Elections 2012 results: Modi scores hat-trick in Gujarat, Congress wins Himachal

December 20, 2012

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Ahmedabad, December 20: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi won a third consecutive victory in the assembly elections and is likely to lead the race for prime ministerial candidate in BJP in 2014 while the Congress wrested power from the saffron party in Himachal Pradesh.

The BJP was leading in 118 of the 182 seats in Gujarat while Congress was ahead in 59. Former chief minister Keshubhai Patel's GPP on which the Congress hoped to defeat Modi fared very badly. The NCP and JDU were leading in one seat each.

Chief minister Narendra Modi won comfortably from the Maninagar constituency by about 86,000 votes against suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's wife Shweta Bhatt. In 2007, Modi had won the elections by more than 87,000 votes.

His aide & former minister Amit Shah, who was arrested in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case won from the Naranpura constituency.

Gujarat Parivartan Party president and former CM Keshubhai Patel won by around 20,000 votes in Visavadar seat.

In the last elections in 2007, the BJP had won 117 seats and Congress 59.

However, the party was set for a debacle in Himachal Pradesh, a state which has stuck to its habit of voting out an incumbent government.

The Congress, which put up a spirited campaign under former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, is all set to return to power in the hill state.

As trends showed reverses for BJP, chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal appeared prepared for defeat.

"Whatever people decide is good. It would be good if they support us, and good even if they don't. I will welcome the decision of people," he said when asked to react on the trends going against his party.

Dhumal himself won from the Hamirpur defeating his nearest Congress rival Narinder Thakur by a margin of over 9,500 votes. He had won from Bamsan in 2007 by about 30,000 votes but after delimitation his constituency was scrapped and he had to shift to adjoining constituency of Hamirpur.

His rival and Congress veteran Virbhadra Singh said that he had put in his "best efforts" in the polls and it was for Sonia Gandhi to decide the party's chief minister.

"I had been given the brief to bring the party back to power and for that I had put in my best efforts. It is for our national leader Sonia Gandhi to decide who will become the chief minister," Singh said.

The party has already won two seats and was leading in 35 seats in the 68-member Assembly. BJP was leading in 23 seats and has won two seats. 'Others' led in four seats having won in one. Congress had won 23 seats and BJP 41 in the 2007 polls.

The BJP's hat-trick in retaining power in Gujarat added grist to political mill speculating on Modi becoming the party's PM candidate in the next Lok Sabha elections.

BJP MP Smriti Irani openly declared that Modi is her prime ministerial candidate. However, the party was cautious to comment on the issue. Suspended MP Ram Jethmalani said that the victory has "definitely" strengthened Modi's contention for being the PM candidate.

Jethmalani said the third straight victory in Gujarat Assembly Polls has defined Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the BJP in the next Lok Sabha polls.

"Definitely," Jethmalani said when asked if the victory has strengthened Modi's contention for the Prime Minister's chair.

Chief spokesperson of BJP Ravi Shankar Prasad, however, parried questions on the issue saying Modi has always been an important leader in the party.

"We are not a dynastic party, which is led by a Yuavaraj. We function in a pure democratic fashion," he said without committing on Modi.

In a significant comment, Modi tweeted that it was time to move "forward".

"No need of looking behind...FORWARD...we want infinite energy, infinite courage, infinite patience..." Modi said on the microblogging site Twitter as trends indicated a clear victory for him.

Congress leaders sought to downplay their defeat and also the possible emergence of Modi as a PM candidate. Finance minister P Chidambaram said Congress is the "clear winner" in Gujarat having "contained" Modi and BJP.

They sad that victory in Assembly polls does not guarantee Modi's acceptability in national politics.

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News Network
May 25,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, May 25: About 100 people, including a Magistrate and some police personnel, have been asked to go into quarantine after an accused, who was produced before a lower court here following his arrest, later testedpositive, officials said on Monday. The accused, who was arrested along with two others in connection with a case relating to illicit liquor transportation two days ago, had been shifted to thePoojapura central jail after he was remanded to judicial custody.

