Page 1335 - Politics
Akhilesh meets Mayawati after Priyanka meets Bhim Army chief
The chiefs of Uttar Pradesh alliance partners SP and BSP met here Wednesday hours after Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi paid a surprise visit to Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad at a Meerut hospital. SP president Akhilesh Yadav met BSP chief Mayawati after newly appointed Congress general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia met Azad. When contacted, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said the two leaders met to discuss joint public meetings and rallies, being planned for the Lok Sabha polls. Meetings are being held constantly as the election is round the corner and the poll campaign has to be launched full scale after Holi next week, he said. The alliance has left two seats for the Congress in the state and will honestly support it on them, said Chaudhary. Meanwhile, a senior SP leader, who did not wish to be named, claimed Priyanka Gandhi's visit to the Bhim Army chief was in reaction to the BSP president ruling out any alliance with the ...
Congress Telangana list likely after March 15
Congress was expected to announce its Lok Sabha candidates in Telangana this week end, party sources said Wednesday. The screening committee to select the candidates met in Delhi Wednesday, they said here. Telangana which has 17 Lok Sabha seats goes to polls in the first phase on April 11. AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal, AICC incharge for party affairs in Telangana RC Khuntia, state Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader M Bhatti Vikramarka and other leaders participated in the meeting, they said. The committee examined the recommendations of the Pradesh Election Committee. The screening panel would meet again on March 15 and recommend the names of candidates to the Congress Central Election Committee. The list was expected to be announced after March 15, they said. The Congress had won two seats in the state in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but one of them switched over to TRS later.
SAD's splitter group jolted
The SAD's breakaway faction SAD (Taksali) suffered a severe jolt Wednesday when the nephew of the splinter group's president Ranjit Singh Brahmpura joined the parent party. Brahmpura's nephew Gurinder Singh Tony Brahmpura joined the SAD in presence of senior Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia. Tony joined the Shiromani Akali Dal along with some local panchayat representatives and his wife Rupinder Kaur, who is a zila parishad member. His family was welcomed into the Akali fold by Majithia and SAD's Khadoor Sahib candidate Bibi Jagir Kaur. Tony said he got thoroughly disillusioned with the "so-called Taksali band" when he realised they were in reality "a Congress front". "I have seen the functioning of this Taksali group closely and have no hesitation in admitting that they have sold their soul to the Congress party. Not only is this group being propped up by the Congress but it is also being financed by it," alleged Tony. "This is why I quit them and decided to support the SAD and ...
India won't escalate situation with Pak, but won't take Pulwama as its destiny: Swaraj
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Wednesday said she conveyed to several countries post Pulwama attack that India will not escalate the situation with Pakistan but if there is any other terror attack from that country, then it will not remain silent. In an address at a think tank on Modi government's foreign policy, she said Pakistan was worried that India would escalate the situation and she was contacted by a number of foreign ministers over it. "I used to receive calls from foreign ministers who used to first condole the Pulwama attack, then express their solidarity and then they used to softly say that we think India will not escalate the situation," she said. "To which I used to reply that no, I assure you India will not escalate the situation but if there is any other terror attack then we will not remain silent as we cannot say Pulwama as our destiny," she said. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian fighter jets bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's .
Protest-hit Sudan unveils new cabinet to 'solve' economic crisis
Sudan's new prime minister on Wednesday unveiled a 20-member cabinet tasked with solving an economic crisis that has triggered nationwide protests against the decades-old rule of President Omar al-Bashir. Bashir appointed Mohamed Tahir Eila as premier last month after dissolving the previous federal government in the face of protests that have rocked his administration since December. Eila's cabinet is the third such government formed in less than two years, with the earlier two administrations sacked by Bashir for failing to revive the crisis-wracked economy. Bashir on February 22 dissolved the former cabinet along with all provincial governments as he imposed a nationwide state of emergency to quell demonstrations after an initial crackdown failed to suppress the protest movement. Eila said his new government, which retains several ministers from the previous cabinet, aimed to tackle the country's economic crisis -- the key factor behind the protests. "We recognise the main issues, .
