LUCKNOW: A large number of security personnel were deployed at the State Assembly as Samajwadi Party (SP) on Monday held a protest march against the UP government, raising various demands.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and many party legislators and leaders led the march from the party office to Vidhan Sabha highlighting issues in the state before the Monsoon Session of the state legislature commenced today.

“We have come here to protest on the various issues of public interest. This is our constitutional right, but the BJP is not letting the legislators go to the assembly,” said a party leader.

Hitting back at the protest led by Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prashad Maurya said that the march is not related to the benefit of the common people.

“SP’s protest is not related to the benefit of the common people. If they want to discuss this, they are free to do it in the Assembly. Our government is ready for discussions. Such protests will only create problems for people,” Maurya said.

Maurya also took a jibe at SP and said that the party is jobless now and they have nothing to do. Massive security deployment in Lucknow had been done in view of the march.

“They had not taken permission. Still, they were assigned a designated route which would not have caused traffic congestion. They refused to take that. We have no option but to stop them here. If they take the designated route, there would not be a problem,” Joint Commissioner of Police, Law and Order Piyush Mordia said.

LUCKNOW: At least nine people were killed here after the boundary wall of an Army enclave collapsed due to heavy rains, police said on Friday.

One person was pulled out alive from the debris, they said.

“Some labourers were living in huts outside an Army enclave in the Dilkusha area. Owing to heavy overnight rains, the boundary wall of the Army enclave collapsed,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order)

“We reached the spot around 3 am. Nine bodies were pulled out from the debris and one person was rescued alive,” he said.

NEW DELHI: The ED on Friday launched fresh raids at about 40 locations across the country as part of a money laundering investigation into alleged irregularities in the now scrapped Delhi Excise Policy, official sources said.

The searches are being conducted at premises linked to liquor businessmen, distributors and supply chain networks in Nellore and some other cities in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi-NCR, they said.

This is the second round of raids being conducted by the federal agency in this case after it first conducted searches on September 6 at about 45 locations across the country.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) case of money laundering in the excise policy stems from a CBI FIR in which Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and some bureaucrats have been named as accused.

The excise policy has been rolled back now.

The CBI had conducted raids in the case on August 19, covering the Delhi residences of Sisodia (50), IAS officer and former Delhi excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, and 19 other locations across seven states and Union Territories.

Sisodia holds multiple portfolios in the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government including excise and education.

The ED is probing if alleged irregularities were done in the formulation and execution of the Delhi Excise Policy brought out in November last year and if some alleged “proceeds of crime” in terms of tainted money was generated by the accused.

The agency also is expected to question AAP leader and minister Satyendar Jain in the Tihar jail in connection with this case on Friday after it obtained permission from a local court to do so.

T’PURAM/KOLLAM: Having drawn flak for excluding BJP-ruled Gujarat from Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Congress announced that its second phase would begin in the western state and end in Arunachal Pradesh in 2023.

“We’ll cover nearly 3,100km in 150 days in the second phase. This is the longest march undertaken by any political party in the world. Earlier it was the one undertaken by Chinese leader Mao Zedong. If the yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir turns successful, we’ll go ahead with the one from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh,” AICC general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said in Kollam.

The Congress had faced criticism from the CPM for spending 18 days of the yatra in Kerala and a mere two days in Uttar Pradesh. But the party’s national leadership maintained that, as per their itinerary, the UP padayatra was scheduled for five days. The war of words on their respective Twitter handle saw them raising allegations and counter allegations.

NEW DELHI:  The CBI has taken over the probe into the mysterious death of Haryana BJP leader Sonali Phogat in Goa last month, officials said Thursday

The central probe agency re-registered the FIR of Goa Police on a reference from the Ministry of Home Affairs which was routed to it through the Department of Personnel and Training, they said.

Teams of the CBI along with CFSL experts will reach Goa to collect documents and interact with the local police officials and doctors who had examined the former TV anchor after she was brought to the hospital.

The sources said viscera samples will give a definitive clue about the causes of Phogat’s death.

The ministry had referred the case to the CBI after Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah requesting a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The home ministry recommended to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to get the case probed by the CBI, an official privy to the development said. The CBI functions under the administrative control of the DoPT.

Phogat, from Hisar in Haryana, was brought dead to a hospital in Goa in the intervening night of August 22-23

A former Tik Tok star and a contestant on the reality TV show “Big Boss”, 43-year-old Phogat had arrived in Goa with two of her male aides–Sudhir Sangwan and Sukhwinder Singh, a day before the incident.

In a CCTV footage of the restaurant that emerged after her death, she was seen dancing with Sangwan. The aide is also purportedly seen forcing her to drink water which she instantly spits out.

Another video shows Phogat being escorted out of the restaurant by her aides, now arrested in which she can be seen staggering and almost falling near the staircase on her way out.

Police had said Sangwan and Singh allegedly mixed some “obnoxious substance” in water and forced Phogat to drink it.

Phogat was administered methamphetamine, and some left-over drug was recovered from the restaurant’s washroom, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jivba Dalvi had said.

Police have so far arrested five people in connection with the case including the aides who accompanied her to Goa Sangwan and Singh, two alleged drug suppliers Dattaprasad Gaonkar and Rama Mandrekar and the owner of restaurant Edwin Nunes.

