Akali Dal leader and Delhi MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa on Thursday said Sikhs would hold nation-wide protests if Congress leader Kamal Nath became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Sirsa alleged Kamal Nath had a role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

“Sikhs would launch a nation-wide protest if Kamal Nath is chosen as the CM in Madhya Pradesh… Warning Rahul Gandhi of Sikhs’ anger if he followed his family’s tradition of rewarding butchers of 1984 Sikh genocide,” Sirsa told reporters.

Kamal Nath is one of the front-runners for the post in Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress bagged 114 seats — two short of an absolute majority.

The Sikh community, Sirsa said, was not scared. “We will ensure that Kamal Nath gets the punishment for his misdeeds. The Congress may control the judiciary or the CBI, but it will not be able to protect the culprits.”

He also warned Gandhi that “Sikhs have been patient enough” and he should not instigate them with a decision like making Kamal Nath the Chief Minister.

He also said that “history has shown whenever someone dared” to choose enmity with the community, Sikhs have given them a befitting reply”.

IANS

B Y Raghavendra, son of BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa, on Thursday took oath as a member of the Lok Sabha.

Raghavendra had recently won the Shimoga Lok Sabha by-poll, which was necessitated following the resignation of Yeddyurappa who contested the assembly polls in Karnataka.

At least seven dead, scores injured, as high-speed train crashes and two carriages topple over in Ankara.

At least seven people have been killed and scores injured in a crash involving a high-speed train in Ankara, according to a Turkish official. 

Ankara Governor Vasip Sahin told reporters in televised remarks that “43 people were injured and unfortunately seven of our citizens were found dead”, as the fast train was on its way to the central province of Konya.

Sahin said the high-speed train had crashed into a locomotive that carries out track inspections.

The governor added that search and rescue efforts continued as “technical investigations” were under way to find out exactly what caused the crash in Yenimahalle district. 

Video footage showed emergency workers at the scene, working to rescue people from carriages trapped beneath the mangled metal wreckage of an overpass at the Marsandiz train station, to the west of Ankara.

It was not clear at what speed the trains were travelling when the crash occurred.

The accident happened at a station where the Ankara-Konya train does not stop.

Turkey has seen several other train accidents in recent times. In July, 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in the country’s northwest, after torrential rains caused part of the rail tracks to collapse.

Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in the central province of Sivas Konya, about 260km southwest of Ankara.

Aljazeera

The BJP in Karnataka has mounted an attack on Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy after the Karnataka government admitted that the Rs 44,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme has so far only benefited 800 farmers in the state. Co-operation Minister Bandeppa Kashempur had made this revelation on Wednesday on the floor of the House in Belagavi. However, Minister Kashempur said that the implementation was going on at a snail’s pace due to procedural issues rather than paucity of funds. 

He explained that the list prepared by banks and those of the farmer applicants are being cross-checked to prepare a final list of beneficiaries. Reacting to the delay, the Karnataka unit of the BJP, accused the CM of running the government on “lies” and called him “U Turn”.

“U Turn @hd_kumaraswamy Returns & this time with a bigger Drama. 4 months after announcement of Rs 44,000-crore farm loan waiver by Kumarswamy only 800 farmers have been benefited. That is not even 1% of farming community. Kumarswamy has been running this crippled govt on ‘LIES’,” the BJP Karnataka tweeted.

It further called the CM a “perfect actor” who is “fooling the farmers”. It tweeted, “Instead of producing Movies Bluff master@hd_kumaraswamy should take up acting in movies seriously. He is a perfect actor then a politician who successfully kept fooling the farmers for last 6 months. His governance is all about lies & corruption.”

The BJP had joined the farmers’ agitation on Monday over the delay of loan waiver and fair price for their produce especially sugarcanes.

Even on Thursday, angry sugarcane protesters gathered outside the winter State Assembly in Belagavi shouting slogans against the CM for failing to guarantee them Remunerative Support Price. Before there was a law and order issue, police detained them and took them away.

PTI

 The results of Assembly elections in the Hindi heartland are a setback for the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah, the CPI-M has said, warning that the BJP may be tempted now to whip up more communal frenzy.

An editorial in the CPI-M journal “People’s Democracy” also warned the Congress to immediately address the problems of agrarian distress and employment generation in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

“They cannot afford to take a soft attitude to communal activities and must crack down on cow vigilantism and mob lynching,” said the Communist Party of India-Marxist.

