CHENNAI/HYDERABAD: In a span of two months, leaders of various political parties descended south to join two anti-BJP gatherings with an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, although the central characters differed a lot.

While Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has made his national ambitions amply clear, even rechristening his party to aid the process, his Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin insists he is already on the national scene and used  on March 1 to not only strongly pitch for the Congress as a force to reckon with in the efforts to dislodge the Narendra Modi-led dispensation at the Centre but also sought to shoot down the prospects of a Third Front.

Rao and Stalin have proved to be regional satraps who can take on the might of the BJP and both were seen in the company of top national leaders recently.

If the January 18 meeting convened by Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), the erstwhile Telangana Rashtra Samiti, in Khammam saw a  change in New Delhi next year, the Chennai rally organised to mark Stalin’s 70th birthday, harped on opposition unity.

While the BRS-led meeting stood determined on the need for a change of government at the Centre, the speakers at the Chennai event underlined the common connection of a socialist vision that binds them together while leaders including Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah batted for Stalin to take up a bigger national role.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said his party and the DMK shared a common social vision. It is anybody’s guess that the parties have set their eyes on making a rich harvest of the 40 parliamentary seats up for grabs in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Incidentally, in 2004, under then DMK chief, the late M Karunanidhi’s leadership, the alliance won all 40, giving UPA-I the much-needed numbers to form a government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Political analyst Ramu Suravajjula said the meeting organised in January by KCR, as Rao is popularly known, at Khammam was seen as the Telangana Chief Minister’s mega show of strength projecting his national ambitions. However, his political dilemma was on display at the public meeting, Suravajjula opined.

KCR neither spelt out the BRS agenda nor did he leave a hint about his political friends at the national level. The visiting leaders, which included Chief Ministers of Kerala and Delhi, Pinarayi Vijayan and Arvind Kejriwal, respectively, besides CPI top leader D Raja, also did not declare KCR as their leader, he said.

An observer of Tamil Nadu politics said a Third Front may not have its desired impact and pointed out the ambitious ‘Makkal Nala Kootani’ (People’s Welfare Front), headed by actor-politician Vijayakant’s DMDK, coming a cropper in the 2016 Assembly polls in that state, even as the AIADMK secured a rare successive term in a close fight involving the DMK.

The DMDK-led alliance included MDMK and the two Left parties, who are now part of the DMK-led bloc.

Suravajjula said, Stalin, during his birthday celebrations in Chennai, displayed political pragmatism. KCR got alienated in his fight against the BJP with Kharge and Stalin sending out a message loud and clear that no coalition meant to effectively take on the BJP can succeed without the Congress, he said.

Some insist that the Rao-led meeting largely spoke about dethroning the BJP-led Central government while the participants of the Chennai gathering made a conscious push to brand the bloc as pro-social justice and ideologically oriented.

Chennai-based political observer Sathyalaya Ramakrishnan said both groupings wanted to see the back of Modi in 2024 but were confused about who should lead. “There is a lot of confusion among the opposition parties on who should lead an alliance. These kinds of confusions and non-cooperation will lead Modi to form his own government for the third time next year,” he said.

Ramakrishnan indicated that even after the Khammam meeting, national leaders did not show interest in projecting KCR as a PM candidate, but that Abdullah had even supported the “Stalin for PM” slogan emanating mainly from Tamil Nadu and the DMK leader’s supporters.

Another political analyst Telakapalli Ravi said Congress was the major contrast between the two meetings. While the grand old party is a rival of the BRS in Telangana, Stalin gave a respectable place to Congress by inviting it to his birthday celebrations in Chennai, he said.

Congress MP Karti Chidambaram

New Delhi: Congress MP Karti Chidambaram has termed as “untrue” Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s statement that the parliamentary IT committee has given a “thumbs up” to the revised draft of the data protection bill, and said the bill has not been formally sent to the panel.

Karti Chidambaram’s party colleague and former chief of the parliamentary IT panel Shashi Tharoor called for widespread consultation on the bill.

Vaishnaw on Thursday said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has given a “thumbs up” for the revised draft of the data protection law.

Vaishnaw, a bureaucrat turned politician who presently handles the IT portfolio, said an advanced copy of the revised bill on data protection was shared with the committee.

Reacting to Vaishnaw’s remarks, Congress’ Lok Sabha MP and member of the IT panel Karti Chidambaram said, “IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said the Standing Committee on Communications and IT has approved the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022. As a Member of the Committee, I would like to categorically state that the Bill has not been approved.”

The draft bill was released for public consultation in November 2022 and in December, during a discussion on citizens’ privacy and data security, the Committee also held a preliminary discussion on the draft bill, he said, adding that members raised a number of issues with the draft.

