Feature
Amit Shah elected BJP president, Advani and Joshi skip the event
New Delhi. Amit Shah, a confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was on Sunday elected the BJP president for a full three-year term, retaining the post he has held since the party took power in India in 2014.
Shah, 51, who took charge of the party from now Home Minister Rajnath Singh, was elected unopposed at an event at the BJP hea
dquarters attended by virtually all party leaders. “Amit Shah has been elected unopposed,” Bharatiya Janata Party leader Avinash Rai Khanna told the media as hundreds of party activists cheered Shah and raised slogans hailing him and the party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who flew to Chandigarh to receive French President Francois Hollande, was not present. But he congratulated Shah, and said he was confident the party “will scale newer heights under his leadership”.
“Amit bhai combines grassroot-level work and rich organizational experience which will benefit the party immensely,” said Modi, who is said to count Shah as one of his most trusted aides.
Rajnath Singh added: “He (Shah) has been an extremely successful party president. I am confident the BJP will continue its forward march under Shah’s stewardship and reach newer heights of success and glory.”
Besides Modi, the two other notable absentees from the BJP event were former party presidents L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who are known to be unhappy with Shah’s style of functioning. But the stage erected at the party office was crowded with visibly happy BJP leaders including another former president, M. Venkaiah Naidu. Many garlanded Shah and offered him bouquets. So did numerous party activists.
Shah did not address the gathering or speak to the media.
A science graduate, Shah rose to fame when he, as the party in-charge in Uttar Pradesh, led the BJP to a grand victory in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha battle where it won 71 of the 80 seats — a record. It was the Lok Sabha election where he and Modi combined to lead the party to a spectacular victory, ending 10 long years of Congress rule. The Congress was routed.
Shah came to be associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in Gujarat in his young days. He met Modi in 1982, and the two have remained close since then. He joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS student wing, in 1983 and the BJP in 1986 — a year before Modi became a BJP member. Shah switched over to the BJP’s student wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, in 1987. A four-time legislator in Gujarat, Shah was a former home minister in the state.
His reputation as a strategic organiser took a beating when the Aam Aadmi Party routed the BJP in the Delhi assembly election in February last year — the first popularity contest after the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP was again defeated in the Bihar assembly election in November 2015. It was the Bihar defeat that triggered a revolt by some BJP veterans including Advani and Joshi against Shah’s working style.
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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