Archives for March 2022

SHIMLA: The Himachal Pradesh Assembly Monday notified the schedule for election to one Rajya Sabha seat as from the state as the term of sitting MP Anand Sharma is ending on April 2.

Himachal Assembly secretary cum returning officer Yash Paul Sharma said the state MLAs would vote for electing new the Rajya Sabha member on March 31.

The candidates can file nominations to the Returning Officer (Secretary, HP Vidhan Sabha) or Assistant Returning Officer (Deputy Secretary, Legislation, HP assembly) till March 21, Sharma said.

The scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on March 22 at 11 am and the candidate can withdraw nomination before March 24 by 3 pm, he said.

In the event of the election being-contested, the poll will be held on March 31 between 9 am and 4 pm, he added.

LVIV: Russian forces fired artillery strikes on suburbs northwest of Kyiv overnight and targeted points east of the capital, the head of the Kyiv region said Monday.

The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Monday morning that Russian troops have not made major advances over the past 24 hours despite expanding strikes to the west. Ukrainian forces are targeting Russian bases, targeting their logistical abilities, the general staff said in a statement on Facebook marking the 19th day of the war.

The general staff accused Russian forces of setting up firing positions and military equipment in churches and other civilian infrastructure so that Ukrainian forces can’t fire back. The accusation could not be immediately verified, though Associated Press reporters have seen Russian armoured vehicles in residential areas.

An artillery strike hit a nine-story apartment building in the Obolonsky district of northern Kyiv on Monday morning, destroying apartments on several floors and igniting a fire. The state emergency agency, which released images of the smoking building, said no casualties have been reported so far.

JAIPUR: The Indian voter has always been capable of throwing up surprises and the BJP will also get to know about it one day, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Sunday.

His remarks came in the backdrop of the party’s debacle and drubbing in the just-concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur.

The Congress could have done much better in Uttarakhand, and in Goa, “we had very good chances of being the single largest party”, Tharoor said at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF).

“But mind you in both the states the number of voters are relatively small, and that perhaps contributed,” the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.

In the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, despite a high-pitched campaign led by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party could manage to win only two of the 403 assembly seats with the vote share plummeting to a meagre 2.33 per cent and most of its candidates losing security deposits.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra did remarkable and energetic campaigning for the party, and “from my point of view, I don’t think that the Congress per se can be faulted because on the grounds of one person’s campaigning”, Tharoor said.

“I think the issues are rather larger for the party as well as for party viability in some states where our presence has been systematically going down,” he said.

On Priyanka Gandhi’s campaigning, the MP said, “You would have seen her everywhere, including getting arrested a couple of times by the Uttar Pradesh Police. You have seen her very much on the spot and running through the state.”

The 66-year-old leader also expressed surprise over political analysts describing the results as a “foregone conclusion”, saying very few predicted BJP’s victory until the exit polls came out.

“If it was a foregone conclusion, all the pundits should have been saying that for the last five-six weeks of election campaign. Very few, if any did, it was only when the exit polls were coming out that the tale turned and people said BJP is going to win.”

“Until then there was no question in my mind that most of people were expecting a very, very close fight, and some were saying anecdotally that Samajwadi Party was ahead,” Tharoor said.

The Indian voter has the capacity to surprise and one day, they will also surprise the BJP.

“But right now they have given the BJP what it wanted,” he said.

The JLF’s 15th edition started here on Thursday and is being held in a hybrid format for the first time since its inception in 2006.

It was held virtually from March 5 to 9 because of Covid.

Turkish bestselling novelist Elif Shafak, American writer and 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction finalist Jonathan Franzen, South African novelist and 2021 Booker winner Damon Galgut, Australian author and 2003 Booker winner DBC Pierre, English actor-writer Rupert Everett, and eminent Jamaican poet Kei Miller are among the 250 authors participating in the JLF this year.

KOLKATA: Days after switching over to the TMC from the BJP, veteran leader Joy Prakash Majumder stirred a controversy as he claimed that Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari’s win against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the 2021 assembly polls from Nandigram was not by fair means.

Majumder, who was suspended by the BJP in the last week of January for “anti-party activities”, claimed that it was “baffling” how Adhikari went on to clinch the seat, just hours after Banerjee was declared winner from the constituency in Purba Medinipur district.

“I remember Suvendu had stated on the night of May 2 that he had to use tricks to win Nandigram,” the newly appointed vice-president of the TMC, who was once a fierce critic of Mamata Banerjee, told reporters on Saturday.

“The counting process was not transparent in Nandigram. By sleight of hand, Suvendu suddenly pipped Mamata Banerjee, who was initially declared the winner,” Majumder said.

Former state minister Rajib Bandyopadhyay, who had unsuccessfully contested from Domjur on a BJP ticket and returned to the TMC shortly after, also claimed that Majumder’s assertions were 100 per cent true.

“I know Suvendu Adhikari was not declared the winner in a fair manner. I can vouch for that,” Bandyopadhyay said.

In a tongue-in-cheek Twitter post in Bengali, Adhikari described the press meet of the Trinamool Congress leaders as a “farce” conducted by an “extortionist” party.

