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Pranab Mukherjee too valuable for Congress to be made President?

May 4, 2012
Pranab-Mukherjee200x230New Delhi, May 4: The Congress's dilemma over whether to sponsor Pranab Mukherjee in the race for Rashtrapati Bhavan was out in the open on Thursday when a party spokesperson hurriedly withdrew her comment about the veteran finance minister's indispensability for the government.

The spokesperson, Renuka Chaudhary, kicked up a virtual storm when she told reporters, "It will never be easy to leave Pranabda. He is such a valuable person for us in the party. His contribution to the party cannot be even measured. For him, it will not seem to be fair but he has such an active political mind. He is too involved and knows politics so well."

A gushing Chaudhary went on to call Mukherjee a valuable guide, in what was almost universally interpreted as signalling the Congress's reluctance to spare its chief troubleshooter for a non-political sinecure.

The lavish commentary, however, was immediately rolled back, with Chaudhary taking pains to emphasize that her genuine expression of admiration for Mukherjee's skills had been misunderstood and twisted out of context.

When asked about the "confusion" over names doing the rounds, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said, "There is no confusion. Have patience. There is still time." Although stating the obvious, the remark could have served to reassure that nobody has been ruled out yet as a candidate.

Chaudhary's retraction came amid indications of the finance minister's unhappiness over what he saw as an attempt to indulge him into withdrawing his claim for the top constitutional job.

Tired of being passed over for the prized trophies, starting from prime ministership to the stewardship of the home ministry, Mukherjee is learnt to have made it clear to the leadership that he would like to retreat to the sidelines rather than put up with career stagnation.

Sources said the finance minister reacted to Chaudhary's lavish prose by making it clear that he was not amused. "He saw it as an attempt to spoil his chances," acknowledged a senior Congress source.

Mukherjee is locked in a dead heat with Vice-President Hamid Ansari for Congress endorsement for Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Congress has been unable to take a call. It is appreciative of Mukherjee's hurt as well as of the need to assuage it but the party fears that the departure of the UPA's principal firefighter will leave the government vulnerable. There are also worries that the prime minister, now at the fag end of a surprisingly long tenure and sure of not heading UPA-3, may start disengaging from Sonia Gandhi's political project just when the Congress chief is hoping for a fresh burst of energy before the 2014 polls.

The bind was underlined once again on Thursday evening when Sonia refrained from spelling out the party's choice when she discussed presidential elections with Trinamool boss and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

At the official Congress briefing, spokesman Rashid Alvi said he could not comment on candidates since the consultations were still underway but added that Renuka Chaudhary was correct in saying that "Mukherjee is important for party, parliament and government".

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News Network
July 24,2020

Lucknow, Jul 24: A special CBI court on Friday recorded the statement of veteran BJP leader LK Advani in the Babri mosque demolition case.

The statement of the 92-year-old former deputy prime minster was recorded through video conferencing in the court of special Judge S K Yadav.

On Thursday, the court recorded the statement of BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi in the case. 

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News Network
August 7,2020

Idukki, Aug 7: Several people lost their lives and dozens of tea estate workers are feared trapped under soil in Kerala’s Munnar after torrential rains triggered a massive landslide on today. 

As many as five bodies have been recovered and rescue workers are fighting inclement weather to remove the debris.

According to rescue workers, four lanes of quarters and a church are buried under mud and around 80 people are feared trapped.

Seven people have been rescued so far and shifted to the hospital.

Sources said a portion of Pettimudi came crashing down on the workers colony with a deafening roar in the wee hours of Friday.

As people were sleeping in the quarters, there was little time to escape.

Further, with the Periyavara bridge being washed away, it became all the more difficult for rescue workers to reach the spot.

The construction of a new temporary Periyavara bridge however, is underway.

The bridge was previously destructed during the deluge of August 2018. Later during the north west monsoons and the south west monsoon of 2019, it suffered damage again.

The present bridge, which got damaged on Thursday after Kannimala river levels rose, was constructed under the leadership of Coir fed.

Although a new concrete bridge has been constructed near the temporary bridge in Periyavara, vehicle  movement has not been possible because the authorities are yet to build its approach via road.

The new bridge is to be constructed at a cost of Rs 4.75 crore from Devikulam MLA S Rajendran's fund.

The entire area has been cut off from outside world and communication networks have also crashed.

Teams of Fire and Rescue personnel, NDRF, revenue officials, estate workers and police are struggling to conduct rescue operations.

Meanwhile, District collector H Dhineshan said a team of rescue personnel was sent to Pettymudy after he was briefed about the mishap and search operations to locate and rescue people are underway.

Facilities have been arranged at the hospitals nearby to provide necessary treatment facilities to the people being rescued.

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News Network
March 11,2020

New Delhi, Mar 11: Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Madhya Pradesh politician whose surprise exit from the Congress has brought the Kamal Nath government to the brink of collapse, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday. Scindia joined the BJP at an event in national capital Delhi in the presence of party chief JP Nadda.

Scindia, who was warmly welcomed by Nadda, described 10 March, the day that he exited from the Congress as one of the two life-changing days of his life. The first, he said, was 30 September 2001 when he lost his father. Scindia underscored that the Congress was not the party that it had been and had been living in denial.

Scindia had ended his 18-year-old association with the Congress on Tuesday after meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Scindia’s exit from the Congress was followed by resignation letters by about 22 MLAs who had been sequestered in Karnataka. The resignation letters were, however, sent to the Governor and not the assembly speaker, and threatens to upend the Kamal Nath government which has a wafer-thin majority.

If the resignations are accepted, the effective strength of the MP assembly will come down to 206, leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a slender majority beyond the halfway mark of 103 with its 107 MLAs. For now, the Congress is trying to persuade the MLAs to not pull down the state government.

In his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that Scindia put out on Twitter soon after, he alluded to his discomfort in the party over the last year or so. “...as you well know, this is a path that has been drawing itself out over the last year,” he had written in his letter.

It was seen as a reference to the Congress settling for Kamal Nath as the chief minister after the 2018 state elections though it was Scindia who had led from the front to oust the BJP from Madhya Pradesh. Scindia’s supporters had hoped that the Congress would tell Kamal Nath to give up his second charge - as the party chief in the state - but this also didn’t happen.

The first hint that something was amiss came in November last year when Scindia removed a reference to the Congress in his Twitter bio and instead wrote “public servant and cricket enthusiast”. He had then explained the change to an effort to make the Twitter bio shorter.

Jyotyiraditya Scindia’s aunt Yashodhara Raje Scindia appeared to declare soon after that the 49-year-old would join the BJP when she welcomed his resignation, calling it “ghar wapsi” or homecoming. “Jyotiraditya was being neglected in Congress,” Yashodhara Raje Scindia said.

Scindia’s grandmother, Vijaya Raje Scindia, was one of the founders of the Jana Sangh, the precursor to the BJP. His aunt Vasundhara Raje is a former Union minister and ex-chief minister of Rajasthan and another aunt Yashodhara Raje is a former minister in the Madhya Pradesh cabinet.

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