BENGALURU: Differences within Karnataka Congress over ‘Siddaramotsava’ came to the fore on Wednesday with party leaders holding two simultaneous meetings at different venues in Bengaluru. While Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah and several party leaders were at the Palace Grounds attending the preparatory meeting of ‘Siddaramotsava’, KPCC chief DK Shivakumar was busy holding a meeting with other leaders at the party office to discuss the party’s Freedom March. Only a few leaders, like Eshwar Khandre and KJ George, managed to attend both the meetings.

Siddaramaiah’s supporters have planned a public meeting in Davanagere on August 3 to celebrate his 75th birthday. While Shivakumar maintained that he does not want any celebrations in his name and instead wants a Congress celebration, his brother and Bengaluru Rural MP DK Suresh expressed concerns over ‘Siddaramotsava’. At the Palace Grounds meeting, he said, “It (Siddaramotsava) should not send a wrong message to workers. We are in an election year.

We must ensure that the event does not damage the party.” Congress worker GC Raju wrote a letter to the Siddaramotsava committee urging them to celebrate Shivakumarotsava-23 as the KPCC chief turned 60 recently. He exhorted the committee to organise the event as lakhs of party workers wanted it to happen. But Shivakumar had said he preferred to celebrate his birthday with his family at Kedarnath.When media persons asked him if he was attending the

Siddaramotsava committee meeting, Shivakumar replied in the negative. “I have been invited (for the event in Davanagere) and I will attend it along with Rahul Gandhi as the guest. For me, the party is above all and I want our party to come back to power in 2023,” he added.Meanwhile, after the Palace Grounds meeting, Siddaramaiah met gram panchayat members from Kolar Assembly constituency at his residence. 

BENGALURU:  It is a straight fight between the NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu and the Opposition’s nominee Yashwant Sinha. As the NDABJP is preparing for the presidential polls scheduled for Monday, the idea is simple, not a single vote should be wasted. 

They held a meeting of all chief whips of all 30 states in the party office in Delhi on Wednesday afternoon where the National BJP General Secretary organising B L Santosh, Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Shekhawat, General Secretaries Vinod Tawde, C T Ravi, Bhupendra Yadav, Om Pathak and others have briefed the chief whips and election agents about ensuring that the BJP’s electoral resources are efficiently utilised and that not even one vote is wasted due to absence or due to cross-voting since it is a secret ballot.

Remember during the previous election 17 MP’s votes of all parties were disqualified because of technical errors. This is part of the party’s series of drills before the presidential polls to ensure that the NDA nominee is elected as president on 18 July.

The chief whips of the BJP party where they are in power and where they are in the opposition had gathered for this meeting. In turn, the Chief Whips will hold meetings with their elected representatives in their respective states and instruct them about the rules of voting and instruct their party representatives to ensure 100 per cent attendance.

Sources said since this election is by secret ballot and there is no showing of the ballot slips to the party chief whips, the challenge of ensuring there is no cross-voting is much larger. To ensure perfection all the elected representatives will be called to participate in a mock drill on Saturday where they will be tutored in the fine art of “voting”.

A total of 20,139 new COVID-19 cases were reported in a span of 24 hours, pushing the total tally of cases to 4,36,89,989.

The death toll climbed to 5,25,557 with 38 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated. The active cases comprise 0.31 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.49 per cent, the ministry said. An increase of 3,619 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 5.10 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 4.37 per cent, according to the ministry The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,30,28,356, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.20 per cent.

According to the ministry, 199.27 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year. It crossed the four-crore mark on January 25 this year.

The 38 new fatalities include 16 from Kerala, 10 from Maharashtra, four from West Bengal, three from Delhi and one each from Assam, Bihar, Goa, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

A total of 5,25,557 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,48,001 from Maharashtra, 70,186 from Kerala, 40,125 from Karnataka, 38,028 from Tamil Nadu, 26,288 from Delhi, 23,549 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,255 from West Bengal.

The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. “Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

NEW DELHI:  Daily COVID-19 cases in India were recorded over 20,000 after a gap of 145 days while the active cases increased to 1,36,076, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

A total of 20,139 new COVID-19 cases were reported in a span of 24 hours, pushing the total tally of cases to 4,36,89,989.

