“If you want a rebate on your electricity bill, remove the Bharatiya Janata Party and bring back the
Congress.” A farmer in Madhya Pradesh got this reply via the official portal of the state electricity department after he complained about excessive billing. The incident took place in Agar Malwa district of the state, where by-election is scheduled later this year. The farmer, Harish Jadav, received a bill of Rs 30,000 against his domestic consumption. A few days after lodging his complaint on the official portal, he tried checking on its status and was shocked to see the response, which also said that if he helped bring the
Congress back to power, he would receive a monthly bill of Rs 100 only. The department later said many employees of the firm had the password to the complaint section, and anyone could have logged on and posted the comment. An enquiry is on to identify who did it.
Two of Uttar Pradesh’s big political parties, the
Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), were invited for the videoconference of opposition leaders on Friday, but neither attended. The
Congress had called the opposition leaders’ meeting, attended by 22 parties, but the absence of the SP and
BSP is being interpreted as their nervousness at the campaign by Congress General Secretary (for UP)
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The SP has complained that the media does not cover the work its leadership is doing to help the poor and migrant workers, and focusing only on the Congress. The
BSP has gone a step further and in a statement, party chief
Mayawati on Saturday said the Congress ruled the country for most of the years after independence but failed to provide jobs to people near their home, which forced them to migrate. The Congress leadership, on its part, is enthused at what it calls Mayawati’s frustration at the rising graph of the Congress among the poor, particularly the Dalits.