Raj Babbar, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Priya Dutt in Cong's 2nd list of LS candidates
The Congress on Wednesday released its second list of 21 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding party's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Raj Babbar from Moradabad, former Union minister Sriprakash Jaiswal from Kanpur, ex-Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde from Solapur and Priya Dutt from Mumbai North-Central. The second list has names of 16 candidates from Uttar Pradesh and five from Maharashtra. Other significant names include Kisan Congress chief Nana Patole from Nagpur, former Union minister Milind Deora from Mumbai South, Sanjay Singh from Sultanpur and Savitri Phule, who joined the party after quitting BJP just days earlier, from Bahraich (SC). With this, the Congress has declared 27 candidates from the electorally-crucial Uttar Pradesh. The party had released its first list of 15 candidates on March 7 in which it had announced that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will contest from Raebareli and party president Rahul Gandhi will fight the polls from Amethi. Former Union ministers .
Sudan cancels flogging of 9 women arrested in protests
A Sudanese opposition group says an appeals court has overturned a sentence of flogging and imprisonment against nine women who took part in anti-government protests. The Democratic Lawyers Alliance says Wednesday the court ordered their release the previous day. The women were arrested Saturday and an emergency court in the capital, Khartoum, sentenced them to a month in prison and 20 lashes each. The court later waived the flogging amid pressure from families of the women, who rallied outside the courthouse on Saturday. The alliance is part of an umbrella organisation that has spearheaded three months of protests across Sudan demanding the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir. The emergency courts were set up to investigate violations under the state of emergency imposed by al-Bashir last month.
Greed for power behind AGP's realignment with BJP: Cong
The opposition Congress and organisations opposed to the Citizenship Bill criticised the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) Wednesday, saying it had betrayed the people of Assam by realigning with the BJP just before the Lok Sabha polls for its greed for power. The Congress, the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) said the AGP owed an answer the people on its stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, and vowed to continue their movement against it. The AGP had severed ties with the BJP-led government in Assam in January to protest the Centre's decision to go ensure the controversial bill's passage in the Lok Sabha. However, the bill, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India, could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha. It is set to lapse on June 3 when the term of the present Lok Sabha ends. The alliance was finalised in a meeting on Tuesday among BJP general ...
Former Kolkata Mayor denies reports of him joining BJP
Trinamool Congress leader and former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee Wednesday denied reports that he is joining the BJP and asserted that canards were being spread against him by a quarter. "I received no offer from any political party to join till now. These reports are baseless and I don't want to even react to them. But I am really hurt the way canards are being spread against me deliberately," Chatterjee told reporters. Chatterjee had resigned from the post of Kolkata Mayor and a minister in the state cabinet in November last year over personal issues. Since then he has been staying away from politics. But for last one week there have been reports that Chatterjee along with his friend Baisakhi Banerjee might join the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The speculations gained momentum after Chatterjee along with Banerjee have been threatened by "goons" during their stay at a resort in South 24 Parganas district earlier this week. They were threatened that they will ...
Delhi not property of individual or party to decide statehood issue: Kejriwal
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal Wednesday said the national capital is not the property of any individual or party and the people of Delhi would decide if it is granted full statehood, as he raised the pitch for one of his party's key demands. Claiming that people of Delhi have been exploited and cheated for the past 70 years, Kejriwal said city BJP president Manoj Tiwari says the national capital cannot be given full statehood as its chief minister protested in front of the Rail Bhawan. "Tiwari says Delhi cannot be granted statehood as I had sat on a dharna. Tumhare baap ki Dilli hai (Is Delhi your family property?) Who are you?" Kejriwal said referring to Tiwari. "I want to ask Manoj Tiwari and the BJP that when Mamata Banerjee protested in West Bengal was West Bengal made half state, when Narendra Modi protested in Gujarat over the Narmada issue, was Gujarat was made a half state, when Chandrababu Naidu protested to give Andhra Pradesh special status was it made a half state.
