Cong govt should procure foodgrains at MSP, Akali Dal to Rahul

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Cong govt should procure foodgrains at MSP, Akali Dal to Rahul

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to commit that the Congress government would take complete responsibility for the farmers by acceding to the demand of former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to start procurement of foodgrains on the state’s behalf as per the minimum support price (MSP).

In a statement here, senior party leader Maheshinder Singh Grewal said that it was widely believed that Sidhu was the mascot of Rahul Gandhi in Punjab.

“The Gandhi family even deputed Congress general secretary Harish Rawat to mollify Sidhu and ensure his presence in the ongoing flop tractor rally being undertaken in the state. It is only fair to assume that Rahul Gandhi will accede to Sidhu’s demand to safeguard the rights of the farmers by ensuring 100 percent procurement of wheat and paddy by the state.

“This is also in consonance with the directive of the Congress President asking all the Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states to formulate their own laws under Article 254 of the Constitution to bypass the farm laws enacted by the Centre,” Grewal said.

Asking Rahul Gandhi to come up with solutions instead of resorting to ‘tamashas’ and photo ops in tractors fitted with luxury style sofa chairs, Grewal said the former Congress president was in the habit of visiting states going to the polls to befool the farmers.

He said this was seen in the case of Madhya Pradesh where Rahul Gandhi visited a suicide victim’s family in the run-up to the Assembly polls there.

“However, Rahul Gandhi did not deign it fit to visit Punjab during the last few years despite hundreds of farmers’ suicides because his government failed to fulfill the complete loan waiver promise made to the farmers,” the SAD leader said.

Grewal further said that Rahul Gandhi did not utter a single word to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh even during his ongoing visit to address the grievances of the state’s farmers.

He said Rahul Gandhi seemed to have forgotten that his party had promised ‘Ghar Ghar naukari’ to Punjabis and an unemployment allowance of Rs 2,500 per month to the youth.

“Forget implementing any of these promises, Rahul Gandhi did not even direct Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to release Rs 450 crore due to the sugarcane farmers of the state from the government and cooperative sugar mills,” he added.

Nitish govt misusing old phone number to defame Tejashwi: RJD

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Nitish govt misusing old phone number to defame Tejashwi: RJD

With its top party leaders Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav facing murder charges, the RJD on Monday accused Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi of engaging in a criminal conspiracy against Tejashwi Yadav.

Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Rajya Sabha member Manoj Jha cited a phone number which was allegedly used to demand money from aspiring party candidates for allotment of the ticket in the coming Assembly elections but was not registered with anyone as per the state-run telecom company.

“The phone number 0612-2217222 belongs to Patna circle of BSNL and was used by unknown persons for random calls to aspiring candidates of the RJD. Interestingly, when you call back on it, the name of Tejashwi Yadav emerges on Truecaller,” he told media persons here.

Jha said that this phone number was registered in the name of former Chief Minister Rabri Devi but it was disconnected on November 21, 2016. After this, it was allotted to the Forest Department office in Patna, but they also gave it up on March 18, 2019, and as per inquiries with BSNL, it has not been registered with anyone since then.

“On September 19, a missed call from this number went to an RJD aspirant in Sitamarhi. Since Tejashwi Yadav’s name emerged on Truecaller, when he called back on that number, he was instructed to come to Patna with Rs 25 lakh via Lalganj town to get a ticket. Another candidate for Muzaffarpur was also approached in a similar fashion. I have a long list of calls which were made from it to demand money from candidates,” he said, waving a bunch of documents.

“If that phone number is not registered with any person, then who is misusing it in the name of Tejashwi Yadav? I firmly believe that a conspiracy of such magnitude cannot be possible without the connivance of the ruling party. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, and their close ministers are involved in a conspiracy against Tejashwi Yadav to win this election,” he added.

Jha also hit out at BSNL for allowing this conspiracy to take place, saying that it has put a question mark on the reputation of the institution.

Noting Tejashwi Yadav has raised questions on unemployment, migrant labor, flood situation, law and order, a crime against women, and the ’10 lakh jobs’ promise, he alleged that the ruling party leaders have no answer to those points. “Hence, CM Nitish Kumar, Sushil Kumar Modi, and other leaders of NDA are taken the politics of Bihar to such a low standard. They are using the conspiracy method to win this election,” Jha said, demanding a fair investigation into the matter.

Taking a dig at the Bihar Police, he said that its former DGP “used the government post to build his own political career”. “It is enough to understand how Bihar Police is working under Nitish Kumar,” he said.

“Does the ruling party have any answer on whether the decisions taken by ex-DGP Gupteshwar Pandey during his tenure were fair?” he asked.

Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav are embroiled in controversy after RJD’s Dalit leader Shakti Malik was murdered by three unidentified men in the state’s Purnea district on Sunday. Malik’s wife has alleged that Tejashwi Yadav demanded Rs 50 lakh for the ticket, and when her husband was unable to give money, Tejashwi abused him. She also leveled murder charges on him and Tej Pratap Yadav.

Mamata leads protest in Kolkata, dubs BJP ‘shame’ for nation

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Mamata leads protest in Kolkata, dubs BJP ‘shame’ for nation

A day after senior Trinamool Congress leaders were stopped from entering Hathras to meet a gang rape-murder victim’s family and were manhandled by police, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday condemned the crime and led a march here in protest while dubbing the BJP a “shame” for the country.

“During elections, they (BJP) go to a Dalit’s house, get food from outside, eat it, and claim they ate at a Dalit’s home. After elections, they will torture Dalits and thrash them. The incident is utterly shameful,” said Banerjee.

“I feel like going to Hathras and meeting the victim’s family. What has happened is highly condemnable,” the CM said while dubbing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a ‘shame’ for the whole nation.

Equating the crime in which a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped and grievously injured to the trial by fire of Lord Ram’s consort Sita, Banerjee said that the latter had to give ‘agnipariksha’ once, but in Uttar Pradesh not only was the woman gang-raped but also her body was burnt by police.

A team of four Trinamool Congress MPs, led by the party’s Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien and Lok Sabha member Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, were involved in a scuffle with police on Friday about a km from the victim’s village in Hathras.

After the incident, the Trinamool supremo held a meeting on Friday night with her nephew and Trinamool’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s all-India President Subrata Bakshi, and Secretary General Partha Chatterjee.

They announced a 10-day protest program across Bengal and asked all district leaders to carry out the campaign from October 3 to October 12.

Meanwhile, the party has already started its campaign to target the BJP for the gruesome incident by posting different videos on social media platforms.

Saturday’s protest was Banerjee’s first such march since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in March this year. It started from Birla Planetarium at 4 p.m. and reached Mayo Road in Kolkata.

The Left parties and the Congress also took out protest rallies on Saturday evening, condemning violence against women, caste-based discrimination, and the alleged ‘fascist behavior’ of the Uttar Pradesh Police.

Sukhbir asks Rahul why he played ‘fixed match’ on farm Bills

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Sukhbir asks Rahul why he played ‘fixed match’ on farm Bills

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal on Saturday asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to tell Punjabis why he had played a “fixed match” to facilitate the passage of the three “anti-farmer” agricultural Bills in Parliament.

He also asked the Congress leader if he supported the clean chit given to Punjab’s Social Welfare Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in the Scheduled Castes scholarship scam.

Addressing the media here, Sukhbir said before indulging in photo ops in Punjab on Sunday, Rahul should tell Punjabis why he had betrayed their cause and initiated the process to make the Bills a reality.

“I want to ask Rahul five questions. Did your party’s 2017 election manifesto in Punjab say that you will open private ‘mandis’ and give permission for e-trading the contract farming which is in force now? If so, why haven’t you repealed the amended APMC Act in Punjab till now?”

“Did you in your 2019 election manifesto state that you will abolish the APMC Act altogether and make agriculture trade free from all restrictions? Why did you choose to leave the country one day before the Bills were to be taken up in Parliament and come back the day they became Acts?

“Also why didn’t you issue a whip to your MPs to vote against the Bills and field senior leaders to oppose them?”

About the clean chit given to minister Dharamsot despite being indicted in an inquiry conducted by an Additional Chief Secretary, Sukhbir said Rahul should tell the Dalit community in Punjab whether he was in agreement with this action.

“Rahul should also tell if he is in agreement with the Chief Minister’s decision to give an open license to Congress ministers to loot central funds sent for distribution to SC students.”

The SAD president also rejected the re-inquiry ordered by the Chief Minister in the case, saying an officer junior to the Additional Chief Secretary had been deputed to exonerate Dharamsot.

“Now the government is saying that only Rs 7 crore has been embezzled, yet no action has been taken in the matter. I only wish to state that if Sadhu Singh Dharamsot who looted Rs 69 crore has been found to be innocent then a case should be registered against Additional Chief Secretary Kripa Shankar Saroj who indicted him for embezzling the SC scholarship funds,” he added.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister bereaved

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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister bereaved

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s father-in-law E.C. Gangi Reddy passed away on Saturday.

He passed away while undergoing treatment in Hyderabad.

Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan expressed profound grief and sadness over Gangi Reddy’s death.

“Gangi Reddy was a renowned pediatrician in YSR Kadapa district and popular as a people’s doctor,” said Harichandan.

He prayed for his soul to rest in peace.

The Governor has also offered his heartfelt condolences to the chief minister and his wife Y. S. Bharati.