It is alleged that Gaonkar had provided drugs to Singh and Sangwan. Mandrekar had sold the drugs to Gaonkar.

The doctors said she had had a heart attack, but her brother alleged that Sagwan and Singh played a role in her death.

The arrests were made and a First Information Report for murder was registered after the autopsy report said there were multiple “blunt force injuries” on her body.

Police had said “economic interest” could be a motive behind her alleged killing.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala respects everyone in the State and does not allow itself to be divided or hatred to spread here and therefore, the Bharat Jodo Yatra is an extension of these ideas, said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday at the culmination of the fifth day of the yatra here.

Addressing thousands who had joined the yatra during the course of the day, Gandhi said, “Standing together, working together in harmony is natural and normal for the people of Kerala and you have shown this to the rest of the country.”

He further said the reason the State has a good education system and the “most compassionate nurses” is because “Kerala respects everyone in Kerala”.

“It does not allow itself to be divided nor does it allow hatred to spread in the State. So in a sense, Bharat Jodo Yatra is just an extension of the ideas that prevail in Kerala,” he added.

He also said the message Congress was trying to spread through the yatra was “not a new message”.

“It is quite an old message which is in the DNA of Kerala,” Gandhi said and also thanked the people for showing up in such large numbers for supporting the yatra.

The first day of Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Kerala, where the party has a significant cadre base and followers, saw a huge turnout which increased during the day as the journey progressed from Parassala to Nemom in the southernmost district of the State.

A large crowd of Congress members and workers as well as onlookers gathered at Parassala early in the morning, along with senior party leaders to welcome Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi as he commenced the Kerala leg of the 3,570-km long yatra from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Jammu and Kashmir.

The first phase of the day’s yatra ended after a three-hour long walk at Neyyattinkara and before the second phase resumed from 5 PM, Gandhi held interactions with students of GR Public School and also handloom workers of Balaramapuram here which is famous handloom garment manufacturing.

Gandhi listened to the weavers’ concerns like poor pay, lack of benefits from the government and rising cost of raw materials, and said he sees them not just as handloom workers but as those who are protecting a historical and traditional industry, a release issued by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee said.

While praising their work, he suggested that they come up with new designs and innovations and also offered all assistance, it said. 

The workers also presented him with a Congress symbol made by handloom. Gandhi, during the break from the yatra, also paid tribute at the memorial of social reformer Ayyankali.

“During the afternoon break of the 4th day of #BharatJodoYatra @RahulGandhi visited one of the most revered Smarakams in India. Sree Ayyankali was one of the greatest social reformers of 20th century who empowered millions of deprived and discriminated, and remains iconic,” AICC general secretary in charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh tweeted

In the coming days of the yatra, Gandhi would also be visiting the memorials of social reformers Chattampi Swamikal and Narayana Guru to pay tribute to them.

This was announced to reporters by senior Congress leaders when the yatra halted after the first leg of the day’s journey, where they also launched the Malayalam theme song of the yatra.

They also termed as “beyond expectations” the huge turnout of people who came to see and join the yatra as thousands joined the march and even more thronged both sides of the road the ‘yatris’ were passing through.

“We never intended to mobilise a crowd for the morning leg of the yatra.”It was only for the afternoon phase of the journey that the Congress workers were going to mobilise supporters to participate in the yatra. However, the response we got in the morning itself was beyond our expectations,” the Congress leaders told the reporters.

In the aerial visuals shown on Twitter handles of Bharat Jodo Yatra and various Congress leaders, it was a serpentine procession which looked hundreds of metres long.

In the second leg of the day’s journey, the turnout increased even further with the yatris shouting ‘Bharat Jodo’ and ‘jodo jodo’ slogans as they walked behind Gandhi.

Besides prominent persons, senior party leaders like Congress MPs like Shashi Tharoor, K C Venugopal and Digvijaya Singh, KPCC president K Sudhakaran and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly V D Satheesan, also accompanied Gandhi in the yatra.

Occasionally, children too joined the Wayanad MP for brief periods in the yatra.

Gandhi also took a short break for snacks at a roadside eatery in the morning which turned out as a pleasant surprise for the shopowner who was seen beaming in photographs and videos tweeted by Congress leaders and on the Bharat Jodo Yatra Twitter handle.

Speaking to the reportes after the yatra halted at Neyyattinkara, Ramesh announced the launch of the around three-minute long Bharat Jodo Yatra theme song in Malayalam.

Gandhi’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, too, shared photographs of the yatra on her Facebook page and said that every section of society was excited about the Bharat Jodo Yatra which was evident from the participation and enthusiasm of farmers, labourers, youth, women, children and the elderly.

“The message of the people of the country is clear- inflation, unemployment, economic crisis and divisive politics should end,” she said in her Facebook post.

After entering Kerala from Parassala close to the Tamil Nadu border, Gandhi would travel 450 km to Nilambur in Malappuram over a 19-day period.

The yatra would cover 12 States and two Union territories, and a distance of 3,570 km from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Jammu and Kashmir over a period of 150 days. There would be mega rallies in 22 major cities.