Yaseen Malik's petition for stay on trial to be heard in Jammu
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court Wednesday ordered listing of a petition of arrested JKLF chief Yasin Malik seeking stay on trials before a designated TADA court in Jammu in three-decade-old cases of kidnapping of the then Union home minister's daughter and killing of IAF personnel. Chief Justice of the High Court Geeta Mittal passed the order after hearing arguments on two applications filed by the CBI seeking transfer of Malik's petition to the Jammu Wing of the High Court as well as vacation of an interim stay order of November 26, 2009 on holding trial before a TADA court in Jammu. The JKLF chief has been out since April 2009, when the Srinagar wing of the Jammu and Kashmir HC stayed his trial in a designated TADA court in Jammu in two high-profile cases -- kidnapping of the then union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter Rubaiya Sayeed on December 8, 1989, and the killing of the four Indian Air Force (IAF) officials on January 25, 1990 -- based on CBI charge ...
UK set for another major Brexit vote to rule out no-deal exit
A day after British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce bill was rejected in a bruising 149-vote defeat, MPs returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to vote on whether to prevent the UK's exit from the European Union by the March 29 deadline without any deal in place. The latest motion to try and avert the no-deal Brexit, which would see UK crash out of the 28-member economic bloc without any transition phase, follows a rejection of May's withdrawal agreement 391 to 242 despite a final push by her to try and convince hard-Brexiteers that the concessions she had won to the controversial Irish backstop clause would not see the UK tied to EU rules indefinitely. "I may not have my own voice, but I understand the voice of the country," May said as she took to the Commons despatch box for her weekly Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, still struggling with a sore throat. "I believe we have a good deal. No deal is better than a bad deal but I have been working for ..
Marandi files petition in HC challenging Speaker's merger decision
JVM chief Babulal Marandi has filed a writ petition in the Jharkhand High Court challenging the Assembly Speaker's decision to approve the merger of six party MLAs with the BJP. The former chief minister and the Legislature Party Leader of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), Pradip Yadav, filed the petition on Tuesday, pleading the court to quash Speaker Dinesh Oraon's ruling as it was "unconstitutional" because he did not give "attention to several facts". The petitioners claimed that the Speaker allegedly overlooked the anti-disqualification law under the 10th Schedule and allowed the merger of the six JVM MLAs. The petitioners also claimed that only six MLAs had left the JVM and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that the Election Commission had recognized the JVMs bylaws, which "found the merger did not take place". The Speaker had on February 20 said he went through all the legal points and found that their merger with the BJP was "legal". The turncoat MLAs are - .
No post-Brexit challenges for India-UK synergies: Navy chief Lanba
India sees "no post-Brexit challenges" but only opportunities for greater synergies with the UK in naval cooperation, Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said here. Lanba, who is on a four-day visit to Britain, described the UK as India's preferred port of call in northern Atlantic due to the "strong bonds" of defence cooperation. "Over the years, our multi-faceted bilateral relations have grown from strength to strength to a sustained and mutually beneficial friendship. We have a common perspective on maritime challenges and agree to developing a cooperative framework to face them," Lanba said during a discussion on 'Martime strategy and its contribution to the Indo-Pacific and global commons' at the Institute of Strategic Studies here. "The maritime bonds between our two countries have been further cemented to a deepening defence cooperation. Konkan, the bilateral naval exercise, is the cornerstone of our maritime cooperation and the UK has been a preferred port of call whenever we ...
TRS leader hits out at NDA Govt
TRS Working President K T Rama Rao Wednesday attacked the BJP-led NDA government, saying it has not done anything special for Telangana during its tenure. "What right do the BJP and Narendra Modi ji have to seek votes here when we have not been given even a half paisa extra except our share of taxes as per Constitution. BJP leaders should say," Rama Rao said, addressing a TRS preparatory meeting for the coming Lok Sabha elections. He said no special measure had been extended to Telangana by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. TRS should get 16 Lok Sabha seats and its ally AIMIM should retain the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency to ensure that Telangana plays a crucial role post the Lok Sabha polls and the state gets substantial funds and development projects, he said. The total number of Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana is 17. BJP is doing politics with "communal feelings", while Congress does politics with "regional feelings," he claimed. The TRS working president had ...