Atal Tunnel will give new strength to border infrastructure: Modi

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Atal Tunnel will give new strength to border infrastructure: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the majestic Atal Tunnel, beneath the lofty Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district, would give new strength to India’s border infrastructure.

“It is an example of world-class border connectivity. There have been demands to improve border infrastructure but for a long time, such projects either couldn’t get out of planning stage or got stuck midway,” Modi said in his address after dedicating the highway tunnel, one of the world’s most challenging and a marvel of engineering motorways, in the Himalayas to the nation.

The tunnel would be a lifeline for Ladakh and would boost border security.

Earlier, Modi inaugurated the 9.02km long Atal Tunnel from its south portal near here. It will connect Manali to the Lahaul-Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh.

It is the longest highway tunnel in the world built at an altitude of 3,000 meters.

Modi said the Atal Tunnel, the dream of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, is going to be “Sanjeevani Buti” for the residents of Lahaul-Spiti, especially during winters when the entire district “gets covered under snow and road connectivity through the Rohtang Pass gets snapped.

Praising the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), a wing of the Defence Ministry, Modi said, “One of our top priorities is to strengthen the international border on all sides.”

He blamed the previous government in the Centre for deliberately ignoring the projects of strategic importance.

“There is nothing more important for us than protecting the country. But the country has also seen a period when the defense interests of the country were compromised.”

“Even in the case of Atal Tunnel, if the pace of the construction continued as in the previous governments it would have been completed by 2040,” Modi, donning a Himachal cap, said.

“In the year 2002, Atalji laid the foundation stone of the approach road to the tunnel.

“After Atalji’s government, this work was forgotten. The situation was that by 2013-14, only 1,300 meters of the work for the tunnel was completed,” said Modi.

“Work on Atal Tunnel was accelerated after 2014; in just six years, we completed the work of 26 years.”

“My brothers and sisters of Himachal Pradesh can understand what it means to reduce the distance of three-four hours on the mountain with the completion of this tunnel,” he said.

Cong workers stage midnight protest at Goa hotel to meet Javadekar

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Cong workers stage midnight protest at Goa hotel to meet Javadekar

Nearly a dozen Congress workers, including vice president Sankalp Amonkar, were detained by the police in Panaji for protesting outside a five-star hotel, where the Union Minister for Environment and Forests Prakash Javadekar was putting up for the night.

The workers were demanding a meeting with the Union Minister.

The incident occurred just after midnight on Friday. Javadekar is in Goa to conduct meetings with the farmers’ groups over the controversial farm laws which were passed by Parliament recently.

“JUNGLE RAJ in Goa – @INCGoa delegation led by Vice President @SankalpAmonkar @JanaBhandariGoa @varadmardolkar @AdvArchitNaik @RautMeghashyam @SudinNaikGoa & 10 others arrested by @DGP_Goa for seeking an appointment with @PrakashJavdekar & waiting to meet him in the hotel lobby in Panaji,” Chodankar tweeted after the Congress leaders and workers were rounded up by the police and detained at the Panaji police station.

Speaking to reporters, as the opposition party workers were being taken away to the police station, Amonkar said that the congressional delegation had arrived at the hotel here, to meet Javadekar and seek a formal appointment to discuss the Mhadei inter-state river water sharing issue.

“We are being arrested just because we want to seek an appointment with a Union Minister,” Amonkar said. Congress had in the past accused Javadekar of being partial to Karnataka, one of the two other states which are a part of the river water sharing dispute, over the Mhadei issue.

Police, however, said that the Congress workers were arrested because they insisted on meeting Javadekar in the dead of the night. “It was a preventive arrest only, to avoid a law and order situation from occurring,” a senior police official said.

Andhra CM asks people to pay tributes to village volunteers

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Andhra CM asks people to pay tributes to village volunteers

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has called on people in the state to pay tributes to all the village and ward volunteers by giving them a round of applause as the state’s village secretariat system has completed a year on Friday.

“On this day last year, we invigorated Gandhiji’s ideas of gram swaraj with the establishment of gram sachivalayams (secretariats) to make our villages self-reliant,” said Reddy.

He said the village secretariats are meant to bring non-corrupt governance to people’s doorsteps.

For every 50 households, the government has appointed a volunteer to take government schemes such as old-age pensions and others.

The Chief Minister called on people to clap for the services of the volunteers on Friday 7 p.m., taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s similar request while fight the COVID pandemic earlier.

Punjab CM slams Akalis for ‘political theatrics’ over farm laws

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Punjab CM slams Akalis for ‘political theatrics’ over farm laws

Formally launching the Congress signature campaign in the state against the ‘black’ farm laws, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday slammed the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for their “political theatrics” over Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s resignation from the Union Cabinet, which they were projecting as a big sacrifice instead of a duty towards Punjab.

