Thane/Palghar: Heavy rains lashed Maharashtra’s Thane and Palghar districts during the night and on Monday morning, causing flooding at several places and claiming the life of a minor boy, officials said.

Thane city received 151.33 mm rain between 9.30 p.m on Sunday and 7.30 a.m on Monday, an official from local civic control room said.

The neighbouring Palghar district also witnessed heavy showers and received 108.67 mm downpour in the same period, authorities said.

Firemen and disaster cell teams received several calls of tree falls and inundation in both the districts, officials said.

A four-year-old boy drowned after being swept away in a swollen drain in Thane’s Ulhasnagar township on Sunday, an official at the police control said.

The body was later fished out and sent to a government hospital for postmortem, he said, adding that a case of accidental death was registered.

A 40-year-old watchman was severely injured when a tree fell on him at a residential complex on Ghodbunder Road in Thane city on Sunday evening.

Besides, the wall of a housing complex on Ghodbunder Road collapsed, damaging five cars and as many other vehicles, civic authorities said.

There were incidents of wall collapse and flooding in some other low-lying areas also, Thane Municipal Corporation’s regional disaster management cell chief Santosh Kadam said.

In Palghar, several places in Vasai and Nallasopara witnessed heavy rains, leading to water-logging in low-lying areas.

A four-year-old boy fell in an open drain in Nallasopara and was feared drowned. Efforts were on to trace the minor, Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation’s chief fire officer Dilip Palav said.

In Vasai area of Palghar, at least 80 cooking gas cylinders were washed away in the flood waters, local police said.

Later, the police with the help of firemen shifted the cylinders to a safe place, they said.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged MPs and political parties to ask the sharpest and toughest of questions to the government in the Monsoon session of Parliament, asserting that the government should also be allowed to respond to them.

Speaking with reporters ahead of the start of the session, Modi said he wants meaningful discussions in Parliament over the Covid pandemic which has gripped the entire world.

Modi said he has urged all floor leaders to take some time out on Tuesday evening when he would like to give them detailed information on the pandemic.

“We want discussion inside Parliament as well as outside it with floor leaders on Covid pandemic,” he said.

Modi said the government is ready to give the answers that the people of the country want.

“I urge all MPs and political parties to ask the sharpest and the toughest of questions but they should also allow the government to respond in a cordial environment as democracy is strengthened by conveying the truth to the people,” Modi said.

It increases the trust of the people and improves the pace of development, he added.

Srinagar: A top commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), responsible for attacks and killings of security forces and civilians, was among two militants killed in an overnight encounter in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Monday.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Check Sadiq Khan area of south Kashmir district on Sunday after receiving specific inputs about the presence of militants there, a police official said.

He said the search operation turned into an encounter after militants opened fire on security forces, who retaliated.

In the exchange of firing, two militants were killed, the official said.

One of the slain militants was identified as Ishfaq Dar alias Abu Akram, a top commander of LeT, Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh said.

Dar was active since 2017 and responsible for a very large number of terror crime cases, including attacks on and killings of police, security forces and civilians, Singh said.

He said the other militant has been identified as Majid Iqbal. The night-long operation has concluded, the Jammu and Kashmir’s top police official said.

An Army official said two AK rifles with eight magazines were recovered from the site of the encounter.

Kolkata: In his first public criticism after BJP’s defeat in the West Bengal assembly polls, Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday said the BJP lost because of several leaders’ overconfidence that the party would get over 170 seats.

At a party meeting in Chandipur area of Purba Medinipur district, Adhikari said this smugness and overconfidence led to lack of understanding of the emerging ground situation.

“As we did well in the first two poll phases in these parts of assembly segments, many of our leaders became smug and overconfident. They started believing that the BJP will secure 170-180 seats in the elections, but they did not do the groundwork. This cost us dearly,” the TMC turncoat said.

He said continuing work at the ground level was equally important as setting up targets, which was realistic but needed hard work.

Reacting to Adhikari’s claims, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, “Suvendu has conveniently forgotten the slew of social welfare projects and a spree of development by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and the mandate against BJP heavyweights’ sustained campaign against the CM and TMC.”

“The BJP was living in a fool’s paradise as many of their leaders predicted that the saffron camp will cross 200 seats. Why he is finding fault with others? Didn’t Suvendu also boast repeatedly that his party will get 180 seats at least? Actually, they don’t know the pulse of Bengal, Trinamool does,” Ghosh, the state general secretary of the TMC, said.

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the new president of the party’s Punjab unit, not withstanding the strong opposition from Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

Gandhi also appointed four working presidents to assist Sidhu in the run-up to the next assembly elections.

The appointments came after days of internal squabbling and public bickering that virtually divided the state unit between two factions owing allegiance to Singh and Sidhu.

The new working presidents are Sangat Singh Gilzian, Sukhwinder Singh Danny, Pawan Goel and Kuljit Singh Nagra, who represent different regions and castes.

“Congress president has appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect,” according to a party statement.

“The party appreciates the contributions of outgoing PCC president Sunil Jakhar,”the statement said.

Nagra, who was in-charge of party affairs in Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura, has been relieved of his present responsibilities.

Sidhu, who joined the Congress from the BJP ahead of the last assembly elections in 2017, has increased his efforts to gather support in the past few days and met several MLAs and leaders.

With the decision, the party leadership has clearly signalled to put its weight behind Sidhu while ignoring Amarinder Singh’s opposition.

The leadership feels Sidhu can lead the party’s campaign with fresh energy and enthusiasm and help ensure its victory in the upcoming assembly polls slated for early next year.

Sidhu’s ability to pull crowds and launch a vigorous campaign has worked in his favour as the party feels that infusing fresh energy in the party ranks is required at a time slackness has set in after four-and-half years in power.

The support of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has also helped in Sidhu clinching the post despite strong resistance.

The cricketer-turned-politician now faces the challenge of uniting the party and bringing cohesion in its ranks, besides winning the trust of the old guard and veterans.

Chief Minister Singh is learnt to have told Sonia Gandhi that he will not meet Sidhu till he publicly apologises for his attacks on him in the recent past.

Calls are being made by party veterans to unite the party ahead of the assembly polls, else the AAP and the Akali Dal-BSP combine could upstage it.

AICC general secretary in-charge for Punjab affairs of the party Harish Rawat congratulated Sidhu and the four working presidents.

He expressed his gratitude to Congress president Sonia Gandhi for granting approval to the new team in Punjab. “Thank you madam for your great gesture,” Rawat said.

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday attacked the Modi government, saying “your hunger for power” has left lakhs craving for foodgrains.

His attack came over a media report which claimed that during the coronavirus period, even the middle-class Indians were forced to line up for rations.

“Your hunger for power has left lakhs craving for food grains — You did nothing, but gave ‘jumlas’ everyday,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag ‘JumlaJeevi’. PM Modi had coined ‘aandolan jeevi’ to target those who thrive on protests. The Congress uses the term to hit back at the Modi government.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi, in a follow up to his tweet from Friday in which he had asked people what they were reading these days, said, “Thank you for some superb book recommendations.”

“Here is one I absolutely love,” Gandhi said and shared the cover of the book ‘The Unfettered Mind’ by Takuan Soho, translated from Japanese into English by William Scott Wilson.

The Unfettered Mind is a three-part treatise on Buddhist philosophy and martial arts written in the 17th century by Soho, a Japanese monk.

Gandhi on Friday signalled a shift in his social media outreach, going from mostly commentative to conversational with this simple poser: “I’m wondering what you guys are reading these days?”

Gandhi’s communication on Twitter and maybe other social media platforms is set for a makeover and will get more interactive in the days to come, party insiders had said.