The editorial pointed out that overall, the results of the Assembly elections “are a setback for the BJP and the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. 

“It provides the much needed momentum for the forthcoming battle in the Lok Sabha elections to defeat the BJP,” it added.

The results of the elections in the three BJP-ruled states have a national significance, it said. 

“The defeat has dented the image of invincibility around the Modi-Shah duo which has been assiduously built up by the BJP… They have proved to be ineffective in their own traditional strongholds.” 

The editorial also said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had been increasingly losing by-elections, reflecting “the growing discontent among the people against the Modi government at the Centre and the BJP-ruled state governments”. 

At the same time, it faulted the Congress for trying to borrow some issues from the Hindutva platform. This, it said, did not get them any electoral benefits. 

But it warned that the BJP had still got a substantial vote share — 41 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and 38.8 per cent in Rajasthan. In the former it was 0.1 per cent ahead of the Congress vote share and just 0.5 per cent less than the Congress share in Rajasthan.

“This underlines the scope for a BJP recovery if there is a slight swing in its favour. It also points to the likely possibility of the BJP-RSS combine stepping up its communal agenda in the coming days in view of the Lok Sabha elections.” 

IANS

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Jaipur, Dec 13 (IANS) Veteran Congress leader Ashok Gehlot appears to have pipped Sachin Pilot in the race for Chief Minister in Rajasthan.

The name of 67-year-old Gehlot, a two-time Chief Minister, will be announced by the party in Delhi on Thursday evening after Congress President Rahul Gandhi completes discussions with senior party leaders, party sources said.

Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the other main contender for the post, on Thursday met Gandhi.

Gehlot returned to Jaipur, apparently after being told of the party’s decision to pick him as the Chief Minister.

The party appears to have preferred Gehlot over Pilot in view of the mandate it got in Rajasthan, where it has fallen short of legislative majority by one seat in the 200-member Assembly.

The party, however, has the backing of its pre-poll ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which won one seat, six Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs and a majority of the 13 Independents, who are mostly Congress rebels.

Pilot reportedly put up a fight staking his claim to the post on the ground that he had galvanised the party after the defeat in 2013, when he was appointed the state party chief.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the central Congress observers, K.C. Venugopal and Avinash Pandey, met the newly elected MLAs in a bid to find out who they would prefer as Chief Minister.

The MLAs authorised Gandhi to take the call on the Chief Minister’s name.

Both Gehlot and Pilot had also called on Governor Kalyan Singh on Wednesday evening and staked claim to form the government. Both contested the Assembly elections and won their seats.

IANS

  The newly elected Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh will meet at 4 p.m. in the Pradesh Congress Committee office on Thursday to choose their Legislature Party leader, party officials said.

State party chief Kamal Nath and Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, who headed the party’s poll committee during the just concluded Assembly polls, are expected to be present. Both are front-runners for the Chief Minister’s post. 

Central party observer and former Defence Minister A.K. Antony was on Wednesday in Bhopal to meet the new legislators after the Congress in a nail-biting finish defeated the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party by securing 114 seats but fell two seats short of a majority in the 230-member House.

The meeting was expected to reach a consensus on the Chief Minister’s name, however, that did not happen.

Rebel MLAs, who won as Independent candidates in the November 28 polls, were also part of the CLP meet. Antony met every one individually.

IANS

 The BJP Parliamentary Party met here on Thursday and paid tributes to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Union Minister Ananth Kumar.

The meeting, attended among others by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and party veteran L.K. Advani, decided to celebrate Vajpayee’s anniversary on December 25 on a large scale.

BJP sources said no discussion was held on the outcome of the Assembly polls in five states.

The BJP is holding a review meeting at its headquarters here over the election results. Modi, Shah, several union Ministers, party office bearers, state Presidents and those in-charge of the five states would attend.

In the recently concluded Assembly polls in five states, the BJP was ousted from power in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

IANS

 K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Thursday took oath as the Chief Minister of Telangana for a second term in a row.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan administered the oath of office and secrecy to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader at a ceremony held at Raj Bhavan.

Mohammed Mahmood Ali, a member of Telangana Legislative Council, also took oath as a Minister.

Ali, who was Deputy Chief Minister in the previous cabinet, is likely to retain the same post.

KCR, as he is popularly known, is likely to expand his cabinet next week. The TRS retained power by winning 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly.

IANS