Recalling that he himself had resigned from Parliament twice to uphold the interests of the state and its people, he said he had done it out of a sense of duty and never as a “sham sacrifice”, as had been done by Harsimrat Kaur.

Trashing the SAD protest over the agriculture laws as a “complete failure”, Amarinder Singh termed it as an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere of Punjab.

“Where were they when the state government moved a resolution in the Vidhan Sabha on August 28 seeking withdrawal of the anti-farmer ordinances and demanding that the Centre make MSP a statutory right,” he asked.

“Their gimmicks now would not help the Akalis woo the farmers, whose lives they themselves were party to destroying as allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),” he said, reiterating that his government will challenge the new laws constitutionally.

“This is not a political fight about the BJP or the Congress, but a fight about our Kisani, about Punjab, our vajood (existence),” the Chief Minister said while addressing the state’s sarpanches virtually, on the sidelines of the virtual inauguration of three projects to mark the birth anniversaries of the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi and former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri from the Civil Secretariat here.

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Sunil Jakhar and Punjab Youth Congress (PYC) president Brinder Singh Dhillon were present at the launch of the signature campaign against the farm laws.

Pointing out that despite being just two percent of the country’s population, Punjab has fed the entire nation for over six decades, Amarinder Singh said soon after the promulgation of the three farm ordinances by the Central government on June 5, he had written to the Prime Minister to convey his government’s strong reservations and concern.

However, the Centre did not address the state’s concerns but went ahead to enact the anti-farmer agricultural laws through brute majority, he added.

Noting that agriculture is a state subject, the Chief Minister said the Centre had encroached on the states’ powers with these laws, which would devastate the farm sector, and reiterated his commitment to the farmer unions of the full support of the state government in their fight against the “draconian laws”.

Setback for Pinarayi as HC says let CBI probe into Life Mission continue

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Setback for Pinarayi as HC says let CBI probe into Life Mission continue

Let the CBI probe continue, was the statement that came from the Kerala High Court on Thursday after Life Mission moved the court to plead for the quashing of an “illegal” FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation over its housing project at Thrissur.

With this, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has suffered yet another blow in his attempts to show everything in his pet project – Life Mission – as normal and transparent, despite vociferous allegations of corruption in the project by the opposition Congress and the BJP.

It was on Wednesday that the state government after taking advice on the matter from legal brains, who pointed out that the FIR could be quashed as it was illegal and that the government had no role in the matter, gave the nod for Life Mission to file this petition.

Moving the petition, Life Mission which brought in a senior counsel from the apex court, pointed out that this is a politically motivated probe and the state government has no role in this.

But the court which not only did not intervene in the petition, directed Life Mission to cooperate with the probe and said let the CBI investigation continue. It posted the case for further hearing on October 8.

Life Mission CEO UV Jose, a senior IAS officer, has been summoned to appear before the CBI with all the relevant documents on October 5.

The Mission’s contention is that the agreement for the construction was inked between UAE-based charity Red Crescent, which is funding the construction at Wadakkancherry in Thrissur district, and Unitech Builders. The state has no role and hence the FIR is illegal and should be quashed.

Earlier this week, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala warned of legal and political steps against any move by the Vijayan government to bring an ordinance to keep the CBI out of the probe.

Reacting to the turn of events in the high court on Thursday, Chennithala said it is a setback for the Vijayan government in its attempt to keep the corruption in this project under wraps.

“Now that the attempt to run away from the CBI probe has failed, the Vijayan government should withdraw the case and cooperate with the CBI. The state government is spending a huge amount of money to bring in counsel from outside the state and this is happening when the state is precariously placed as far as its finances are concerned. What all fail to understand is, the Vijayan government is saying there is no corruption at all and if so, then why are they trying to run away from the ongoing CBI probe,” asked Chennithala.

The Life Mission project, a pet project of Vijayan ever since he assumed the CM’s office in 2016, was floated to build houses for the homeless and landless, using funds raised through sponsorships. The state’s role was limited to only providing the land.

The project, however, ran into trouble when Anil Akkara, a Congress legislator, first raised questions about alleged wrongdoings in a building project in his Wadakkancherry constituency, for which funds came from Red Crescent.

The project was routed through the UAE Consulate, where smuggling case main accused Swapna Suresh and PS Sarith earlier worked. It turned murkier when news surfaced that a son of Industries Minister EP Jayarajan was also close to Swapna.

Vijayan’s media adviser John Brittas had claimed that Rs 4.25 crore in commission was paid in the project, a stand endorsed by two state Ministers.

The CBI has already questioned Santhosh Eapen, whose company was given the contract to build the houses.

Vijayan is Life Mission Chairman while his trusted aide and Local Self-Government Minister AC Moideen is the Vice-Chairman. Incidentally, the project MoU was inked in Vijayan’s office.

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