Archives for 2025

Thiruvananthapuram: Hundreds of people waited outside the historic Darbar Hall here to pay homage to former Chief Minister and veteran CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan on Tuesday, a day after he breathed his last at the age of 101.

The mortal remains of the veteran were taken in a procession from his son’s residence in the morning to the Hall inside the Secretariat for official public homage.

A large number of party workers accompanied the ambulance. Several others followed in their vehicles.

Thousands of people, including women, the elderly, and students, paid their last respects to Achuthanandan when his body was kept at the old AKG Centre on Monday night. By around 11.45 pm, the body was shifted to his son’s residence in the city and kept there till the morning.

Even at midnight, a large number of people gathered in front of the house to catch a glimpse of their beloved leader.

There was no public homage at the house, party sources said.

By Tuesday afternoon, Achuthanandan’s body would be taken in a procession to Alappuzha, his hometown.

His cremation will take place at the public crematorium in Alappuzha Valiya Chudukadu by Wednesday noon, party sources added.

The government has declared a public holiday on Tuesday and a three-day mourning period as a mark of respect for the former chief minister.

The veteran leader died at 3:20 pm on Monday while undergoing treatment in the critical care unit of Pattom SUT Hospital.

Achuthanandan had been receiving treatment since June 23, following a cardiac arrest.

A founding member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Achuthanandan was a lifelong champion of workers’ rights, land reforms, and social justice.

He served as Kerala’s Chief Minister from 2006 to 2011 and was elected to the state assembly seven times, serving three terms as Leader of the Opposition.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi: Speculation is rife in India’s political and media circles over the possibility of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor being named the next Vice-President of India, following the surprise resignation of incumbent VP Jagdeep Dhankhar.

According to Gulf News’ Business Editor Manoj Nair, the growing chatter about Tharoor’s potential elevation has been intensified by Dhankhar’s unexpected announcement late on July 21 that he is stepping down from office due to health concerns. As per protocol, a new Vice-President must be elected within 60 days.

This latest round of speculation is further fueled by murmurs of a possible rift between Tharoor and the Indian National Congress. The Kerala MP, who retained his Thiruvananthapuram seat by a slim margin in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, has increasingly distanced himself from the party line, especially in the wake of India’s international outreach on the ‘Operation Sindoor’ front.

“Tharoor has been one of the more vocal proponents of India’s stance on ‘Operation Sindoor’ during trips to the US and elsewhere,” writes Nair. “And that’s brought him visibly closer to the BJP government – and sharing quite the rapport with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

This closeness, however, has reportedly irked senior Congress leaders, especially within Kerala. Tharoor’s exclusion from an official Congress delegation to the US was interpreted by many as a public snub. The state unit has even considered distancing him from upcoming party events, further indicating a widening gulf.

While there has been no official confirmation, Gulf News reports that Tharoor’s name is being floated prominently among the potential candidates to replace Dhankhar. Importantly, if the BJP decides to back him, they and their allies possess the electoral numbers in Parliament to ensure his victory—regardless of Congress support.

Nair notes that Tharoor’s name had already been whispered in political circles as a possible “future” Vice-President even before Dhankhar’s resignation. “Now that future is likely to happen a lot sooner,” he adds.

If nominated and elected, Tharoor’s ascent to the second-highest constitutional post in India would mark a significant political turn in a career already marked by international acclaim, articulate diplomacy, and growing political contradictions.

The Congress MP’s next move remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: “The guessing game continues,” concludes Nair.

New Delhi Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for a legislation in Parliament’s upcoming Monsoon session to grant full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

The leaders of opposition in the two houses of Parliament — Kharge is the LoP in the Rajya Sabha and Gandhi is the LoP in the Lok Sabha — also called on the government to bring a legislation to include the Union Territory of Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution.

In their joint letter to Modi, Kharge and Gandhi said that for the past five years, the people of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir have consistently called for the restoration of full statehood.

This demand is both legitimate and firmly grounded in their constitutional and democratic rights, they said.

“It is important to recognise that while there have been instances of Union territories being granted statehood in the past, the case of Jammu and Kashmir is without precedent in independent India. This is the first time a full-fledged state has been downgraded to a Union territory following its bifurcation,” the letter said.

“Your goodself has, on multiple occasions, personally reiterated the government’s commitment to restoring statehood. In your interview in Bhubaneswar on 19 May 2024, you stated: ‘The restoration of statehood is a solemn promise we have made and we stand by it’. Again, while addressing a rally in Srinagar on 19 September 2024, you reaffirmed: ‘We have said in Parliament that we will restore the region’s statehood’,” the two leaders said.

