdrop of reports of discomfiture within the family over growing clout of the younger son Tejashwi Yadav, with whom Bhai Virendra is believed to be close to.
Tejashwi has emerged as the partys de facto leader in the absence of the RJD supremo who is serving sentences in a number of fodder cases.
He had made his electoral debut along with his elder brother Tej Pratap in the 2015 assembly polls and was straightaway appointed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as his deputy. Tej Pratap was given a cabinet berth.
After RJD lost power on account Kumars exit from the Grand Alliance, Tejashwi was appointed as the leader of opposition in the state assembly and by a unanimous resolution adopted at RJDs national council named its chief ministerial candidate for the next assembly polls.
Although Tej Pratap and Misa, who is currently a Rajya Sabha member, have repeatedly denied reports of any rift in the family, speculations have been rife about the elder siblings feeling of having been slighted under the shadow of the younger one.
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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