Sharing a famous Bengali poem by Satyendra Nath Dutta, he indicated that he would not reply to the charges as it would be below his dignity.

The BJP leader said the press conference of the “Tolamool” party reminded him of Dutta’s poem “Uttam ebong Adham” (Good and Bad).

The last stanza of that poem tells the reader that it is below the dignity of a human to bite back a dog that had bitten him.

“Tola” is a Bengali slang meaning extorted money.

Adhikari also shared a picture of the proverbial three wise monkeys embodying the maxim: “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

Though Adhikari avoided a direct reply, BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya trashed the allegations, stating that Majumder and Bandyopadhyay were revealing their “true colours” after crossing over to the TMC.

“Majumder is trying to raise his ratings before the new party supremo against whom he had levelled snide remarks in the past. Footages of his comments at BJP press briefings are still available. Will he take back all those comments now?” Bhattacharya sought to know.

Talking about Rajib Bandyopadhyay, the BJP spokesperson said, “I guess he wants to impress the TMC supremo by making these false claims. Given that he has been shifted to Tripura to look after the affairs of the TMC there, the former Domjur MLA must be desperately trying to get back.”

According to the Election Commission, Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee by over 1,900 votes in Nandigram.

The announcement was made just hours after reports suggested the TMC supremo had bagged the seat.

Banerjee later moved the Calcutta High Court challenging the Nandigram verdict.

She was elected to the Assembly from Bhabanipur later in 2021.

LUCKNOW: The BSP on Sunday said that despite its best efforts to defeat the BJP in the Uttarakhand Assembly polls, the party won because Muslims chose the wrong alternative.

The BSP arrived at the conclusion at a meeting of office-bearers and workers of its Uttarakhand unit with party president Mayawati here to review its performance in the just concluded assembly polls.

“It was found during the review (meeting) that like Uttar Pradesh, in Uttarakhand too, a lot of effort was put in to defeat the ruling BJP but especially the people of the Muslim community made a mistake in choosing the right alternative.

Due to this, despite the strong resentment among people against the BJP on issues like poverty, inflation, unemployment and its arrogant and autocratic attitude, the BJP benefitted again,” the BSP said in a statement.

“It was also felt at the meeting that if the attitude of these people does not change in future, then it will be very difficult to resolve the problem,” it said.

The BSP won only two seats in the 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly and got a mere 4.82 per cent of the total votes.

The BJP won 47 seats.

It created history by retaining power in the hill state, where every other previous government was voted out in the past.

Referring to rival political parties, Mayawati said it should be kept in mind that the BSP’s opponents use money power and are adept at doing “dirty politics”.

She also asked party workers not to get demoralised by the election results and work to address the shortcomings.

NEW DELHI: Days after its election debacle in five states, the Congress’ top decision-making body on Sunday brainstormed over the way forward amid calls for large-scale reforms to revive the party’s dwindling electoral fortunes.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik were the only three from the Group of 23 leaders who participated in the meeting of the CWC, which has a large number of Gandhi family loyalists.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh did not attend the meeting. Senior party leader A K Antony was also not present as he has contracted Covid.

The Congress lost Punjab to the Aam Aadmi Party, could not wrest Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur from the BJP and the party’s tally in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh fell to its lowest.

While Sonia Gandhi has not been actively campaigning for some time, Rahul Gandhi, along with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, had been the star campaigner for the Congress in the polls, with the brother-sister duo also playing a major role in key decisions of the party.

Despite a high-pitched campaign led by Priyanka Gandhi, the Congress could manage to win only two of the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh with the vote share plummeting to a meagre 2.33 percent and most of its candidates losing security deposits.

Ahead of the meeting, the chorus for making Rahul Gandhi Congress president again grew louder as several leaders and workers voiced support for him to take on the mantle of party chief.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said no one was taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Rahul Gandhi does and was fighting resolutely.

“The prime minister has to start his speech after targeting Rahul Gandhi, you can understand what this means. All of us want that Rahul ji should take on the mantle of party leadership,” Gehlot told reporters.

Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar also backed the idea to make Gandhi the party chief.

“As I have said it earlier as well, Sh. Rahul Gandhi should take up the Congress presidency in a full time role immediately. This is the wish of millions of Congress workers like me,” he tweeted.

Congress workers from around Delhi, who converged near the party office, were not allowed to enter the AICC headquarter as traffic was held up and the road outside the party office was barricaded by the police.

A group led by Delhi Congress leaders, including Alka Lamba, voiced support for Rahul Gandhi to lead the party and raised slogans in his and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi’s favour.

Rahul Gandhi had resigned as Congress president after the party suffered its second consecutive defeat in general elections in 2019.

Sonia Gandhi, who took over the reins of the party again as interim president, had also offered to quit in August 2020 after strong criticism by a section of leaders, referred to as G-23, but the CWC had urged her to continue.

Earlier in the day, top Congress leaders discussed the party’s strategy for the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament and decided to work in coordination with other like-minded parties to raise issues of public importance.

The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party president Sonia Gandhi.