Top political developments in 2017
From Rahul Gandhi's elevation as the Congress president to Yogi Adityanath's appointment as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Lalu Prasad Yadav getting convicted in the fodder scam case, here is a brief insight of the developments in India's political scenario in 2017:
Top political developments in 2017
Vijay Rupani was on December 26, 2017 sworn-in as the chief minister of Gujarat for the second consecutive term after the BJP won the recently-held Assembly elections in the state. The glittering oath-taking ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a galaxy of BJP leaders but boycotted by the Congress.
With 99 MLAs, the BJP has a simple majority in the 182- member Gujarat Assembly, 16 less than its 2012 tally of 115.
The opposition Congress, which had won 61 seats in 2012, managed to increase its tally to 77 this time around. The strength of the party and its allies in the new House is 80.
The Congress on December 7 suspended senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar from its primary membership and slapped a show cause notice on him for his “neech” remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has mushroomed into a massive controversy just ahead of the Gujarat polls.
The 10 Janpath loyalist in response to a reporter’s question on Modi’s claim ‘there were attempts to undermine Sardar Patel’s role’ had said: “Ye aadmi bahut neech kisam ka aadmi hai, is mein koi sabhyata nahi hai, aur aise mauke par is kisam ki gandi rajneeti karne ki kya avashyakta hai?”
A special CBI court on December 23 convicted RJD chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and 15 others in a case relating to the multi-million rupee fodder scam. The quantum of sentence will be announced on Jauary 3, 2018.
In this case, Lalu Yadav faces accusations that as the chief minister and finance minister back in the nineties, he kept the file for an inquiry against the mastermind of the scam pending for 16 months and gave three other officials extensions despite objections from bureaucrats.
The court acquitted another former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra and five others in the case, related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 84.5 lakh from the Deoghar district treasury.
Marking a generational shift, Rahul Gandhi on December 16 took over as the new Congress president, assuming the mantle of the country's oldest political party from his mother Sonia Gandhi.
Sonia Gandhi, 70, who steered the party through turbulent times for 19 years, her daughter Priyanka Vadra, and son-in-law Robert Vadra and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh joined the top Congress leadership at the ceremony marked by loud celebrations as scores of Rahul Gandhi supporters danced to the beat of drums, raised slogans, burst firecrackers and distributed sweets outside the party office in Delhi.
Former Railway Minister Mukul Roy, who quit the Trinamool Congress, joined the BJP on November 3, 2017.
Roy had resigned from the Rajya Sabha and quit the TMC in October. He was suspended from Trinamool Congress for six years for indulging in anti-party activities after he had announced that he would quit the party. The former TMC leader is known for his organisational skills.
BJP leader Trivendra Singh Rawat was on March 18, 2017 sworn in as Uttarakhand Chief Minister. The BJP decimated the Congress in the Assembly election, winning 57 of the 70 seats.
Rawat was appointed the party’s national secretary in 2013. He was later made co-incharge of the party’s affairs in Uttar Pradesh in 2014. He was BJP in-charge of Jharkhand ahead of the crucial assembly election, a responsibility he discharged well to further strengthen the party leadership’s trust in him.
He had wrested the Doiwala seat from the Congress with an impressive margin of 24,869 votes to win it for the third time.
BJP leader Manohar Parrikar was sworn in Chief Minister of Goa on March 14 by Governor Mridula Sinha.
The Congress emerged as the single largest party winning 17 seats, while the BJP was restricted to 13 Assembly seats. But the BJP with the support of the Goa Forward Party, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and independents managed to cobble up an alliance and formed the government under leadership of Maniohar Parrikar.
Priest-turned politician and controversial mascot of hardline Hindutva, Yogi Adityanath was today sworn in as the 21st chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the fourth from the saffron party, ending its 15-year hiatus.
The BJP won a two-thirds majority in Uttar Pradesh, with 324 Assembly seats in its kitty.
