Scottish National Party gets 11,000 new membership requests in the 75 hours following the referendum

Scottish pro-independence parties reported a surge in membership over the weekend as campaigners vowed to continue to fight after a split with the United Kingdom was rejected in a referendum.

The Scottish National Party said its servers were struggling to cope with 11,000 new membership requests in the 75 hours following the referendum on Thursday, when it had 25,600 members.

The SNP’s leader Alex Salmond announced he would step down as Scottish First Minister after 55% of voters rejected independence, and British Prime Minister David Cameron said the question had been settled for a lifetime.

However, supporters of independence vowed to continue the campaign on social media, many including the figure “45” in their profile pictures to represent the percentage that voted for the split.

“As a former Labour councillor of 15 years I have today joined the SNP,” wrote pro-independence aviation consultant John Baillie on Twitter, who was previously the Labour Party leader on South Ayrshire Council.

“On Friday I mainly felt angry, yesterday I just felt sad, today I joined the SNP. Never give up on what you believe in,” wrote @Kels450 yesterday.

The pro-independence Scottish Green Party said its membership had increased by 2,000 since Thursday.
The referendum campaign had seen a huge rise in engagement in politics, and voter turnout of 84.5% and over 90% in some areas broke previous records in Britain.

New Delhi:Narendra Modi “spoke like a Prime Minister” when he said that Indian Muslims would live and die for the country, but he should check the Sangh Parivar from promoting communal polarization to back his message of national unity, the CPI said on Monday.

It is good that he (Modi) spoke like a Prime Minister. But his words should translate into action as the Sangh Parivar have been raising issues of religious divide and so-called ‘love jihad’ to create tension.

“There is a big campaign unleashed by the RSS-BJP. The Prime Minister should restrain these forces,” CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told a press conference in New Delhi. He claimed that even BJP President Amit Shah has made certain statements in the past to “provoke tensions” while the Sangh Parivar have been “intensifying their offensive for communal polarisation through hate campaigns”.

“The Indian Right has become brazen and aggressive (enough) to use the state apparatus to push through its agenda. The change in rhetoric and demagogy does not hide the sinister designs of the BJP-led rule,” charged the senior CPI leader.

On Modi’s upcoming visit to the US, Reddy said the government should tread “carefully” during negotiations and “not fall into the American trap” of furthering the strategic partnership under which Washington may try to sell India old nuclear reactors which have not been in use for two decades.

“In the name of helping India’s power sector, the US will try to push India into accepting such reactors. We don’t know yet as to what is on the agenda for the defence sector. Our experience with the US has not been good,” he said.

CPI National Secretary D Raja said the US has been pressuring India to dilute the provisions of the nuclear liability law, which would benefit American companies to the detriment of Indian interests.

PTI

Also on the Web

Delhi government has invited applications for scholarship and reimbursement of half of the tuition fee for socially and economically backward students in non-technical professional courses in universities of Delhi for the current academic year.

The Delhi Higher Education Aid Trust of Directorate of Higher Education has asked the eligible socially and economically backward students studying in different universities of the capital to apply for the scholarship under the ‘Yuva Nirman Scheme’.

In 2009-10, an amount of Rs 3,36,750 was disbursed to 15 students, in 2010-11, Rs 1,72,250 to 8 students, in 2011-12 Rs 2,02,400 to 7 students and in 2012-13 Rs 6,97,450 to 27 students as a part of the scheme.

The concerned university or institute have been directed to constitute a Committee of at least three officers at their own level to scrutinise the applications and to forward the same with their recommendation to the Director, Directorate of Higher Education along with the requisite attested documents.