Nasheman News : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other politicians, sportspersons, actors, business leaders to encourage maximum voter engagement in 2019 general elections in April-May.

“I appeal to Rahul Gandhi, (West Bengal Chief Minister) Mamata (Banerjee), (NCP chief) Sharad Pawar, (BSP supremo) Mayawati, (SP chief) Akhilesh Yadav, (RJD leader) Tejashwi Yadav and (DMK chief) M.K. Stalin to encourage increased voter participation in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. A high turnout augurs well for our democratic fabric,” he tweeted.

He also mentioned sportspersons P.V. Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, S..Kidambi; actors Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, business leaders Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra to encourage more voting in polls.

Nasheman News : The election authorities in Andhra Pradesh have received an online application for deletion of YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) President Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s name from the voter list.

An unidentified person submitted the application on behalf of Jaganmohan Reddy to delete his vote from the electoral rolls of Bhakarapuram (134th polling station) in Pulivendula Assembly constituency of Kadapa district.

According to Returning Officer Satyam, the application was made in Form-7 with Jaganmohan Reddy’s named as the applicant. It carried a photograph and other details of the leader.

The poll official contacted the YSRCP chief’s personal secretary, who denied submitting any such application.

Following this, the Returning Officer lodged a complaint with the police, which registered a case against an unknown person and launched an investigation.

Form-7 is used by voters to apply for deletion of their own name or the name of another voter from the electoral rolls.

The election authorities in Andhra Pradesh have received nearly 10 lakh such applications over the past two weeks. 

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gopal Krishna Dwivedi said more than half of the applications had been rejected and they were looking into more.

He said 446 cases were registered against people, who submitted false applications for deletion of voters.

Andhra Pradesh’s ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Opposition YSRCP have been blaming each other for submitting applications to delete names of voters from the rolls.

All set to take the political plunge, multi-lingual film actor Sumalatha said on Monday she will reveal on March 18 whether she would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election from Mandya constituency in Karnataka.

Sumalatha, widow of celebrated Kannada actor Ambareesh, who was a three-time MP from Mandya, has disturbed the political equation with her insistence on contesting from the seat, upsetting calculations of ruling coalition partners Congress and JD(S).

“I believe that till the last minute anything can happen. Till it is officially announced, there is nothing to say this won’t happen. I will let you know on March 18,” Sumalatha told reporters in Mandya.

She urged people to not give credence to speculation that Congress leaders were persuading her to not contest from Mandya.

“Please don’t pay heed to rumours about me unless I reveal it to you, given the fact that Mandya is one of the prestigious Lok Sabha seats, not only in Karnataka, but in the entire country,” the actor added.

She said Congress strongman and water resources minister DK Shivakumar had requested her to not contest from Mandya. “Well, nobody can put pressure on me because they know who I am and what I am, but DK Shivakumar had met me with a suggestion that I should contest from somewhere else.

“He told me that since coalition dharma (with JD-S) was in place, Congress cannot retain Mandya. I too told him about my stand on this matter,” Sumalatha said.

Having a substantial population of the dominant Vokkaliga community, Mandya is traditionally considered a JD(S) citadel.

The JD(S) has not only made Congress give up Mandya, but has also decided to field Nikhil Gowda, son of Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and third generation leader from the Gowda family, from the constituency.

Ambareesh, barring a brief stint in JD(S), had been associated with the Congress and was a minister of state for information and broadcasting in UPA-I dispensation.

Recently, JD(S) MLA and PWD minister HD Revanna said Sumalatha decided to enter politics even before a month had passed since her husband’s demise.

While referring to the arrangements made by the state government for Ambareesh’s funeral, Revanna said Sumalatha was also not grateful to Kumaraswamy what he did for her husband. 

The Congress and BJP have slammed Revanna, son of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and brother of the Chief Minister, for his comments.

Agencies

Nasheman News : Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “cynically exploiting the national security to hide his colossal failures”, the Congress at its working committee meeting here resolved to defeat the “RSS and BJP’s ideology of fascism, hatred, anger and divisiveness”.

The meeting of the Congress’ highest decision-making body held in Modi’s home state Gujarat was attended by top party leaders including party chief Rahul Gandhi, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and newly appointed General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi among others.

“The Congress Working Committee in Ahmedabad, resolved to defeat the RSS, BJP ideology of fascism, hatred, anger and divisiveness. No sacrifice is too great in this endeavour, no effort too little, this battle will be won,” said Gandhi.

In its resolution, the CWC said Modi and the BJP were insulting the struggle, sacrifices and enormous contribution in nation-building by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel by “brazenly seeking to hijack their legacy and pretending to be the champions of their values”.

“Congress expresses its strong disappointment that the Prime Minister is cynically exploiting the issue of national security, on which we are all united, to divert attention from his colossal failures, bogus claims and persistent falsehoods,” it said.