Parliamentary procedure mandates that a bill after introduction in the House, the Speaker or Chairman may recommend it for examination to the Committee, Chidambaram said on Twitter on Thursday night.

“The DPDP Bill has not been formally sent to the Committee & hence a ‘big thumbs up’ claimed by Ashwini Vaishnaw is untrue,” he said.

Vaishnaw, while speaking in Mumbai had said, “I would like to share some good news that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT and Communications… before this bill is taken to the Parliament, they have given a big thumbs up.”

In 2021, the government withdrew an earlier version of the same bill after a slew of changes suggested by a Joint Parliamentary Committee and promised to come up with a new bill, which it did late last year.

Reacting to Chidambaram’s remarks, former chief of the IT panel and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, “That’s worrying. A Bill of this importance should benefit from widespread consultation & support to be effective.”

“Hope it is formally referred to the Committee. After so many delays a couple of months won’t matter,” Tharoor said Friday.

Bhubaneswar: A mild earthquake of 3.8 magnitude on the Richter Scale occurred in Odisha’s Koraput district on Friday morning, according to the National Centre for Seismology.

The earthquake took place at 5.05 am at a depth of 5 km. The epicentre was 129 km east of Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh, it said.

However, there was no report of any casualty or damage to properties.

According to the Koraput district administration, tremors were felt in Narayanpatna, Laxmipur and Bandhugaon areas and people came out of their houses in panic.

MYSURU: Former chief minister BS Yediyurappa may have announced his retirement from electoral politics, but he continued to be the star attraction at the inauguration of BJP’s Vijaya Sankalpa Yatra at MM Hills on Wednesday. Though national BJP president JP Nadda, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and other top leaders were on the dais, chants went up for Yediyurappa. They were so loud that Nadda had to appeal to the audience to listen to him. When the crowd continued, he pacified them saying Yediyurappa would address them.

Later taking the mic, Yediyurappa said BJP will return to power with an absolute majority. Congress, without any leaders of stature, is under the illusion of winning the April/May Assembly election, while BJP is going strong under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he added.

He appealed to party workers to take programmes of the central and state governments to the doorsteps of the people.  

BJP made BSY cry, he is boiling inside: Siddaramaiah
“BJP insulted and disrespected its senior leader BS Yediyurappa and literally made him cry. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no moral right to say that Congress misbehaved with Mallikarjun Kharge,” said Opposition leader Siddaramaiah in Belagavi on Wednesday.

Hitting out at Modi for saying Congress disrespected its leaders, Siddaramaiah said, “Yediyurappa is boiling inside and leaders of BJP know it.”

He said, “It has been three months since the 7th  Pay Commission was formed, but the government has not reserved funds for it in the budget. The government system will not work if employees go on strike. The CM should take measures to implement the commission as only 20 days are left for the announcement of the model code of conduct.”

DEHRADUN:  Taking a cue from the Saudi Arabia, the Uttarakhand government has relaxed the rules for women Haj pilgrims from the state. The state government has adopted a flexible approach this time by giving special exemption to women Haj pilgrims.

Uttarakhand Waqf Board Chairman Shadab Shams told this daily, “Now, women going on Haj have been exempted from the obligation of many rules. Women will be able to go on Haj without a male relative (husband, son, brother, etc.), while the rule of going on the journey in groups of four women has also 
been abolished.”

“Islam is changing now. Saudi has also relaxed the rules for performing Hajj.  After this, the Uttarakhand government has also taken the initiative to give special concessions to women pilgrims going on Haj.
Now, single women can also apply for Haj, he said.  

The Uttarakhand Haj Committee has started preparations for Haj 2023. The last date to apply is March 10.
Last year, 739 applicants from nine districts of the state had applied for Haj. The highest number of 284 applications came from Haridwar district.  As many as 194 applications came from Udham Singh Nagar and 33 in Dehradun, of which 30 per cent were women.

“The face of modern Islam is being seen beyond orthodoxy, about which Muslims of all classes are now happy,” Shams said.There was a rule that only groups of four women could go on Haj pilgrimage. Now,  the obligation of this rule has been abolished. “Now, single women will also be able to apply for Haj pilgrimage, which has created a wave of happiness among women going on Haj,” said Hina Azmi, an ISBT resident. 

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday discharged AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan in a case of alleged rioting and stone pelting on police personnel in May 2022 while opposing a demolition drive being carried out by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation.

Special Judge Vikas Dhull passed the directions on an appeal filed by Khan against a magisterial court’s order.

The metropolitan magisterial court had directed framing of charges against Khan and others under sections 147 (rioting), 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of his public functions), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant).