Cong snub to BSP: Priyanka Gandhi meets Bhim Army chief
In a clear snub to BSP supremo Mayawati who slammed the door on the Congress for any electoral alliance, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday paid a visit to Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad in a hospital in Meerut. The unscheduled visit is being seen in political circles as an attempt to woo the Dalits in Uttar Pradesh and pit Azad against the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). "Why so much is being read into the meeting...Congress is a political party and why would it not explore all available options to evolve a cohesive combination to counter the BJP and the SP-BSP combine?" media coordinator Rajiv Bakshi commented on the meeting. In a blow to the prospects of an opposition grand alliance to take on the ruling BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati had on Tuesday said her party would not have an election tie-up with the Congress in any state. Priyanka Gandhi, however, said no political motive should be imputed to her meeting with Azad. "He is fighting for a cause. I like his struggle and
Cong complains to poll panel over code of conduct 'violation'
The Congress Wednesday complained to the State Election Commission of Maharashtra (SECM) about government's advertisements displayed on the state transport buses, bus stops and petrol pumps, terming it as a violation of model code of conduct. Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant said the Election Commission's model code of conduct has come into force from March 10 for the Lok Sabha polls. "Despite this, ST buses, bus stops, petrol pumps and other public places are displaying government advertisements. They have not been removed yet," he said. Although the Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed all the states, including Maharashtra, to remove all government advertisements, its order is not being followed. He added that the commission should seek an explanation from the government about it and register a case of violation of the model code of conduct. Meanwhile, the suburban District Election Officer (DEO) has removed 10,691 advertisement ...
BJP deliberately delayed Assembly election in J&K: Cong leader
A senor Congress leader Wednesday claimed that the BJP government at the Centre deliberately delayed the state assembly elections as "it is enjoying power through bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir". State Congress Vice President and former minister G M Saroori also accused the Governor's administration of "denying democratic rights" to the people of the state. He also criticised the Election Commission of India for not holding general and assembly polls simultaneously in the state. "BJP wanted to enjoy power in Jammu and Kashmir through bureaucracy and did not want to lose it by holding Assembly elections simultaneously with Parliamentary elections," he said. Saroori said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had promised on the floor of parliament that security would be provided to each and every candidate and sufficient forces were available in the state. "But now, the ECI is saying it does not have sufficient number of men to provide security to all candidates and cannot not hold joint .
Elections in first phase only to push me into a crisis:AP CM
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu Wednesday alleged that elections in Andhra Pradesh were scheduled in the first phase on April 11 only to push him into a crisis. "They thought I will be unprepared if less time is given for the elections so that I cannot face it and that it is an advantage for them. They wanted to push me into a crisis but I converted it into an opportunity," the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief told a press conference here, the first after the election schedule was announced on Sunday. Indirectly attacking the Centre for the poll schedule, the Chief Minister said they wanted to beat him by giving little time. "But you have helped me get benefit out of it. I am very happy for that," he added. Replying to a question on the prospective alliance of parties at the national level, Naidu said a meeting of non-BJP parties would be held in New Delhi Friday to discuss the issue. "At the national level, we all thought as a coalition
Poll preparations in full swing: Raj Congress
Congress national general secretary Avinash Pandey on Wednesday said preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections are going on in full swing. Addressing a coordination committee meeting here, Pandey said various committees constituted for the elections have been given necessary instructions. A framework for organising public meetings, seminars and conventions has been designed, he said. The party will hold public meetings in Tonk and Sikar on Thursday, he said. In the meeting, it was decided that conventions of youth, women, Seva Dal and NSUI wings of the party would be organised in the coming days. The state Congress committee will organise seminars and conventions at divisional and district levels. Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot said in-charge ministers of the districts have to organise two public rallies. He said that a total of 75 big public meetings would be organised, besides 400 public meetings at the block level. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said the BJP's vote bank