The Congress said the five years of Modi-BJP government has been a period of false promises and betrayal of people’s trust and confidence.

“This government has been a failure on all fronts and has inflicted pain and misery on the people through its reckless decisions of demonetisation and hasty imposition of a flawed GST,” it said.

It said demonetization and GST disrupted the economy, trade and industry, led to closure of lakhs of factories and tens of millions of workers lost their jobs and livelihood.

“The unprecedented joblessness, agrarian crisis and distress of farmers and agricultural laborers are issues of grave national concern. The Modi government is guilty of monumental mismanagement of the Indian economy. National savings and investments have sharply declined.

“Banks are burdened with NPAs and credit off-take of the industry has reached a record low. Exports are stagnant and industrial production has been falling continuously notwithstanding Government’s boastful and misleading claims, it said.

The CWC also endorsed the promise made by the Congress President to ensure minimum income support to the poor, weak and marginalised sections of society when the Congress party comes to power.

Briefing the media about the CWC meeting, Congress leader Anand Sharma said an atmosphere of fear and insecurity was all pervasive particularly among women, students, academics, writers and the business community.

“There are deliberate attacks on the Constitutional and other safeguards for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, OBCs and minorities; and there is subversion of all institutions of governance,” he said

Sharma also blamed Modi and the BJP for political discourse becoming bitter.

“They talk of dividing the society merely for political gains. Modi is playing with emotions of people. We condemn it,” he added.

C Indian and Pakistani officials will meet at Attari, near Amritsar, on Thursday for their first meeting to finalize the modalities of the Kartarpur corridor to enable Indian pilgrims to pray at the historic Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara in Pakistan.

The meeting, amid heightened tensions between both countries, is being held to discuss the draft agreement for setting up a dedicated corridor that will allow pilgrims from India to visit the Sikh shrine located in Pakistan without obtaining a visa.

Officials from the Home and Foreign Ministries of both countries will attend the meeting at Attari, 30 km from Amritsar.

Both sides will also have a technical level discussion on the alignment of the project.

The meeting will take place exactly a month after the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force troopers were killed, triggering India-Pakistan tensions.

While Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has welcomed the decision of the Home Ministry to fasttrack the Kartarpur corridor, he wants “passport and visa free `khule darshan’ for pilgrims”.

Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev (1469-1539) is highly revered.

The Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara, located about 4.5 km from the international border near the border town of Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district of Punjab, is significant for the Sikh community as it is here that Guru Nanak Dev spent 18 years of his life and was his final resting place.

The governments of India and Pakistan are trying to facilitate the travel of pilgrims to offer prayers at the gurdwara, located in Narowal district of Pakistan. The demand for this has been made by the Sikh community for the past over 70 years.

Srinagar, Nasheman News : The Kashmiri business community on Tuesday took strong exception to NIA summons issued against Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, terming it an “act of harassment” and said the government must “act more cordially” in the prevailing “abnormal conditions”.

“The business community in Kashmir believes that the NIA notice served to Mirwaiz is merely to harass him,” vice chair of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Abdul Hamid Mir said at a media conference here.

Referring to the socio-religious role played by the institutions headed by the Mirwaiz, Mir said: “These institutions uplift the poor, support orphans and impart education and Islamic values to a majority of the population.

Their contribution is unparalleled, the influential body of businessmen and industrialists claimed. 

“Any attempt to weaken these institutions and their leaders by making motivated accusations is a direct interference in our religious affairs.

“We firmly believe that under the present abnormal conditions prevailing in the state, the government should act more cordially to avoid harassment of Kashmiris,” Mir said.

“A concerted attempt is being made to cause disruptions and to provoke the peace-loving people of the valley. There are instances of assaults on Kashmiris outside the state.”

Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who shot to fame by spearheading a quota stir in Gujarat, today joined the Congress in the presence of Rahul Gandhi during the party’s Working Committee meet in Ahmedabad.

“Mahatma Gandhi started Dandi March this day and said he (Mahatma Gandhi) will overthrow the British. I am joining the same Congress party which, in the past, has been led by Subhash Chandra Bose, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, the people who worked to strengthen our country,” Hardik Patel said.

Mr Patel, 25, had last week made his intention to contest Lok Sabha elections from Gujarat’s Jamnagar constituency.

The Jamnagar Lok Sabha seat is currently represented by Poonamben Maadam of the BJP.

Hardik Patel had risen to prominence when he led an agitation by the Patidar community in 2015, demanding that the community should get benefits of the quota for backward castes.

He had backed the Congress in the 2017 Gujarat assembly elections in which the party gave a stiff competition to the BJP, winning 81 out of 182 assembly seats.

The Congress is eyeing the sizable Patidar votes for the upcoming polls to revive the party that had drawn a blank in the Lok sabha Election 2014.

The BJP had won all 26 Lok Sabha seats in the previous elections.