External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar formally joins BJP

Mar 28: A 69-year-old patient, hailing from Chullikal in Ernakulam District, passed away at Kalamasserry Medical College at 8:00am.

The patient had come from Dubai recently and was quarantined.

He arrived in Kerala on March 16 and was tested positive for Coronavirus on March 22, Medical College nodal officer A Fathahudeen said.

He was undergoing treatment for heart ailment and blood pressure. He had earlier undergone a bypass surgery.

Forty nine passengers in the flight he came are under quarantine.

A close relative and the driver who picked him up from the airport are coronavirus positive.

Since the deceased had no contact with any others in the state since his arrival, his route map was not processed.

Kerala reported 39 fresh cases of coronavirus on Friday, taking the total number of people under treatment to 164. The total number of confirmed cases from the state is 176, but, of this, 12 had recovered.

Of the 39 cases, 34 are from the worst affected northernmost district of Kasaragod, two from Kannur and one each from Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kollam.

With a positive case being reported from Kollam, all 14 districts in the state have been affected by the pandemic.

The worst affected Kasaragod has 76 positive cases, the highest and most of the affected are Non Resident Keralites from the Gulf.

A total of 1,10,299 people are under surveillence and 616 are in isolation wards of various hospitals.

New Delhi, Jan 20: The BJP has got a brand new President in the form of JP Nadda. At around 2.30 pm, the announcement was made, bringing an end to the Amit Shah era in BJP. The party's Working President Jagat Prakash Nadda won unopposed, sparking celebrations outside the BJP headquarters here on Monday. 

Amit Shah himself was among the people who proposed Nadda's name along with Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh. Soon after his annointment, BJP election returning officer Radha Mohan Singh told the media, "I announce JP Nadda as the new BJP President." Shah was also seen hugging Nadda.

The nomination process for the post of the BJP President began at 10 am and went on till 12.30 pm. For the next hour, the filed nomination paper, which was just one, was examined. Party members waitied till 2.30 pm for the candidate to withdraw if he wished to. It was after this that Nadda was declared as the man who would step into the shoes of Amit Shah.

Many in the BJP believe that although Nadda is the BJP chief now, Shah would still make all macro-level decisions like pre poll alliances or top organisational appointments. Nadda would be in charge of monitoring the day-to-day needs of the organisation. BJP sources say that Amit Shah himself wanted an arrangement like this one and personally wanted Nadda to take over. as he helped Shah formulate legislations like Triple Talaq and Citizenship Amendment Act.

The party constitution mandates completion of election of at least 50 per cent of state Presidents for the election of national President to happen. In the last few days, the BJP has completed the election of a slew of state Presidents like in West Bengal, Nagaland among others.

The process of election of the national BJP President is quite elaborate and has been described in detail in the party constitution, which says that the national president shall be elected by an electoral college, comprising members of the national council and the state councils.

"Any 20 members of the electoral college of a state can jointly propose the name of a person, who has been an active member for four terms and has 15 years of membership, for the post of national president. Such joint proposal should come from not less than five states where elections have been completed for the national council. The consent of the candidate is necessary," it says.

Who is JP Nadda?

Jagat Prakash Nadda, 59, who has his roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates, was appointed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national President on Monday, replacing his 'mentor' and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Former environment, health and law minister from Himachal Pradesh, which has just four of the Lok Sabha's 543 seats, Nadda has tried to carve out his own space in national politics with his low profile and astute organisational skills, believe his party leaders.

He rose through the ranks from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, from where he has managed to build inroads from university to the state politics.

Nadda has been active on the national political scene since 2010 when he was picked by then BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to join his new team. He was made the party's national general secretary.

Born on December 2, 1960, Nadda did his graduation from Patna and holds a post-graduate degree in political science and Bachelor of Legislative Law (LL.B) from Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla.

Starting his political career as a student leader of the ABVP in 1978, Nadda had also worked both with Gadkari and Shah even in the party's youth wing -- the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha -- from 1991 to 1994.

His wife Mallika Nadda, who teaches history at the Himachal Pradesh University and is currently posted in university's campus in Delhi, was an ABVP activist too, and its national general secretary from 1988 to 1999.

In the previous BJP government (2007-12) in the state, Nadda was forced to resign as Forest Minister in 2010 owing to differences between him and then chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012.

Nadda won his first Assembly election from Bilaspur (Sadar) in Himachal in 1993. In 1998, he again won from that seat and became the state Health Minister.

He lost the Assembly elections in 2003, but again won in 2007 and was appointed the Forest Minister in the Himachal Pradesh.

Nadda, as a forest minister, was the brain behind opening forest police stations to check forest crimes, launching community-driven plantation, setting up forest ponds and the massive plantation of deodars to boost the depleting green cover of the 'Queen of Hills', as Shimla was fondly called by the British.

A close confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nadda was among those who were mentioned as likely aspirants to the BJP top post after Rajnath Singh was inducted into the Central government as the Home Minister in 2014.

Later, Nadda was inducted into the union cabinet in its first expansion in 2014 as the Health Minister.

Hailing Nadda's appointment, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur told IANS it is a proud moment that a leader belonging to a small state in the national politics is today the leader of the country's biggest national party.

His father N.L. Nadda, who was a Vice-Chancellor of the Ranchi University, resides in Bilaspur town.

Jan 28: After Union minister Anurag Thakur, on Tuesday, BJP MP Parvesh Verma has stoked a controversy by saying that "Shaheen Bagh protesters will enter houses and rape sisters, daughters." The BJP MP even went on to say that if BJP is voted to power in Delhi, they "will clear Shaheen Bagh protest within an hour."

"If the BJP comes to power in Delhi on February 11, we will clear Shaheen Bagh of all protests and protesters within one hour. Not a single person will be visible," Parvesh Verma said during a meeting at Vikaspuri assembly constituency.

"Lakhs of people gather there [Shaheen Bagh]. People of Delhi will have to think and take a decision. They will enter your houses, rape your sisters and daughters, kill them. There's time today, Modi ji & Amit Shah won't come to save you tomorrow..." the BJP MP told news agency ANI.

"If our government is formed, then give me just a month after February 11, and I will remove all mosques built on government land in my Lok Sabha constituency," the BJP parliamentarian added.

Well, these statements didn't go down well with the netizens, who took to Twitter to express what they felt about the BJP leader's comments. A user wrote, "This is pure, unadulterated hate speech." While other user said, "Only when you thought BJP couldn't stoop any lower."

Earlier, on Monday, BJP leader and Union Minister Anurag Thakur triggered a row after he led the crowd to raise an incendiary slogan that "traitors should be shot". At the rally, Thakur, the Minister of State (MoS) for Finance, shouted: "desh ke gaddaron ko" to which the crowd responded, "goli maro saalo ko" (shoot down the traitors).

Addressing the meeting in support of BJP candidate from Rithala, Manish Chaudhary, Thakur raised the pitch of nationalism as he linked opposition parties with anti-CAA protests in Shaheen Bagh and with alleged anti-India slogans, and then asked the crowd to raise the controversial slogan.

For more than a month, over 200 women have been joined by hundreds of others every day at South East Delhi's Shaheen Bagh at a sit-in protest against the CAA which promises citizenship to only non-Muslim refugees from three neighbouring countries.

Protests have been ongoing in different parts of the country against the amended Citizenship Act (CAA) which grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh if they entered India on or before December 31, 2014.