Periscope: Bridging the gap

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to start the second of a four-leg 'Navsarjan Yatra' from Central Gujarat on Monday. He will stay for three days, as he did in Saurashtra during the last week of September. In his first Navsarjan Yatra, covering several districts of Saurashtra, he attempted direct connect with youth, cotton and groundnut farmers and women. In the second leg, he will connect with cooperative leaders in central Gujarat, a hub of milk cooperatives.
 
SP-Cong alliance to stay: Akhilesh
 
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said in Vrindavan that his party's coalition with the Congress would continue in Uttar Pradesh and they would contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election together. Asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement that this year, Diwali was advanced by a fortnight after the relaxations announced in the goods and services tax (GST), the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, "Ask the trader and he would counter the claim."

 

Divided by opinion  
 
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)  will begin a three-day meeting in New Delhi from Saturday. The CPI (M) currently faces a battle between party chief Sitaram Yechury and former chief Prakash Karat over whether the party should amend its current 'political tactical line'. Karat and those who support him in the polit bureau are backed by the Kerala unit. They argue the party should not have any electoral understanding with the Congress or other regional parties at the national level, and should focus on people's movements and building of organisational strength. Yechury, backed by the West Bengal unit, has argued the conditions have changed since 2015, and the party needs to be part of a broad secular nationwide platform to put an effective opposition to the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party for the 2019 poll.