The Union government has also made similar assurances before the Supreme Court in the Article 370 matter, submitting that statehood would be restored “at the earliest and as soon as possible”, they pointed out.

“In view of the foregoing and aforementioned, we urge upon the government to bring forward a legislation in the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament to grant full statehood to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” Kharge and Gandhi said.

“Additionally, we request that the government bring forward legislation to include the Union Territory of Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution,” they said.

This would be a significant step towards addressing the cultural, developmental, and political aspirations of the people of Ladakh, while safeguarding their rights, land, and identity, the letter said.

Reacting to Kharge and Gandhi jointly writing the letter to Modi, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah welcomed the Congress initiative, saying “we are not demanding something that was not promised to us”.

“This is a very good thing, we were waiting for this day when the opposition would raise our voice in Parliament and Delhi. I am thankful to Kharge and Rahul that they have raised the statehood issue with the Centre,” the chief minister said on the sidelines of an event in Jammu, when asked about the letter.

He said, “We are not demanding something which was not promised to us. We were repeatedly promised within and outside Parliament, Supreme Court and public functions that the statehood will be restored to Jammu and Kashmir at an appropriate time.”

Expressing gratitude, spokesperson of Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling National Conference (NC) Imran Nabi Dar said, “We welcome this and thank the Congress leadership for taking the initiative.”

He said there is no reason to delay the restoration of statehood to the Union Territory further.

“We are hopeful that the government will bring the bill (for the restoration of statehood) in the forthcoming Monsoon session (of Parliament),” Dar said.

People’s Democratic Party (PDP) spokesperson Mohit Bhan said statehood is the right of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and there has already been a delay in restoring it.

“As far as statehood is concerned, that should be given to Jammu and Kashmir. The prime minister and the home minister have promised it and I think much time has already passed and Jammu and Kashmir should get its statehood back,” he said.

Bhan, however, asserted that the “real fight” is for the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution, which were revoked by the Centre on August 5, 2019 and the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into Union territories.

Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee president Tariq Karra expressed gratitude to the party leadership for its letter to Modi.

The letter comes a day after the top Congress leadership decided to raise issues such as the Pahalgam terror attack, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and rising atrocities against women in the country during the Monsoon session starting July 21.

Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor

Kishanganj (Bihar): Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor waded into the political controversy surrounding the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar on Wednesday when he described the mammoth exercise as a “BJP conspiracy”.

Kishor made the remark in Kishanganj, the state’s lone district with a Muslim majority population, and promised that his fledgling party would help those whose names get wrongfully deleted from the voters’ list.

Talking to reporters, he said, “The SIR is a BJP conspiracy. The Supreme Court has made it clear that Election Commission cannot determine people’s citizenship. Does the Election Commission, by carrying out such an exercise now, intend to say that the electoral roll of 2014, when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, was fake?”.

He added, “The same electoral roll was fine till last year’s Lok Sabha polls. We fail to see a problem in conducting the upcoming assembly polls on the basis of the same voters’ list.”

“Obviously, the BJP is jittery in Bihar realising that the people here now have a new alternative in Jan Suraaj Party. So they are trying to wrongfully delete the names of voters. I would ask all people who face such wrongful deletions to contact our party. We will extend all possible help”, said the former political strategist.

Kishor, whose nine-month-old party is aiming to make a big dent in the state’s Muslim vote base, also trained his guns at the RJD, which has so far been the first party of choice for the minority community.

“The RJD has treated Muslims as nothing more than the kerosene that could serve to keep the lantern bright. But the community has now had enough,” said the Jan Suraaj Party founder, in an obvious reference to the main opposition party’s poll symbol.

Replying to a query, he said he saw “no role” in Bihar for the AIMIM headed by Asaduddin Owaisi, which had won a few seats in the 2020 assembly polls and has expressed the desire to contest the upcoming elections as part of the INDIA bloc.

“Bihar does not need to import leaders from Hyderabad,” asserted Kishor, whose own party has decided to go it alone in the polls.

The IPAC founder, who has in his previous avatar handled election campaigns of several political parties across the ideological divide, was also asked about the Hindi versus Marathi row that has erupted in Maharashtra.

Blaming the controversy on “Thackeray brothers”, son and nephew of late Bal Thackeray, Uddhav and Raj, respectively, Kishor said, “these people are lumpen elements. But the Congress and the BJP too have their share of the blame as these national parties have no qualms in tying up with such divisive forces.”

He also alleged that Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal has indulged in corruption and favouritism in his capacity as one of the trustees of Kishanganj-based MGM Medical College and challenged the latter, a sitting MLC and former state minister, to initiate legal action “if what I am saying is wrong”.