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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Plea in HC for fresh polls, new body

Dr. Rumi F. Beramji Mumbai : A senior medical practitioner has knocked on the doors of the Bombay High Court, alleging serious irregularities in the functioning of the Maharashtra Council of Acupuncture (MCA) and challenging the continuation of its current Administrator.   In a petition filed through Advocate Sharad V. Natu, Dr. Laxman Bhimrao Sawant has termed the appointment and prolonged tenure of former MCA Chairman as “illegal and arbitrary,”  and detrimental to the cause of Acupuncture....

Plea in HC for fresh polls, new body

Dr. Rumi F. Beramji Mumbai : A senior medical practitioner has knocked on the doors of the Bombay High Court, alleging serious irregularities in the functioning of the Maharashtra Council of Acupuncture (MCA) and challenging the continuation of its current Administrator.   In a petition filed through Advocate Sharad V. Natu, Dr. Laxman Bhimrao Sawant has termed the appointment and prolonged tenure of former MCA Chairman as “illegal and arbitrary,”  and detrimental to the cause of Acupuncture.   Dr. Beramji, who headed the five-member statutory body 's inaugural term (from May 2018 to May 2023), was subsequently appointed as its Administrator after the council’s term expired.   According to Dr. Sawant’s plea, the Administrator’s appointment was initially meant to be a stop-gap arrangement for one year, and it was ‘extended’ later. However, nearly three years later, the position continues without fresh elections being conducted, raising questions over adherence to statutory norms and principles of governance.   Dr. Sawant has further contended that while Dr. Beramji was installed as Administrator, the remaining members of the council were effectively superseded, leaving the regulatory body without its mandated collective structure, and over 6500-members directionless.   The petition claims that the delay in conducting elections was justified on the grounds of an incomplete voter list, but this reason was flimsy considering the extended time lapse.   The petition, likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday (April 21), also levelled serious allegations regarding the manner in which the MCA has been run under the Administrator. It claims decisions have been taken unilaterally, whimsically and without transparency or institutional accountability.   Besides, Dr. Sawant has made allegations of selective targeting of certain members who have attempted to raise valid issues, including the globally-renowned noted acupuncture expert Dr. P. B. Lohiya of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.   Adding to the controversy, a former MCA office-bearer has claimed that over the past three years, approvals were granted to more than a dozen acupuncture colleges in undue haste, purportedly in violation of prescribed norms and alleged shady deals.   These institutions, it is claimed, either exist only on paper or lack essential infrastructure, faculty, and facilities. In addition, around two dozen Continuous Acupuncture Education (CAE) centres were also cleared during this period.   In his multiple prayers to the high court, Dr. Sawant has sought quashing Dr. Beramji’s appointment as MCA Administrator and setting aside all policy decisions taken during his tenure in that capacity in the last three years.   The petition also urged the court to direct the state government to conduct elections to elect and reconstitute a new five-member MCA within two months.   Pending this, the plea seeks an order restraining the Administrator from continuing in office or interfering in the functioning of the MCA or the CAEs in the interest of free and fair elections or the cause of Acupuncture.   Sources within the MCA have described the situation as “deeply concerning,” alleging that individuals of international standing, such as Dr. Lohiya - who has treated prominent personalities like Sachin Tendulkar, the late Manoj Kumar, state and central ministers and other public figures - are being unfairly hounded.   The petition has called for a comprehensive review of all decisions taken during the Administrator’s tenure, a financial audit of the MCA’s financial affairs, and an independent probe by the Medical Education & Drugs Department (MEDD) into the approvals granted to the institutions in recent years.   Despite repeated attempts by  ‘ The Perfect Voice’ , top MCA officials like the Administrator or the Registrar Narayan Nawale, were not available for their comments.

Resounding Mandate

After months of witnessing high-stakes campaigning, Bihar has delivered a political verdict of unusual clarity. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comprising of the ruling BJP and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and their allies swept the State’s 243 assembly seats to register a landslide victory. The thumping win hands Chief Minister Nitish Kumar a fifth term and gives Prime Minister Narendra Modi another emphatic endorsement in the Hindi heartland. The scale of this victory, which echoes the NDA’s 2010 win, is striking and deeply symbolic.


At one level, the outcome is an affirmation of incumbency, not a rejection of it despite the narrative put out by the Opposition Grand Alliance. Bihar’s record turnout of 67.13 percent suggests that voters were not merely compliant participants but active arbiters in choosing continuity this time. Nitish Kumar had campaigned on the promise of orderly governance, restored law and order and incremental welfare. The BJP supplied organisational muscle and the Prime Minister’s brand of national leadership. Between them, they offered a narrative of stability and future promise that was eagerly embraced by Bihar’s electorate.


The NDA’s appeal drew strength from two constituencies central to any durable majority. Women, buoyed by targeted welfare programmes voted in unusually high numbers. The youth, meanwhile, backed an aspirational agenda of industrialisation and job creation. The NDA’s promises sounded feasible in stark contrast to the Opposition led by Tejashwi Yadav and an embattled Congress.


The Mahagathbandhan was totally routed, with the Congress putting on an abysmal performance. It was a firm rejection of decades of misgovernance by the RJD and the Congress, especially the dark days of Lalu Yadav’s ‘Jungle Raj.’ The RJD’s decision to field an unusually high number of Yadav candidates rekindled the spectre of caste consolidation and revived memories of the turbulent 1990s. The Grand Alliance was fractious from the outset, weakened by seat-sharing quarrels, the RJD-centric tone of the campaign and the conspicuous sidelining of its allies. Rahul Gandhi’s Congress, spending heavily on social-media amplification of ‘vote-theft’ conspiracies, emerged with little to show for it.


For Nitish Kumar, the mandate offers stability but also scrutiny. His long stewardship of Bihar has been marked by improvements in crime control and service delivery, yet the state remains among India’s poorest, its industrial base stunted and its migration rates high. Having campaigned on credibility, he must now deepen reforms that have often arrived in hesitant increments.


For Tejashwi Yadav, the loss is existential. The RJD cannot be a party trapped between nostalgia and reinvention. The party’s messaging, at once tethered to past grievances and defensive about them, convinced neither loyalists nor fence-sitters.


It is the electorate that emerges strongest from this contest. The peaceful conduct of polling, without reports of violence or re-runs, reflects a maturity that Bihar was once denied. Voters have rejected chaos, caste absolutism and rhetorical excess by choosing competence, however imperfect, and development. That is a mandate any democracy would envy.


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