LUCKNOW: Working day in and day out to revive Congress in UP ahead of 2022 electoral battle, Congress general Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra seems to be ready with her master plan. As per the plan, she would now spare five days a week to the party in the state and spend only the weekend in Delhi.

Priyanka has reportedly prepared an elaborated plan to tour the state and stay in different districts to get the pulse on the ground.

As per the highly-placed Congress sources, Priyanka will sound her party’s poll bugle from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi on October 10. She would also supervise Congress’s ambitious Pratigya Yatra which would take off on October 17. During the Yatra, to take off from four different places in the state, the Congressmen would reach out to the common man to expose the alleged failures of the BJP government in the state.

The Yatra is likely to culminate into a big rally in Lucknow drawing senior Congress leaders including Priyanka in November.

However, reviewing the party’s poll preparedness on the third day of her current 5-day visit to UP on Thursday, the Congress general secretary participated in a meeting of the newly constituted screening committee for finalising party tickets.

It is chaired by Congress general secretary Jitendra Singh, while party MP Deepender Singh Hooda and Maharashtra Cabinet minister Varsha Gaikwad also joined it as members on Thursday.

The Congress is still collecting applications from those who wish to contest the polls and has sought suggestions from various units of the party, including the district committees. These suggestions were taken up in the meeting.

Priyanka, who is chairing meetings with the state leadership, is an ex-officio member of the committee along with state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu, Congress Legislative Party leader Aradhna Mishra, and the party secretaries in charge of the state.

After the meeting at Kaul house in Lucknow, Priyanka met the members of the Nishad community and heard their grievances in detail at Congress headquarters. She also held a dialogue with the party’s social media handlers.

In the last assembly elections in 2017, Congress had fought in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) and had won just seven seats with a vote share of 6.5%. However, SP had declined from 229 to 47, and BSP to just 19 from 80 seats. The BJP had romped home with a huge majority winning 312 of 403 seats.

Kolkata : Polling began at 7 am on Thursday for the by-election to the Bhabanipur seat, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting, and two other constituencies amid tight security and stringent COVID-19 measures, officials said.

The by-polls are being held in south Kolkata’s Bhabanipur, besides Jangipur and Samserganj seats in Murshidabad district.

A total 6,97,164 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the three constituencies. Votes will be counted on October 3.

Banerjee, who lost from the Nandigram constituency in the assembly elections earlier this year, has to win this by-poll to retain the chief minister’s post.

Polls had to be countermanded in Jangipur and Samserganj in April following the death of two candidates. As part of its elaborate security arrangements, the Election Commission has deployed 72 companies of central forces in the three constituencies, of which 35 are stationed in Bhabanipur alone, the officials said.

Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed within 200 metres of the polling centres.

Long queues were seen since early morning outside several booths across the constituencies. Voting will continue till 6 pm.

The polling centres have been stocked up with masks and sanitisers as part of the COVID-19 guidelines, the officials said.

Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress supremo, is pitted against BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal and CPI(M)’s Srijib Biswas in Bhabanipur.

Lucknow: The BSP will make efforts to not field ‘bahubali’ (strongmen) or mafia candidates in next year’s Uttar Pradesh polls, party supremo Mayawati said Friday, announcing that jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari will not be given a party ticket from Mau again.

She said BSP state president Bhim Rajbhar will contest from Mau seat, currently represented by Mukhtar Ansari who is lodged in a jail in Banda, with several criminal cases pending against him.

Mayawati’s announcement comes days after Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Sigbatullah Ansari joined the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party.

“In upcoming assembly polls, the BSP’s effort will be to not field ‘bahubali’ and mafia elements. So, the name of Bhim Rajbhar, the BSP UP president, has been finalised from the Mau assembly seat in place of Mukhtar Ansari,” she said in a tweet in Hindi.

Mukhtar’s another brother, Afzal Ansari, is a BSP MP who represents the Ghazipur seat. He had defeated the BJP’s Manoj Sinha, who is now the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.

Mayawati said the decision to not field criminal and mafia elements has been taken to meet people’s expectation as she appealed to party leaders to keep this in mind while choosing candidates. “So that there is no problem in taking strict action against such elements once the government is formed.”

She added, “Alongside ensuring ‘a rule of law, by law’, the BSP’s resolve is to also change Uttar Pradesh’s image now.”

