Archives for November 2021

CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Saturday announced the names of three more candidates for the 2022 Assembly polls.

The party fielded Sunita Chaudhry from the Balachaur Assembly constituency, Jaspal Singh Bitu Chatha from Patiala Rural and youth leader Bachittar Singh Kohar from Shahkot assembly constituency.

“SAD President S Sukhbir Singh Badal announced Sunita Chaudhry from Balachaur, Jaspal Singh Bitu Chatha from Patiala Rural and youth leader Bachittar Singh Kohar from Shahkot assembly constituency as party candidates. Total 83,” said party leader Daljit Singh Cheema in a tweet.

Earlier, SAD informed that former member of ParliamentPrem Singh Chandumajra will contest from Patiala’s Ghanaur, while sitting MLA Dilraj Singh Bhundar will seek re-election from Sardulgarh assembly constituency in Mansa district.

Party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal will contest from his traditional Jalalabad. Pritpal Singh Pali will be the party’s candidate from Ludhiana Central. Anil Joshi will contest from Amritsar North and Talbir Singh Gill from Amritsar South.

SAD and BSP formed an alliance in June to contest the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections together. Out of 117 seats in the Punjab assembly, BSP will contest 20 seats and SAD will contest the remaining 97.

Assembly elections are scheduled to be held next year.

LUCKNOW: Congress general secretary and party’s UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has made an addition to the series of pre-poll promises – an honorarium of Rs 10,000 to ASHS and Aganwadi workers if voted to power. 

Earlier, the Congress leader has made several promises including 40% tickets to women candidates, smartphone and scooty for girls and loan waivers to farmers in a bid to revive the grand old party in the state.

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Priyanka attacked the Yogi Adityanath government after the police stopped the ASHA workers from going to meet the CM in Shahjahanpur on Tuesday.

“Every single attack on ASHA workers by UP government is an insult to the work done by them. My ASHA sisters have given their services diligently during Corona and on other occasions. An honorarium is their right. It is the duty of the government to listen to them. ASHA workers deserve respect and I am with them in this fight. The Congress party is committed to the rights of honorarium of ASHA sisters and their respect and if the government is formed, ASHA sisters and Anganwadi workers will be given an honorarium of Rs 10,000 per month,” she tweeted.

Significantly, the Congress has made nine major promises as part of their manifesto for the 2022 UP Assembly polls. The party also promises to waive off pending electricity bills during the Covid period. Congress also promised to increase the MSP of wheat to Rs 2,500 and an MSP of Rs 400 for sugarcane farmers. It has also promised to provide financial assistance of Rs 25,000 to families who are facing a crisis due to Corona. Apart from this, the party promised 20 lakh government jobs.

The farm loan waiver and cut in power bills were also part of the Congress manifesto for UP in the 2017 Assembly polls with a similar slogan of ‘Karza Maaf Bijli Half’. However, unlike the promise of scooty for graduate girls this time, the Congress in 2017 had promised free bicycles for girl students. 

The 27-minute speech, delivered against a backdrop of the red-white-and-blue tricolor flag and an embossed seal of the French Republic, swept back over France’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic, pitched forward to its economic recovery and spoke encouragingly of French strengths but also cautioned of challenges and vulnerabilities.

It was a televised declaration that sounded very much like a re-election campaign launch — without actually saying so.

That, certainly, is how it was seen by political opponents who have already declared their ambitions to unseat Macron and limit him to a one-term president when the country votes in April.

“Clearly, Emmanuel Macron is a candidate,” tweeted far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is hoping to improve on his fourth place in the 2017 election that put Macron in power as France’s youngest-ever president.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, roundly beaten by Macron in the 2017 presidential run-off, called the address “a campaign speech.

” For now, not officially declaring himself up for re-election is strategically advantageous for 43-year-old Macron.

From the gilded offices of the presidential Elysee Palace, Macron can appear to be above electoral politicking and what is already shaping up as a fractious and bruising campaign.

It is trickier for opposing candidates to attack a standing president who hasn’t yet rolled up his sleeves and waded officially into the fray.

Because the president incarnates French authority, attacking the office runs the risk for Macron’s opponents of appearing uncouth and unpatriotic.

Ambiguity also enables Macron to use the privileges of the presidency to campaign without saying so.

He meets and greets voters across France and commands airtime while travelling here and jetting there on what is ostensibly presidential business.

Access to France’s purse strings also enables him to direct taxpayers’ money to needs and causes that, his future campaign team hopes, will also make him a more attractive candidate.

Behind the scenes, a Macron re-election effort is already well underway.

And the recipe that worked so effectively for him in 2017 remains effectively unchanged: He is again working to dominate the middle ground of French politics and draw in voters from both right and left.

A priority for his campaign team will be to suck support away from conservative and far-right candidates who are polling more strongly than contenders on the left.

Not declaring doesn’t seem to be doing Macron any harm: Polling of voter intentions has for months now suggested that he is the front-runner, with a sizeable but by no means impregnable cushion.

“When you start launching a campaign, necessarily that encroaches on the work,” Macron’s spokesman, Gabriel Attal, said Wednesday.

“We need to be 100% at work.”

Macron isn’t alone in deliberately keeping people guessing.

The biggest impact on the race so far has been made by another undeclared but expected contender: Eric Zemmour.

A candidate in all but name, the rabble-rousing TV pundit is surging from the far right and, despite repeated convictions for hate speech, polling neck and neck with Le Pen behind Macron.

