Four persons died and over 100 policemen were injured after violence erupted in Haldwani’s Banbhoolpura area on Thursday during a demolition drive in the city. After the unrest, the district administration has suspended internet services and ordered the closure of all schools and colleges.

The Uttarakhand government has put high alert in the state as a precaution after the violence. Four companies of paramilitary forces were sent to Haldwani in Nainital district after violence broke out on Thursday in Banbhoolpura during anti encroachment drive.  Uttarakhand police said two companies of the Provincial armed Constabulary (PAC) from Udham Singh also reached Haldwani.

A curfew has been placed in Banbhoolpura on the orders of the District Magistrate and a shoot-at-sight order has also been issued against rioters. Senior Superintendent of Police Prahlad Meena said the madrasa and the mosque stood on an illegally encroached government land and the demolitions were carried out in the heavy presence of police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel in compliance with a court order.

Angry mob including women came out on the street in large numbers and descended on the streets to protest the action as the demolition of the two structures started. They were seen breaking barricades and arguing with the police personnel who were engaged in the demolition exercise.

As the bulldozer razed the madrasa and the mosque, the mob started throwing stones at the police personnel, municipal corporation workers and journalists, left over 60 persons injured. The police tried to disperse the irate mob by resorting to a mild lathi charge and bursting of teargas shells.

Tension increased in the area as the mob set fire to many vehicles which included a police patrol car. The tension mounted further and the Bhanbhoolpura Police Station was also set on fire. This led to the imposition of curfew in the city.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday tabled a White Paper on the Indian economy in the Lok Sabha and compared it with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s records.

Tabling the White Paper, Sitharam said when BJP came to power in 2014, the economy was in a fragile state, public finance was in bad shape, economic mismanagement and it was a crisis situation.

In the White Paper, the Modi government mentioned that the UPA government inherited a healthy economy ready for more reforms but made it non-performing in its ten years.

The Modi-led BJP government has said that the UPA government in its quest to maintain high economic growth by any means after the global financial crisis of 2008, had worsened it and severely undermined the macroeconomic foundations.

The White Paper presented by Sitharaman further underlined the inflation in the country between 2009 and 2014. There were high fiscal deficits for six years between the Financial Year 2009 and 2014 that heaped misery on ordinary and poorer households.

Over the five-year period from 2010 to 2014, the average annual inflation rate was in double digits, adding that, Sitharaman further mentioned that the average annual inflation in the economy was 8.2 percent between 2004 and 2014.

According to the White Paper, the banking crisis was one of the most important and infamous legacies of the UPA government. The White Paper also mentioned that the GNPA ratio in Public Sector banks decreased from 16.0% to 7.8% during the tenure of the Vajpayee-led NDA government.

The ratio, including restructured loans, had reached 12.3% in September 2013, mainly due to political interference by the UPA government in the commercial lending decisions of public sector banks. Worse, even that high percentage of bad debts was an underestimate, the Modi government claimed.

The White Paper also highlighted that when the BJP government took charge in 2015, the pace of national highway construction languished at 12 km/day. The pace of construction has risen more than 2.3X to 28 km/day now. While the UPA government laid nearly 16,000 km length of national highways in their 10 years of governance, the BJP government has already done at least three times better than this in its nearly 10-year rule, said the government in White Paper.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday dismissed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s claims that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not belong to the Other Backward Class (OBC) but the general category.

Responding to Gandhi’s claims, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad asked him to stop making such shameful and baseless statements. In a scathing attack, Prasad asked has this become Rahul Gandhi’s level. He said the poor people, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Communities in this country considered Modi their leader.

Addressing the public during his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Odisha’s Jharsuguda today, Gandhi said that PM Modi was not born in the OBC category but in the “Teli” caste in Gujarat. He said that the community was given the tag of OBC in the year 2000 by the BJP.

Gandhi said Modi was born in the General caste. Gandhi also said that PM Modi will not allow caste census to be conducted in his entire life because he was not born in OBC, he was born in General caste, the Congress leader claimed.  

He continued attacking PM Modi asking people to tell the BJP workers that PM Modi lied to the entire country about his caste and that he belongs to the general category and not the OBC.

Earlier, PM Modi called himself “Sabse Bada OBC” in Parliament. He attacked Congress saying the party which has no guarantee on its leaders, on its principles raises questions about the Modi government. The party during its rule did not decide between nationalisation and privatisation, it went on giving the Bharat Ratna to the family members and naming roads after family members, which pained PM Modi.

PM Modi also brought up the caste reservation in his speech and said if Baba Saheb had not been there, they would have not got a reservation. He went on to say that Congress has been their biggest opponent of Dalits, Backwards and Tribal people.