She said the BSP’s should be known as the government that follows the philosophy of ‘Sarvajan Hitay and Sarvajan Sukhay’ (universal good).

CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) formed an alliance on Saturday for the 2022 Punjab Assembly election.

“Today, is a historic day….a big turn in Punjab’s politics,” he said in the presence of BSP General Secretary Satish Chandra Mishra.

He said the SAD and the BSP will jointly fight the 2022 polls and other elections together.

The Mayawati-led BSP will fight 20 of the 117 Assembly seats in Punjab, while the rest will be contested by the SAD, he said.

Among the seats which the BSP will contest are Kartarpur Sahib in Jalandhar, Jalandhar-West, Jalandhar-North, Phagwara, Hoshiarpur Urban, Dasuya, Chamkaur Sahib in Rupnagar district, Bassi Pathana, Sujanpur in Pathankot, Mohali, Amritsar North and Amritsar Central.

The SAD earlier had a tie-up with the BJP and the Badal-led party walked out of the NDA over the farm laws issue last year.

The BJP used to contest 23 seats under its alliance with the SAD.

Damascus, May 28 (AP): Syrian President Bashar Assad was re-elected in a landslide, officials said Thursday, ushering in a fourth seven-year term in the war-torn country following an election described as illegitimate and a sham by the West and his opposition.

Assad’s win was not in doubt, in an election where officials said 18 million were eligible to vote. But in the country ravaged by the 10-year-old conflict, areas controlled by rebels or Kurdish-led troops did not hold the vote.

At least 8 million, mostly displaced, live in those areas in northwest and northeast Syria. Over 5 million refugees mostly living in neighbouring countries have largely refrained from casting their ballots.

US and European officials have also questioned the legitimacy of the election, saying it violates UN resolutions in place to resolve the conflict, lacks any international monitoring, and is unrepresentative of all Syrians.

Syria’s parliament speaker, Hammoud Sabbagh, announced the final results from Wednesday’s vote. He said Assad garnered 95.1 per cent of the votes. He said turnout stood at 78.6 per cent of the voters, in an election that lasted for 17 hours on Wednesday with no independent monitors.

Assad was facing symbolic competition from two candidates a former minister and a former opposition figure.

With the oath-taking ceremony of the second Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government set to take place on Thursday, here’s a list of his cabinet colleagues

A tough taskmaster, Pinarayi Vijayan could steadfastly hold together the CPM and the Left Democratic Front in Kerala while Left movements had faltered without much resistance in Tripura and West Bengal which had been red forts for several decades. His willpower and pragmatism helped broaden the support base of the LDF in the state with people from all castaes, religion and economic classes lending support to his leadership.

During the tough days of floods, cyclone and pandemic, Pinarayi unwaveringly led the state forward and the re-election of LDF stood out as a testimony to his leadership skills. He took a break from parliamentary politics to become CPM state secretary in 1998. After being at the helm of CPM for 16 years, he contested again in 2016 and became the chief minister. This time, voters gave him a majority of 50,123 votes from the same constituency. He is currently a CPM politburo member. Earlier, Pinarayi had been elected to the assembly in 1970, 1977, 1991 and 1996.

Except Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan from CPM, A K Saseendran from NCP and K Krishnankutty from Janata Dal(S), all other ministers are fresh faces. K Radhakrishnan, who was elected from Chelakkara constituency, was SC/ST Welfare Minister in the E K Nayanar cabinet in 1996. He also served as the assembly speaker from 2006 to 2011. 

J ChinchuRani, 56, 
CPI .Chadayamangalam. Education: SSLC 
Chinchurani is the second woman minister from CPI (after K R Gowri who had been part of the 1957 cabinet). She began her public life by associating with Balavedi and AISF. She is the state president of Kerala Mahila Sangham. Her husband D Sukesan is a CPI local leader in Kollam.

Roshy Augustine, 52, KC(M) Idukki. 
Education: BSc
Roshy Augustine entered politics through KSC(M), the students’ wing of Kerala Congress(M). After his unsuccessful contest from Perambra constituency in 1996 at 27, Mani offered a ticket to Roshy in the 2001 assembly elections from Idukki. Roshy, who won from Idukki in 2001, has never tasted defeat since then. 

