Ahmedabad: Seven Congress MLAs in Gujarat, who were expelled from the party after they had voted against party candidate Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha polls, have resigned as legislators, Assembly Speaker Ramanlal Vora said today.

Cracking down on dissidents in Gujarat, the Congress had on August 9 expelled from the party for six years former Leader of Opposition Shankarsinh Vaghela and the seven MLAs who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election on August 8.

“Seven Congress MLAs submitted their resignation to me at my residence last night,” Vora said. The seven MLAs include Vaghela’s son Mahendrasinh.

Two rebel MLAs Raghavji Patel and Bholabhai Gohel, whose votes were invalidated by the Election Commission, due to which the victory of the Congress candidate was possible, have also submitted their resignation.

The others who have submitted their resignations are Amit Chaudharuy, C K Raulji, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja and Karmasinh Patel.

“I asked them if they are doing this (resigning) due to any pressure or threat, to which all of them replied in the negative,” the Speaker said.

“We have completed the formality of giving resignation from the post of MLA,” Mahendrasinh Vaghela told reporters.

He said the seven Congress MLAs who resigned last night and three out of the six who had earlier resigned would soon join the BJP.

However, his father, who is among the eight who were expelled by the Congress, would not join the ruling party, Mahendrasinh Vaghela said.

The Congress had 57 MLAs in the Assembly until six of them resigned last month.

On August 8, eight Congress MLAs gave their votes to BJP candidates in the RS polls, following which they were expelled from the party on August 9.

Of the six Congress MLAs who had resigned last month, ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls, three later joined the BJP. The remaining three had not taken any decision on joining BJP at that time.

The three MLAs, who joined the BJP last month, were Balwantsinh Rajput, Tejashreeben Patel and Prahlad Patel.

The other three who had not joined the BJP were Ramsinh Parmar, Chhanabhai Chaudhary and Mansinh Chauhan.

The BJP pitted Rajput against Congress candidate Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha polls, but the former eventually lost despite cross-voting by some the Congress MLAs.

(PTI)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to hold the final hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute from December 5 and made it clear that no adjournment shall be given in any circumstance.

The apex court, after an intense deliberation for more than one-and-half-hours, reached a consensus on commencement of the hearing on the cross-appeals filed against the 2010 judgement of the Allahabad High Court.

The high court had ruled a three-way division of the disputed 2.77 acre area at Ayodhya among the parties — the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and the Ram Lalla.

A specially constituted bench, headed by Justice Dipak Misra, asked the contesting parties to complete the translation of the exhibits of the documents likely to be relied upon into English within 12 weeks since these were in eight different languages.

The bench, also comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and Abdul Nazeer, asked the Uttar Pradesh government to complete within 10 weeks the translation of the evidence recorded for adjudication of the title dispute in the high court into English.

The bench made it clear that the parties would have to strictly adhere to the time frame fixed by it and no adjournment shall be given in any circumstances.

Senior counsel CS Vaidyanathan, appearing for Lord Ram Lalla and Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the UP government, pressed for early hearing of the matter, but senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Anoop George

Chaudhari and Rajeev Dhavan, representing other parties, were not in favour of commencement of the hearing before January next year.

(PTI)

Bengaluru: Pontiffs of the five core Veerashaiva mutts, religious, political leaders, members of Lingayat, Veerashaiva communities have decided to urge Karnataka state and Union governments to recognize Lingayats and Veerashaiva communities as separate independent religions. In the new move, both Lingayats and Veerashaiva communities have decided in the convention to identify themselves as separate religions.

In a massive convention held in Bengaluru on Thursday, the members of both fractions, Lingayats and Veerashaiva have decided to change their names as Lingayat Mahasabha and Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Maha Sabha.

(Agencies)

Parbhani: Anguished by her debt-ridden farmer-father’s precarious financial condition, a minor college girl in Maharashtra hanged herself at her home here, sending shock waves across the region, police and relatives said.

The incident occurred a day after the Raksha Bandhan festival.

On Tuesday morning, family members discovered the body of Sarika Suresh Zute, 17, hanging from a rod in the ceiling of their home in Javlajhuta village, said her distraught brother Sachin Zute, 21.

The police have recovered a page-long handwritten suicide note penned by Sarika Zute explaining the reasons behind her extreme step, said Pathri police station official Mushtaque A. Ansari.

The heart-wrenching note starts by referring to her heavily debt-struck uncle Chandikadas Zute, who committed suicide on August 3 (five days earlier) by consuming poison in the fields.

“There is a lot of tension at home after (Sharda) sister’s marriage… You have still not been able to repay the wedding loan and the agriculture loans. Now, you have the responsibility of my marriage… I don’t want you to end your life like your brother (Chandikadas). So I am killing myself,” she wrote.

“Since the past one year, after our sister Sharda’s marriage, Sarika had been tormented about her own marriage, which was being planned for next year, and has taken this step,” her oldest brother Sachin Zute told IANS with tears brimming in his eyes.

She was a quiet girl, engrossed in her studies and studied in Class 12 Arts stream in Shivani College, in adjoining Beed district.

According to Sachin Zute, the Maratha family’s collective debt through Maharashtra Gramin Bank, a District Cooperative Bank and a Credit Society amounts to around Rs 350,000, along with interest and other charges.

“My father has been regularly repaying his loans. But this year, the situation is terrible as monsoon has failed in this region, and farmers have to resort to a second or even third round of sowing. This will pile up the debt burden further,” he explained.

Besides the deceased Sarika Zute, the surviving family comprises Suresh Zute, 45, his wife Dwarka, 39, eldest son Sachin, who is studying in SYBSc in Jivandeep College, Beed, a married daughter Sharda, 20, and a school-going son Sunil, 12.

On their 11-acre farmlands near the village outskirts, the family had been cultivating cash crops like cotton and soyabean, and repaying the loan installments from the agricultural incomes, he added.

A cousin, Santosh Namdev Zute, who lodged the police complaint on Tuesday evening, said the close-knit family is devastated by two suicides in five days in their homes.

“Even our uncle Chandikadas Zute owed Rs 300,000 to a nationalized bank and a DCC besides another house-repair loan of Rs 150,000 from Mahindra Finance Co. Ltd. However, owing to failed monsoon this year, the repayments were badly hit, forcing him to end his life,” Santosh Zute told IANS.

Another uncle of Sarika Zute, Laxman B. Zute is a village head in the Parthi region which has been rocked by four suicides in barely one week.

“Sadly, despite so many deaths in such a short period, not a single official from the Collectorate, Agriculture Department or the banks have bothered to visit this region and enquire about the people’s plight as a drought looms large,” Sachin Zute pointed out.

When contacted, the state-government panel, Vasantrao Naik Shetkari Swavalambi Mission (VNSS) Chairman Kishore Tiwari said the incidents are an indicator of the continuing distress in farmlands across Maharashtra.

“This is a very serious matter. The state government has given standing instructions that in case of such suicides, the concerned officials must visit the families and make full enquiries. If this has not been done, those officials should be suspended… It’s a shame,” Tiwari told IANS.

Tiwari, who plans to visit the Zute family, confirmed that monsoon has completely bypassed Parbhani this year and the situation could worsen in farmlands if priority measures are not initiated by the concerned departments.

(IANS)