An official Zemmour candidacy may be just days away.

But there is a danger of the campaign and its issues running away from Macron, and of other candidates setting the tone, if he plays a waiting game for too long.

Already, Zemmour and Le Pen’s focus on immigration and the threats they say it poses to French identity and prosperity are distracting from themes of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction that Macron counts among his strengths.

Opponents are also already complaining that Macron is blurring the lines between president and candidate, giving him an unfair advantage.

Election rules that require an equitable share of airtime for candidates will kick in from January and apply to Macron, too.

Get-out-the-vote drives and supporters will also need to be mobilised, rallies organised and funding raised and registered.

At almost the same stage in the last presidential election, then-President Francois Hollande was gearing up to make his intentions known.

It was on Dec.1, 2016, that he announced in a prime-time address that he would not seek a second 5-year term.

Nothing in Macron’s speech suggested a similar route.

Macron made clear he feels that works remains to be done after a first term thrown off course by the pandemic and by months of angry protests against his government before the pandemic struck.

The clearest hint of his intentions came when Macron spoke of overhauling France’s pension system.

He previously had promised to push the difficult reform through as president.

But he said Tuesday that must now wait for “clear decisions” in 2022.

Election year.

Without actually saying so, he could hardly have been clearer.

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday hit out at the Uttar Pradesh government over the issue of safety of women, alleging that women are unsafe in the state.

Her attack came after media reports claimed that an officer at Bapu Bhavan in Lucknow has been arrested for allegedly molesting a contractual worker after a video of the incident went viral

“Be it secretariat, road or any other place: Women are unsafe in Uttar Pradesh. This is the reality of the government’s claim on ‘women’s safety’,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

“A sister from Uttar Pradesh had to make a video of the incident with her viral due to inaction on her complaint of sexual harassment. How much patience and fighting power would she have had?” the Congress general secretary said.

Gandhi urged women in the state to unite and fight for themselves.

“You are a girl, you can fight. All the women of the country are standing with you,” she said.

The Congress has been attacking the state government over the issue of law and order and women’s safety, alleging that criminal activities are rampant, a claim denied by the Yogi Adityanath dispensation.

THANE: Thane has reported 155 new cases of coronavirus, raising the infection count in the Maharashtra district to 5,67,157, while two more deaths pushed the toll to 11,549, an official said on Thursday.

In neighbouring Palghar district, the COVID-19 case count has gone up to 1,38,234, while the death toll stands at 3,289, another official said.

MUMBAI: Employees of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) continued their strike for the 15th day on Thursday over the demand for merger of the cash-strapped corporation with the state government, despite an appeal from Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to cooperate with the government in its effort to resolve their issues.

All 250 bus depots of the MSRTC remained shut for the second consecutive day, an official said.

Lakhs of passengers across the state continue to face hardships with no solution in sight to the issue.

Despite the suspension of over 900 employees, several MSRTC workers are still firm on continuing the agitation until their demand for the merger of the corporation with the state government is met.

According to MSRTC officials and union sources, as of now no meeting with government authorities is scheduled on Thursday for resolving the issue of the strike.

A section of the MSRTC employees are scheduled to meet Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray during the day.

“The situation is unchanged today. All 250 depots are shut across the state,” an MSRTC official said.

The state-run corporation has so far suspended 918 employees from various depots for provoking and participating in the strike. Action is likely to be taken against more employees later in the day. The indefinite strike started from October 28 and gradually intensified after the Diwali festival concluded last week.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Thackeray appealed to the corporation’s employees not to hold the poor people to ransom by continuing their protest.

Maharashtra Transport Minister Anil Parab, who is also the chairman of the MSRTC, on Wednesday met a delegation of the Maharashtra ST Employees Joint Action Committee and appealed to the employees to call off their strike, even as the corporation filed a contempt petition in the Bombay High Court.

Hundreds of MSRTC employees from across the state converged in Mumbai on Wednesday afternoon and held a rally at the Azad Maidan to press for their demand.

Parab said Maharashtra has 56 state-run corporations, and if the MSRTC unions’ demand was ceded, other corporations will also demand merger with the government.

“While merging a corporation, comprehensive thinking is needed. Explain this to the workers and ask them to get back to work,” Parab told the unions.

BJP leader Sadabhau Khot met Parab on Wednesday and said the salaries of MSRTC workers were very low, some had committed suicide, therefore the corporation should be merged with the state government immediately.

Parab pointed out that the state government has already appointed a committee to study the merger demand.

The MSRTC on Wednesday also filed a contempt petition in the HC, saying the unions have continued the strike despite the court declaring it illegal.

The court sought replies from the unions by Friday, and posted the matter for hearing to November 15.

NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will chair a meeting of southern zonal council on November 14 with chief ministers of all southern states to enhance cooperation and improve coordination among the states to resolve pending inter-state issues. The meeting will be held in Tirupati, officials said on Wednesday.

Shah will preside over the much-awaited conclave of dignitaries of southern states that include the participation of Chief Ministers from states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Lieutenant Governors of Andaman and Nicobar and Puducherry are also likely to attend the meeting. 
AP is likely to raise the issue of Special Category Status (SCS) at the Southern Zonal Council (SZC) meeting. Apart from the SCS issue, the State will also raise issues pertaining to pending dues from the Centre and from neighbouring States.

The issue of bringing the Jurala project on Krishna in neighbouring Telangana under the purview of Krishna River Management Board along with a discussion on the Centre’s proposal of interlinking rivers are other topics likely to be discussed.