P RajeevE, 54, 
CPM Kalamassery. 
Education: LLB
A native of Meladoor in Thrissur, Rajeeve has been living in Kalamassery for the past several years. Rajeeve, who began his public life as an SFI organiser, earned appreciation cutting across party lines as Rajya Sabha MP from 2009-2015. He is a member of the CPM state secretariat and served as Ernakulam district secretary. 

K Radhakrishnan,57, 
CPM  Chelakkara.
Education: BA Economics
A native of Thonnoorkara in Chelakkara, Radhakrishnan entered politics through SFI while studying at Thrissur Kerala Varma College. He has represented Chelakkara constituency in the assembly for 5 terms. In the first term, he was made SC/ST Welfare minister in the E K Nayanar cabinet in 1996. He served as the assembly speaker from 2006 to 2011. 

K Rajan, 48, CPI  Ollur. Education: BSc, LLB 
Ollur constituency has never given a second term for a candidate during the past four decades. The CPI has named K Rajan who served as government chief whip during the previous term as minister as he broke the jinx attached to Ollur. Rajan is a state executive member of the CPI and had been AIYF national secretary. 

K Krishnankutty, 76, 
JD(S)   Chittur. Education: High School
K Krishnankutty was water resources minister in the outgoing Pinarayi Vijayan government. A native of Chittur in Palakkad, K Krishnankutty is a farmer and an expert in inter-state river-water sharing treaties. He is the state president of the Janata Dal (S). 

Veena George, 44, 
CPM Aranmula 
Education: Msc 
Veena George is a journalist-turned-politician. She quit her job to contest the election from Aranmula in 2016. Veena’s leadership qualities were visible during the 2018 floods which had affected Pathanamthitta badly.

A K Saseendran, 75, NCP   Elathur Education: Diploma in Ayurveda Medicine 
A native of Chovva in Kannur, Saseendran started his political career as a KSU worker. He was the district president of KSU from 1963-1966 and its state president from 1978-1980 and state president of Youth Congress. He later joined Congress(S) and his party merged with NCP when the latter was formed. The six-time MLA was first elected to the assembly in 1980 from Peringalam in Kannur. He served as the transport minister in the outgoing LDF government. 

R Bindu, 54, 
CPM Irinjalakuda. 
Education: PhD 

Wife of CPM state secretary A Vijayaraghavan, she is a central committee member of All-India Democratic Women’s Association. She was the first woman mayor of Thrissur. She was the head of the department of English and vice-principal of Thrissur Kerala Varma College. 

M V Govindan, 68, CPM  Taliparamba. Education: Diploma
Considered a party ideologue from Kannur, M V Govindan is a central committee member and one of the top leaders of CPM in the state. He is a member of the CPM state secretariat. A former DYFI state president, M V Govindan had served as the Chief Editor of party mouthpiece Deshabhimani for some time. He is a three-time MLA, and has won from Taliparamba constituency. 

P A MOHAMED RIYAS, 45, 
CPM, Beypore. Education LLB
National president of DYFI, P A Mohamed Riyas started his political career through SFI while studying at St Joseph’s High School. He was instrumental in breaking the MSF monopoly at Farooq College in 1997. He had unsuccessfully contested from Kozhikode constituency in the 2009 LS polls. Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter T Veena is his wife. 

Ahamed Devarkovil, 61, INL  Kozhikode South. Education: Pre-degree 
A native of Kozhikode, Ahamed began his political life as a Muslim Students Federation activist. He has been with the organisation since the formation of the INL under the leadership of Ebrahim Sulaiman Sait. Ahamed is currently INL national general secretary. He defeated IUML’s Noorbina Rasheed in the election. 

V Abdurahiman, 59, National Secular Conference 
Tanur. Education: SSLC
Winning twice from a constituency that IUML kept as its citadel for more than five decades helped V Abdurahiman find a place in the government. He started his political career in KSU. He left Congress in 2014 and contested unsuccessfully against IUML from Ponnani Lok Sabha seat as an LDF candidate. 

V Sivankutty, 66, 
CPM  Nemom 
Education: BA 
V Sivankutty enters the cabinet with the distinction of winning back BJP’s lone sitting seat in the state. He was the state president of SFI and had served as the president of Ulloor panchayat and Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. He is currently a state committee member of CPM and CITU state secretary. His wife Parvathy Devi is the daughter of CPM ideologue the late P Govinda Pillai. 