The death toll climbed to 5,25,557 with 38 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated. The active cases comprise 0.31 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.49 per cent, the ministry said. An increase of 3,619 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 5.10 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 4.37 per cent, according to the ministry The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,30,28,356, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.20 per cent.

According to the ministry, 199.27 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year. It crossed the four-crore mark on January 25 this year.

The 38 new fatalities include 16 from Kerala, 10 from Maharashtra, four from West Bengal, three from Delhi and one each from Assam, Bihar, Goa, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

A total of 5,25,557 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,48,001 from Maharashtra, 70,186 from Kerala, 40,125 from Karnataka, 38,028 from Tamil Nadu, 26,288 from Delhi, 23,549 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,255 from West Bengal.

The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. “Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Thursday informed Gotabaya Rajapaksa that he should submit his letter of resignation as the President as soon as possible or else he will consider other options to remove him from the office, according to a media report.

On Wednesday, the Parliament Speaker said that the President in a telephone conversation had informed that he would tender his letter of resignation during the day, before midnight. However, he has not done it yet.

Speaker Abeywardena said that he informed President Rajapaksa to submit his letter of resignation as soon as possible, citing that he too is under pressure, News First Lanka reported on Thursday.

He said that since an acting President has been appointed, the Office of the Speaker is exploring the legal provisions to consider the option of “have vacated his post” if the President does not tender in his letter of resignation, the report added.

A spokesperson from the Sri Lanka Parliament said that given that the President had not yet tendered his letter of resignation, it is uncertain if Parliament would be convened on Friday.

The Prime Minister’s Media Division on Wednesday said that the acting President has informed Speaker Abeywardena to nominate a Prime Minister who is acceptable to both the Government and Opposition. There have been mass protests in Sri Lanka.

At least 84 people were hospitalised when protesters clashed with the security forces at the prime minister’s office and at the main access junction to Parliament on Wednesday after Rajapaksa fled the country.

The police fired tear gas and water cannons at the mob who were trying to break barriers and enter the restricted zone. The police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said protesters had grabbed a T56 firearm and 60 bullets from a Sri Lanka Army soldier. A police complaint had been lodged, the police said.

Sri Lankan authorities on Thursday also lifted the curfew, which was imposed in the Western province after the eruption of violence in the capital here. Sri Lanka is going through a deepening political turmoil and economic crisis.

Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe last week said Sri Lanka is now a bankrupt country.

Mhatre is the first former corporator of Shiv Sena from Mumbai who has openly announced support for Shinde.

She had represented ward no 7 in suburban Dahisar in north Mumbai in 2012 and 2017.

On Tuesday night, Mhatre along with some Shiv Sena workers visited Shinde’s residence and expressed her support to him.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena had appointed Mhatre as the ‘sampark sanghatak’ (coordinator) for the Alibaug-Pen area.

The crucial elections for the Sena-controlled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are slated to be held in the next few months.

Shinde’s rebellion last month led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

He was sworn in as the chief minister on June 30 with Bharatiya Janata Party’s Devendra Fadnavis as the deputy CM.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena Members of Parliament (MPs) have urged Uddhav to mend ties with Shinde and former ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a party MP said on Tuesday.

Stressing for an alliance, the MPs have conveyed to Thackeray that the BJP was a “natural ally” of the Shiv Sena unlike the “unnatural alliance” of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Sena MP Hemant Godse said.

The MVA comprised Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Congress.

The Shiv Sena MPs raised this issue on Monday during their meeting with Thackeray at his private residence in Mumbai.

The meeting was attended by 13 of the 18 MPs from Maharashtra— three had taken consent from the party to skip the meeting.

Talking to PTI, Godse, who represents the Nashik Lok Sabha constituency, accused the NCP of trying to create obstacles in projects in the constituencies held by Shiv Sena.

“The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance was a natural alliance,” he said, adding that the Sena has traditionally fought the NCP at the ground level.

Godse also said that he had fought against the Bhujbals in the last three Lok Sabha polls.

In 2009 Sameer Bhujbal, the nephew of NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal.

He fought against the Bhujbal senior in 2014, and again with Sameer in 2019.

