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<ul><li><keyword id="344501" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rakesh-Asthana">Rakesh Asthana</keyword>, the special director of the <keyword id="6354889" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="central-bureau-of-investigation">Central Bureau of Investigation</keyword> (<keyword id="6354572" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="CBI">CBI</keyword>), made a <keyword id="1472146" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="deposition">deposition</keyword> to the Cabinet Secretary last week about the rift between him and <keyword id="276608" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Alok-Verma">Alok Verma</keyword>, the director of the agency. </li><li>Verma opposed Asthana’s appointment to the No.2 position at the CBI over concerns that he was a person of interest in an investigation into the money laundering practices of Sterling Biotech. </li><li>The rift reached breaking point last month when Verma, who was overseas, declined to give Asthana the power to represent him at a meeting of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).</li></ul>Last week, the conflict between Alok Verma, the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>’s main investigation agency, and his deputy, special director Rakesh Asthana, escalated yet again. The latter was instructed to inform <keyword id="1706029" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pradeep-Kumar-Sinha">Pradeep Kumar Sinha</keyword>, the Cabinet Secretary, of the details of the rift and the progress of certain cases. The official deposition, which followed an order from the Prime Minister’s Office, came amid complaints that the rift between the two was holding up the CBI’s investigation of a number of politically sensitive cases such as the Vijay Mallya wilful defaulter case and the 2G spectrum allocation issue. But what exactly are the reasons for this rift? The primary reason has to do with the appointment of Asthana, a former IPS officer from Gujarat, as the agency’s special director in October 2017. A petition was filed by Common Cause, an NGO, against the appointment, citing his close relations with a firm, Sterling Biotech Ltd, that was the subject of an investigation by the Income Tax Department and CBI for money laundering. Asthana was said to be a person of interest in the case, with suspicion that he had received bribes from the company. However, the Supreme Court subsequently cleared Asthana’s appointment the following month. It bears mentioning that the central government had also defended Asthana’s appointment, given his track record of heading up a number of important <keyword id="72743" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="investigations">investigations</keyword> such as the Godhra riots issue and the AgustaWestland scam. Verma was said to be opposed to Asthana’s appointment, and had reportedly raised objections about the same issue. Concurrently, Asthana was gradually stripped of his responsibility in leading a number of important investigations. However, he made his voice heard on a number of issues, and opposed Verma’s appointment of two senior officials - RP Upadhyay and Rajeev Krishna- who were subsequently disqualified in May by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) , a government body to address corruption and vet appointments to the CBI. The rift reached breaking point last month. Given that Verma was on a work trip overseas, he missed a meeting of the CVC on July 12th. However, straying from protocol, he did not give Asthana the power to represent him. The meeting was for the induction of certain IPS officers to replace the officials that had been removed from consideration against Verma’s wishes. The CBI told the CVC that Asthana did not have the power to represent Verma since he was under investigation. Now what? The Cabinet Secretary is expected to mediate the conflict. Asthana is said to be a favourite of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, so it seems likely that he will maintain his position at the CBI. At this point, the institutional integrity of the agency has already been compromised. The government will try and prevent the rift from getting further out of hand and hope for a speedy resolution. A number of cases are in the process of being investigated, and given that this is an election year, the resolution of at least a few of them will be necessary.

Here’s why the top two officials of India’s main investigative agency are fighting with each other

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Voting in 94 of the total 243 Assembly seats in Bihar will be held on November 3 during the second phase of state elections in which over 2.85 crore voters will decide the fate of 1,463 candidates in fray. As many as 41,362 polling stations have been set up across 17 districts, all of which except Patna, Bhagalpur, and Nalanda are situated north of the Ganges. Maharajganj seat has a maximum of 27 candidates in the electoral battle and Daraula with only four in the second round of Assembly polls. Prominent contestants in the fray include Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Grand Alliance's chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav who is recontesting the Raghopur seat and his brother Tej Pratap in the fray in Hassanpur seat in Samastipur district. Other prominent faces in the fray in the second phase are RJD leaders Alok Kumar Mehta from Ujiyarpur and Shailesh Kumar from Bihpur, former parliamentarian Anand Mohan's son Chetan Anand from Sheohar, former parliamentarian Rama Singh's wife Beena Singh from Mahnar, and Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha's son Luv from Bankipur. Plurals Party leader Pushpam Priya Choudhary is also in the fray in Bankipur, apart from BJP's Nitin Naveen. Ministers Nandkishore Yadav, Randhir Singh, and Shravan Kumar are also in the fray from Patna Sahib, Madhuban and Nalanda segments. The prestige of 27 MLAs of the Grand Alliance is at stake. The RJD has fielded 56 candidates in the second phase of elections, wherein it is in direct contest with the BJP on 27 seats and with the ally turned foe JD-U on 25 seats. The BJP is contesting 46 seats and the JD-U 43 seats. The Congress is contesting 24 seats, CPI and CPM four each, Lok Janshakti Party 52 and RLSP 36 seats. In the 2015 elections, the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad had bagged 33 of these seats, the JD-U 30 and the Congress seven whereas the NDA had won only 22 seats. However, a lot of water has since flown down the rivers ever since. New political permutations and combinations have come into play in 2020 as compared with the 2015 polls. Five years ago, Nitish Kumar's JD-U fought the elections in alliance with the RJD and the Congress, whereas the NDA had Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) in its camp. In this poll fray, the JD-U has moved to the NDA camp, the LJP is fighting its own battle and the RLSP is a part of the Grand Democratic Secular Front. Elections for the 243-seat Bihar Assembly are set to be held in three phases, out of which polling in the first phase was conducted on October 28. After the November 3 voting for 94 seats, remaining 78 constituencies will go to polls on November 7. The counting of votes is slated for November 10.

Bihar elections 2020: 2.85 crore voters to exercise franchise in 94 seats on November 3

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Here’s why the top two officials of India’s main investigative agency are fighting with each other

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Here are the winning candidates from Trinamool Congress in West Bengal elections 2021

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West Bengal election results 2021: Trinamool Congress scores a double century but Mamata Banerjee loses Nandigram

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Bihar elections 2020: 2.85 crore voters to exercise franchise in 94 seats on November 3

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West Bengal election results 2021: Checkout the list of winning candidates

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