Antony Raju, 66, Democratic Kerala Congress  Thiruvananthapuram 
Education: BA, LLB

Antony Raju trounced sitting MLA V S Sivakumar to win the Thiruvananthapuram constituency. He started his political career as the student leader of KSC, a feeder organisation of the Kerala Congress. 

G R Anil, 58, CPI  Nedumangad. Education: BA, LLB
Anil won the maiden assembly election from Nedumangad. He had earlier served as the health and education standing committee chairman of T’Puram corporation. He is currently the district secretary of CPI. His wife R Lathadevi is a former MLA. 

K N Balagopal, 57, CPM  Kottarakkara. Education: MCom, LLM 
This is Balagopal’s maiden term in the assembly. He had been a Rajya Sabha member. During the tenure of V S Achuthanandan, he had been his political secretary. His political life began in SFI and he went on to become national president of SFI and DYFI. 

Speaker   M B Rajesh, 50, 
CPM  Thrithala. 
Education: LLB 
A two-time MP, he wrested Thrithala constituency from the Congress which it had held for a decade. He had served as district secretary, state secretary and All-India joint secretary of SFI and DYFI state and national president. He is a CPM state committee member.

Saji Cheriyan, 56, CPM  Chengannur. Education: LLB
He began his political career through SFI during his pre-degree studies at Chengannur Christian College. He was first elected to the assembly in a bypoll necessitated following the death of the Chengannur MLA in 2018. He was earlier unsuccessfully contested against P C Vishnunadh from the same constituency. He was SFI district president, DYFI district secretary and CPM district secretary.

P Prasad, 51, 
CPI  Cherthala. Education: BA 
A native of Palamel in Alappuzha, he began his political career through AISF. Later, he worked as AISF state president and state executive member. He had also been an additional private secretary to former minister Binoy Viswom and Thiruvananthapuram unit manager of Janayugom, CPI mouthpiece. 

V N Vasavan, 66, CPM  Ettumanoor.  Education: SSLC, ITI 
Vasavan entered politics through SFI. He was elected the CPM district secretary in 2015. After his unsuccessful contest against Oommen Chandy in Puthuppally in 1987 and 1991 assembly elections, he became an MLA in 2006 from Kottayam constituency. 

Deputy Speaker  Chittayam Gopakumar, 56, 
CPI  Adoor. 
Education: SSLC 
A three-time MLA from Adoor, he had started his political career as an activist of AISF and held various positions in AIYF and Kisan Sabha. A former panchayat president of Kottarakkara, he had also served as Agriculture Workers’ Welfare Board chairman.

Chennai:  Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin, the DMK president who led his party to a huge victory in the Assembly polls was sworn in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on Friday.

Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year old Stalin, for whom this would be the first stint as CM, in a simple ceremony at the Raj Bhavan here.

AIADMK top leader O Panneerselvam, leaders from alliance parties including Congress’s P Chidambaram, MDMK chief Vaiko and top state officials took part in the ceremony.

The ceremony witnessed adherence to COVID-19 guidelines including wearing masks.

KOLKATA:  Notwithstanding the shrill pitch of “Jai Shri Ram” and BJP heavyweights Narendra Modi and Amit Shah leading the opposition rallies, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee had the last laugh with her plan of portraying herself as the daughter of West Bengal pitted against outsiders striking a chord with the voters. 

Unlike the 2019 LS elections, the ghost of anti-incumbency failed to spook Didi and her government.  

Mamata tactfully sat down after the 2019 debacle to unleash a plethora of sops mixed with a healthy dose of populism.

Multiple factors worked in favour of Mamata, which include complete consolidation of minority vote-bank, massive support of women electorates, her pre-election ventures of giving health insurance cards to all citizens and setting up government camps in localities across Bengal to offer services.

Mamata Banerjee emerged out of her house Kalighat residence and greeted the party supporters assembled in front of her house.

“This is Bengal’s victory. Today, Bengal has saved India. They talked out double-engine government in Bengal. We have crossed double century mark. We didn’t expect landslide victory at some places.’’

On the day of her party’s remarkable victory, Mamata hit out at the centre on Covid-19 vaccination issue. ‘’The central government should give vaccines to all 140 crore people free of cost. If they don’t, I will stage sit-in-demonstration.’’

Eyeing to consolidate 70 per cent of Hindu electorates, the BJP tried the card ofd polarisation accusing Mamata of going all out to appease one community. In retaliation, Mamata branded the BJP as a party of outsiders.