With his sample testing positive on Sunday, theman has been sent to a designated COVID-19 hospital. The Nedumangad court magistrate, before whom he was produced, 34 police personnel, including a circle inspector, who were on duty at the Venjaramoodu police station when the accused was broughtafter his arrest, some employees of a government hospital where his swab sample was taken and 12 officials of thePoojapura central jail have gone into quarantine, police sources said.

. Meanwhile, Malayalam film actor Suraj Venjaramoodu and Vamanapuram MLA D K Murali (CPI) are under self-imposed quarantineas they had attended a function in which the circle inspector had taken part.

Two days ago, a car in which illicit liqour was being transported had hit a policeman and sped away, but people managed to stop the vehicle and the three accused, who were in an inebriated state, were arrested, sources said.

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Agencies
July 23,2020

Jaipur, Jul 23: Four days after the Special Operation Group (SOG) sent a notice to Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in connection with the purported audio clips indicating his alleged involvement in horse trading of MLAs in Rajasthan, a city court has directed the Rajasthan police to probe a complaint alleging Shekhawat's role in a credit society scam worth Rs 840 crore.

The additional district judge Pawan Kumar, on Tuesday, directed the additional chief judicial magistrate's court to send the complaint against Shekhawat to the SOG.

Shekhawat, his wife and other partners have been named in the complaint in the Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society scam in which around 50,000 investors allegedly lost about Rs 840 crore.

The Jaipur unit of the SOG has been probing the scam since last year after an FIR was registered on August 23, 2019.

Now, Jaipur ADJ Court-8 ordered a fresh inquiry in the case against Gajendra Singh accepting the revised application filed by Lagu Singh and Guman Singh and said that "this is a serious matter and hence SOG should investigate this".

Both the applicants had invested a huge amount in Sanjivani credit cooperative society.

It is alleged in the complaint that a multi-storey building has been built with the money instead of a theatre which was proposed earlier and many properties were also bought in Ethiopia with the money.

An SOG investigation also reveals that a large amount of money has been deposited into accounts of Shekhawat and his wife at different time spans, said sources.

Earlier, Shekhawat was not mentioned in the chargesheet filed by the SOG in connection with the case. Later, a magistrate's court also rejected the application to include him in the chargesheet. The applicants then approached the additional district judge's court with a revised application.

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News Network
June 20,2020

Jun 20: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remark that neither is anyone inside India's territory nor has any of its posts been captured, alleging that the PM has "surrendered" Indian territory to Chinese aggression.

In a statement on the all-party meeting called by Modi on Friday to discuss the situation at the India-China border, the government said, "At the outset, prime minister clarified that neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured."

Tagging PM's remarks with his tweet, Gandhi said, "PM has surrendered Indian territory to Chinese aggression."

"If the land was Chinese: 1. Why were our soldiers killed? 2. Where were they killed?" Gandhi said.

The categorical statement by the prime minister came in the wake of reports that Chinese military has transgressed into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control, the de-facto border, in several areas of eastern Ladakh including Pangong Tso and Galwan Valley.

Soon after Gandhi's tweet, Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted video of father of a soldier, who was injured in Galwan face-off, and hit out at the Congress leader, accusing him of indulging in "petty politics".

"A brave armyman’s father speaks and he has a very clear message for Mr. Rahul Gandhi. At a time when the entire nation is united, Mr. Rahul Gandhi should also rise above petty politics and stand in solidarity with national interest," Shah wrote.

The prime minister's assertion came even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi, at the all-party meet, questioned the government's handling of the situation, asking if there was any intelligence failure, and seeking assurance that China will "revert" to its original position.

Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused senior ministers in the government of "lying" to protect the prime minister and that the Centre was "fast asleep" while martyred jawans paid the price in Ladakh.

The former Congress chief also tagged a one-minute video of a jawan's father saying the Indian soldiers were unarmed when they were attacked by Chinese troops.

He has been questioning the government on the LAC standoff and asking how the Chinese occupied Indian territory and why Indian soldiers were sent "unarmed to martyrdom" in Ladakh.

Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a colonel, were killed in a clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff in the region.

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