The sessions court on Wednesday said the magisterial court’s order suffered from “grave illegality” and was not sustainable in the eyes of law.

The judge said that the magisterial court had placed heavy reliance upon the statement of witnesses, even though video recording was not supporting the allegations made by the witnesses, to come to a prima facie view that charge is required to be framed against the revisionist and other accused persons.

The judge said there were two views possible, one of which, based upon the statement of witnesses, raises a suspicion only that revisionist and other accused persons had committed the offence alleged by the witnesses.

However, the other view, which was made out from the video recording did not raise a grave suspicion that revisionist and other accused persons had committed the offence alleged by the witnesses in their respective statements, the judge noted.

“It is a settled principle of law that if two views are possible and one view raises a suspicion only, then accused needs to be discharged. In the light of above discussion, the impugned order suffers from grave illegality and is not sustainable in the eyes of law,” the judge said while discharging Khan.

The metropolitan magistrate had on January 20 ordered framing of charges against Khan and others.

According to police, Khan, who was the area MLA, along with his supporters, had formed unlawful assembly and pelted stones on Delhi police personnel, besides damaging public property while opposing a demolition drive being carried out by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation in Kalindi Kunj area on May 12, 2022.

Reasonable force had to be used at the spot to curtail the crowd, police said, adding that several police officials got injured in the stone pelting.

The unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had formally come into existence on May 22 last year. It was reunified by merging three civic bodies – North, South and East municipal corporations or NDMC, SDMC and EDMC.

Ganster Atiq Ahmed (L) and BJP MP Subrata Pathak (R)

Lucknow {UP}: BJP Lok Sabha MP Subrat Pathak on Wednesday said he would not be surprised if Atiq Ahmed’s vehicle overturns like that of gangster Vikas Dubey.

Dubey was gunned down in July 2020 by the Special Task Force of Uttar Pradesh police shortly after a police SUV in which he was being brought to Kanpur from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh overturned under mysterious circumstances on a highway. Police claimed that he had tried to flee.

It happened just a week after eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, were ambushed in Bikru village in Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets shortly after midnight on July 3.

Atiq Ahmed, who is lodged in a Gujarat jail, has been booked in the last week’s sensational killing of Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 murder of the then BSP MLA Raju Pal, and two security personnel in Prayagraj.

Pathak, who is MP from Kannauj, tweeted, “The killing of Umesh Pal and police security personnel under the protection of the Uttar Pradesh Police is a direct attack on the government of Uttar Pradesh.”

“Remember, if Vikas Dubey could not survive there is no need to tell what will happen to these criminals, and now if the vehicle of Atiq also overturns, I will not be surprised,” he wrote in Hindi.

On Wednesday, Atiq Ahmed moved the Supreme Court for protection, claiming that he and his family have been falsely “roped in” as accused in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj and he may be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police during any transit remand.

In his plea, Ahmed, who is presently lodged at the central jail Ahmedabad in Gujarat, has referred to the statement made by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the floor of the Assembly to “completely ruin and destroy” him and claimed there is a “genuine and perceptible threat” to his and his family members’ lives.

Subrat Pathak who once headed the youth wing of the BJP in the state gained prominence after defeating Dimple Yadav, wife of Samajwadi President Akhilesh Yadav, from Kannauj in the 2019 general elections.

“These criminals do not understand the language of the law. They’re not one or two but hundreds of cases against them, but they misuse it and sit in jail and have biryani,” he later told TV channels, adding that such criminals only understand the language of the gun.

“Such criminals have no place in Uttar Pradesh, especially under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who was elected by the people of Uttar Pradesh on the issue of security,” he said.

Based on the complaint filed by Umesh Pal’s wife Jaya Pal, police has lodged an FIR at the Dhoomanganj police station on Saturday against former MP Atiq Ahmed, his brother Ashraf, wife Shaista Parveen, two sons, Atiq’s accomplices Guddu Muslim and Das and other accomplices.

Arbaaz, an accused in the case, was killed in an encounter with the police on Monday. Dhoomanganj police station SHO Rajesh Maurya was also injured in the incident.

In his plea, Atiq Ahmed said the Uttar Pradesh Police in all likelihood will seek his transit remand and also police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he “genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period”.

Ahmed, 61, has sought directions to the Centre, the state of Uttar Pradesh and others to protect his life against the “open, direct and immediate threat” to his life from high state functionaries of Uttar Pradesh.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1630808105406836737&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fenglish.varthabharati.in%2Findia%2Fwont-be-surprised-if-atiq-ahmeds-vehicle-also-overturns-bjp-mp-subrat-pathak&sessionId=b9be283d2228620cb5e82e215a3a8cd4e5960ef2&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=550px