“Our Hindutva rhetoric went against us. The narrative proved futile as the Hindu electorates not at all voted for us en bloc. Instead, it panicked the minority electorates and they got consolidated in favour of the TMC completely. As a result, the Congress’s and Left Front’s vote share shifted to the fold of the ruling party,’’ said a BJP leader.

The leader admitted that the promise of building Sonar Bangla faded in front of Mamata’s aggressive tact of outsider versus insider plank.

“She kept asserting that our national leaders are talking about building Sonar Bangla when they cannot even pronounce two Bengali words properly. Besides, she coined a slogan of Bangla Nijer Meyeke Chay (Bengal wants its own daughter). This narrative worked,’’ he said. 

Mamata expressed her gratitude to the women electorates who form 49 per cent of the total electorate. “Her (Mamata’s) decision of giving health insurance cards covering all citizens of the state, irrespective of financial status, was aimed to woo the women voters.”

The LDF tally, which matches the win of A K Antony-led UDF in 2001, becomes remarkable as it is rare for an incumbent government to retain power by winning more seats than the last time.

T’PURAM: Riding on the pro-incumbency wave, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front won the assembly elections with an impressive tally of 99 out of 140 seats.

“We trusted people and people put their trust in us,” Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters in Kannur after the results were known. The verdict is a personal victory for Vijayan too as the CPM and CPI had benched many senior leaders including eight ministers to make room for newcomers. 

The resounding wins in UDF strongholds like Aruvikkara in Thiruvananthapuram and Azheekode in Kannur underline the theory that votes were cast for the good work and policies of the LDF government rather than the merit of individual candidates.

The strategy of the UDF to put up a strong fight with young, new faces did not fetch the desired results as voters seemed to have made their choices based on policies.

Pinarayi, who was in his Dharmadom constituency when the counting took place on Sunday, will reach the capital on Monday and submit his resignation to Governor Arif Mohammed Khan by noon. The CPM state secretariat and LDF state committee are likely to meet on Tuesday to decide on the swearing-in ceremony.

A mix of policies in which development and welfare measures were added in right proportion and implemented over the last five years paved the way for the re-election of the ruling front, something which has not happened in the state after 1977. 

Right from the implementation of Nava Kerala Mission projects to bring radical changes in health and education sectors and to provide housing for the poor to the organised manner in which the government dealt with Covid crisis, a host of factors could be listed as reasons for the result.

Crises such as Nipah, Ockhi cyclone, 2018 flood, Covid and lockdown were dealt with professionalism and compassion by the government. Pinarayi’s leadership skills were on display during these crises and the leader slowly grew to a cult figure among Keralites. When the CPM decided to seek votes for the Pinarayi government, drifting away from the practice of seeking votes for the party, there was a clear understanding the leader has become a brand himself and could ensure the win.

The comeback of LDF after the humiliating defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was made possible because of the strategic retreat by the front in the Sabarimala women’s entry issue. Local body polls held in November was the testing ground for this strategy and the LDF made huge gains then. 

The more accommodative stand assuaged majority communities and a first reading of the assembly poll results makes it clear that the LDF could win good majority of Nair, Ezhava votes along with the minority votes they had mobilised through strong stands taken during issues such as beef ban and CAA Act.

The second Pinarayi government will have to deal with tough challenges from Day One.

The worsening Covid situation and near-empty coffers will pose great challenges to the government. While speaking to reporters on Sunday, Pinarayi sought the support from all including the Opposition to take the state forward during the hour of crisis.

Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee was, however, trailing her former protege-turned-BJP rival Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram by over 8,000 votes.

The ruling Trinamool Congress is all set to retain power in West Bengal as the EC trends indicate its candidates leading comfortably in 187 seats. 

TMC supremo and state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, is trailing her former confidante-turned-BJP rival Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.

If the current trends hold, the party will easily form its third consecutive government in Bengal. 

The month-long West Bengal election that was held in eight phases under the shadow of a raging pandemic saw blame games, insider-outsider debates, political attacks and loud jingles of ‘Khela Hobe‘ vs ‘Khela Shesh‘. This even as Covid cases shot up both in Bengal and across the country.

The Election Commission has made elaborate arrangements for the counting of votes and also put in place measures to ensure strict adherence to health safety protocols. Expect results to be confirmed later than usual.