After the MVA government was formed in November 2019, Chhagan Bhujbal became the guardian minister of Nashik.

“The decades-old rivalries do not end in five years,” he said.

Godse cited the example of the Nashik Lok Sabha constituency to stress the importance of allying with the BJP.

Of the six assembly segments, three seats in Nashik city are represented by BJP MLAs.

The rest three — Sinnar, Igatpuri and Deolali- are with the NCP and the Congress, where Shiv Sena candidates had lost.

“If we continue with the MVA alliance, then what will our Sena candidates do? This is the biggest question that will arise. So, with regards to an alliance with the BJP or if Eknath Shinde desires to come back to the party. We requested (Thackeray) to accept him back in the party fold,” the MP said.

Shinde’s rebellion with most of the Sena MLAs led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government last month.

Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy.

Godse also drew parallels between the 25 years of the alliance between the Shiv Sena and the BJP and the two-and-a-half years of the MVA.

He said the chemistry between Shiv Sena and BJP was better.

“We have expressed our opinion and the decision taken by (Uddhav Thackeray) saheb will be final,” he said about the meeting.

When asked if the Sena leadership declines the proposal of MPs to mend ties with the Shinde faction or the BJP, he said, “We will request him from time to time.”

SHIVAMOGGA: A 27-year-old Bajrang Dal activist was assaulted at Rajiv Gandhi Badavane in Shivamogga on Monday night. The injured Kantharaju, who sustained injuries to his hand, has been admitted to McGann Hospital. Superintendent of Police B M Laxmi Prasad told media persons here on Tuesday that the incident occurred around 11 pm on Monday.

“Five youths assaulted Kantharaju with lethal weapons. We have detained three people and searched is on for the others involved in the incident. As per the initial details that we have, the attackers were angry with him as he was involved in Bajrang Dal activities. But, we have intensified the probe,” the SP added. Meanwhile, BJP leaders, including party district president TD Megharaj, visited the hospital and enquired about Kantharaju’s health.

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Tuesday conducted an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas. He also visited Bodeli, Rajpipla, Navsari, and Chhota Udepur areas. Patel interacted with people in Bodeli, and took stock of the ongoing rescue and relief work from officials.

State Disaster Management Minister Rajendra Trivedi on Tuesday briefed the media persons about the review meeting held at the State Emergency Operations Center, Gandhinagar. 

Emphasising that the administration is fully equipped to deal with the situation, he said, “Out of the state’s eight districts, three Bharuch, Chhotaudepur, and Narmada—have come out of the red alert zone. Surat, Tapi, Navsari, Dang, and Valsad are still on red alert.” As many as 27,896 civilians have been relocated to safer areas, Trivedi said. 

NEW DELHI: Ahead of a key party meeting to discuss organisational elections and the much-touted ‘Bharat-Jodo Yatra’ starting October 2, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi flew abroad on a personal visit. However, he is expected to be back before the start of Parliament’s monsoon session on July 18 and polling for presidential elections. 

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has called a meeting of the party’s central in-charges, states heads, and chiefs of frontal organisations on July 14. The agenda is discussion on party president’s elections scheduled in mid-August and Kashmir to Kanyakumari ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’. 

Sources said Rahul flew to Europe early Tuesday and will be back to attend the monsoon session next week.

The trip comes at a time when the party is struggling to keep its flock together in Goa, where a group of Congress MLAs are looking to defect to the BJP.    

The meeting is expected to discuss the election for party president which has been pending for long.

Rahul had resigned as Congress chief in 2019 after the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections. Rahul has often faced flak for his frequent visits abroad, especially at crucial junctures. 

His recent visit to Cambridge, UK, had courted controversy with the BJP saying that he did not take permission for the event.

The Congress had said that for private events, MPs don’t need clearance from the foreign ministry. 

In May this year, the BJP circulated videos of Rahul at a nightclub in Kathmandu where he had gone to attend a friend’s wedding. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will also chair a meeting of Congress Parliamentary Strategy Group on Thursday to discuss party’s strategy for upcoming monsoon session of Parliament starting July 18.

The Congress is looking to raise issues related to Agnipath scheme, inflation, unemployment and Indo-China border issues among others.  The Centre has also called an all-party meeting on July 17.