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By:

Dr. Abhilash Dawre

19 March 2025 at 5:18:41 pm

From suspension to defection

Eighteen days after the results, Ambernath politics takes a dramatic turn as Congress corporators flood into BJP Ambernath : Amid growing buzz around municipal elections in Maharashtra, the Congress party has suffered a major political blow in Ambernath. As many as 11 Congress corporators have quit the party and formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) within 24 hours of being suspended, dramatically altering the power balance in the Ambernath Municipal Council. The development has...

From suspension to defection

Eighteen days after the results, Ambernath politics takes a dramatic turn as Congress corporators flood into BJP Ambernath : Amid growing buzz around municipal elections in Maharashtra, the Congress party has suffered a major political blow in Ambernath. As many as 11 Congress corporators have quit the party and formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) within 24 hours of being suspended, dramatically altering the power balance in the Ambernath Municipal Council. The development has not only weakened Congress but has also dealt a significant setback to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction.   The crisis began after Congress suspended 12 corporators for aligning with the BJP during the formation of power in the municipal council. However, since the corporators were suspended and not disqualified, their corporator status remained intact, legally freeing them to join another party. Taking advantage of this, 11 suspended corporators crossed over to the BJP, leaving Congress in a political bind described by party insiders as a case of “losing both oil and ghee.”   The situation within the Congress organisation in Ambernath has further deteriorated. Party sources say there is no one left to even occupy the Congress office, and discussions are underway about sending a lock from Mumbai to secure it. Ironically, the party office itself is reportedly under the control of former Taluka Congress President Pradeep Patil, who was earlier suspended for campaigning for Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) candidate Shrikant Shinde during the Lok Sabha elections. Patil was suspended at the time by then state Congress president Nana Patole.   Power Struggle In the Ambernath Municipal Council, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena has 27 corporators, BJP has 14, Congress 12, and the Nationalist Congress Party 4. Despite being the single largest party, Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) fell short of a majority. BJP capitalised on this situation by aligning with Congress corporators and the NCP to reach the majority mark, a move that triggered widespread discussion across the state and country due to the unusual BJP–Congress alignment. Congress’s disciplinary action against its corporators ultimately worked in BJP’s favour and against the Shinde Sena. Following the defection of the 11 corporators, BJP’s strength in the municipal council has increased significantly, while the Shinde Sena has been pushed further away from power despite having the highest number of elected members.   This political churn is being viewed as a warning signal for Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) leadership. Ambernath is represented by MLA Dr. Balaji Kinikar, while Shrikant Shinde, son of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, is the local Member of Parliament. With party control firmly in their hands, the BJP’s successful induction of Congress corporators facilitated by state BJP president Ravindra Chavan is being seen as a strategic challenge to the Shinde camp.   Intensifying Rivalry BJP’s aggressive organisational expansion in Badlapur, Ambernath, and Kalyan-Dombivli has intensified tensions between BJP and the Shinde Sena. The rivalry between MP Shrikant Shinde and BJP state president Ravindra Chavan has now become increasingly open, peaking in December with both sides engaging in aggressive political poaching of former corporators and office-bearers.   List of Congress corporators who joined BJP 1. Pradeep Nana Patil 2. Darshana Umesh Patil 3. Archana Charan Patil 4. Harshada Pankaj Patil 5. Tejaswini Milind Patil 6. Vipul Pradeep Patil 7. Manish Mhatre 8. Dhanlakshmi Jayashankar 9. Sanjavani Rahul Devde 10. Dinesh Gaikwad 11. Kiran Badrinath Rathod

Algorithmic Indecency

Silicon Valley likes to dress its creations in the language of freedom. Artificial intelligence, its apostles insist, is merely a mirror that reflects society’s appetites. India’s brusque 72-hour ultimatum to X over the misuse of its chatbot Grok now punctures that alibi. When a machine repeatedly enables the sexual humiliation of women, such mirrors no longer suffice. It is time to take responsibility.


The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s notice to X is an overdue indictment. Grok, Elon Musk’s vaunted AI companion, has been used to generate and circulate obscene, sexualised and deepfake images of women. Recently, some of India’s brightest women cricketers fell prey to Grok’s indecency.


The danger lies not merely in the volume of abuse, though that is alarming enough. AI-generated images now flood social media with the ease of spam. Anyone online can be targeted and women in the public eye are especially hunted. The result is a grim democratisation of misogyny.


The Ministry has accused X of failing its statutory due-diligence obligations under India’s IT Act and rules, and of neglecting mandatory reporting under newer criminal statutes. It has demanded an action-taken report, a review of Grok’s technical and governance frameworks, and a strict enforcement of user policies and immediate takedowns. It has threatened the ultimate sanction - the loss of “safe harbour” - the legal shield that protects platforms from liability for user content.


Grok has already made headlines in India for abusive language and reckless forays into politics and history, dispensing opinions on sensitive figures and controversies with adolescent bravado. That a chatbot can declare one politician “more honest” than another, boast that it is “not afraid of anyone” and then be weaponised to strip women of dignity points to a deeper flaw.


The fact that women are compelled to negotiate their bodily autonomy with software is a dystopian footnote to the AI age. Consent, once a social norm enforced by law, is being reduced to a disclaimer ignored by bad actors and insufficiently policed by platforms.


Platforms that deploy generative tools at scale assume a duty of care proportionate to the power they unleash. India’s response has been notable for its sternness in signalling that AI-enabled obscenity will be treated as an out and out crime.


Laws on indecent representation, child protection and criminal conduct already exist. The question is whether technology firms will align their incentives with those laws or continue to test how far they can go before being stopped.


Grok’s promise was to be a witty, unfiltered companion. But it seems en route to perilously becoming a veritable factory for harm by laundering harassment through code. The choice before X is to either build serious safeguards and accept accountability or lose the privilege of operating behind legal shields. The age of AI bravado is ending. What comes next must be responsibility. By turning harassment into a prompt-response service, X has not liberated expression but mechanised cruelty.

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