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Cong’s Mistry to take on Modi in Vadodara; Bittu gets Ludhiana
Seniority ignored, I feel betrayed, says Rana Sodhi
BJP fields Vinod Khanna from Gurdaspur
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Congress candidate against Modi in Vadodara opts out
84 % Indians ‘low’ on vitamin D
3 cops, civilian hurt in Maoist violence
Court allows Tejpal to use pen in jail
Govt studying EC order to defer gas price hike
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Cong’s Mistry to take on Modi in Vadodara; Bittu gets Ludhiana
New Delhi, March 25 The party while giving a ticket from Nanded to former Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan, who was named in the Adarsh Housing Scam, also ended suspense over party candidate from Ludhiana, naming Ravneet Bittu. He replaces sitting MP and Information Minister Manish Tewari. Bittu was moved to Ludhiana after being earlier named a candidate from his own current parliamentary constituency of Anandpur Sahib where AICC general secretary Ambika Soni is now contesting. Sitting MP From Hoshiarpur (reserved) Santosh Choudhary, currently MoS Health in UPA II, has lost her ticket to Mohinder Singh Kaypee, the sitting Jalandhar Lok Sabha MP, who has been moved to Hoshiarpur to beat local anti-incumbency against him. Kaypee, a former chief of Punjab Congress, had defeated singer Hans Raj Hans from Jalandhar in the last LS polls. From the Jalandhar seat, the Congress has fielded Santokh Singh Choudhary, son of Master Gurwanta Singh, a senior minister in former Congress governments. Santokh Choudhry's son Vikram Choudhary is currently Punjab Youth Congress president. Santokh Singh lost Assembly elections from Phillaur the last time. As for Bittu, he had personally sought to be moved to some other seat as his campaign in Anandpur Sahib was not picking up. Ludhiana suits him politically as his grandfather and late former Punjab CM Beant Singh hails from Payal village in the area. Bittu is expected to garner Hindu vote given the strong affinity which Hindus of the state have traditionally felt for Beant Singh who fought terrorism with an iron hand. Sources in the Congress said it was a political decision to shift Bittu to Ludhiana after Manish Tewari excused himself on health grounds. Mistry was recently nominated by the Congress to Rajya Sabha but called in today for the mightiest contest against Modi in Gujarat. The Congress even gave up its fixation for party vice president Rahul Gandhi's Primaries to vacate the Vadodara seat for Mistry. The seat was earlier won by Narendra Rawat in a Primaries election. The Congress, sticking strictly to the legal definition of taint, gave a ticket from Nanded in Maharashtra to former state Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who was facing an investigation in the Adrash Housing Scam. The CBI said no money trail in the scam could be linked to Chavan, clearing the decks for his nomination which came on a day when his wife Amita Chavan went ahead and filed her papers as an Independent in Nanded. The strategy to flex muscles worked in the end with the party giving Chavan a ticket on the same grounds as it gave one to Pawan Bansal in Chandigarh, saying, "There is no legal taint until a court frames charges against a person". The party today fielded 12 candidates - two from Gujarat; one from Maharashtra; three from Punjab; four from Tamil Nadu; and two from UP. Tainted Chavan fielded from Nanded
* The Congress has given ticket to former state Chief Minister Ashok Chavan from Nanded in Maharashtra. He faces an investigation in the Adrash Housing scam *
The nomination comes after the CBI said money trail in the scam could not be linked to Chavan.
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Seniority ignored, I feel betrayed, says Rana Sodhi
New Delhi, March 25 Vice-president of the Punjab Congress and former chief whip of the party in the Assembly, Rana Sodhi made known his dissent to Congress general secretary in charge of Punjab Shakeel Ahmed. He said he felt ignored by the party high command and betrayed by the state
leadership. “I am surprised at the turn of events. Two months ago, I asked Sunil Jakhar if he or any of his members were interested in representing Ferozepur. He said no at that time. Had he said yes, I would have withdrawn in his favour. I entered the fray with the assurance of CLP leader’s backing and the support of state party president Partap Bajwa. I have paid the price for lack of coordination between the two leaders,” Sodhi told The
Tribune. He said he had spoken at length to Ahmed about the denial of ticket to him after his name was said to have been almost cleared. “Thirty-five years of my seniority means nothing to the party? Even if the party wants to field seniors, I feel hurt that I do not rank in that category despite having fought my first election in 1985 and having risen from the ranks,” Sodhi said asking why a party with secular credentials fell into the trap of caste equations and gave the ticket to a Hindu candidate.
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BJP fields Vinod Khanna from Gurdaspur
New Delhi, March 25 Khanna will take on Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa, who had defeated him in the last election in 2009 by a narrow margin. BJP has fielded Ram Swaroop Sharma for Mandi parliamentary seat in Himachal Pradesh where he will take on Congress' Pratibha Singh, the sitting MP and wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. In Jammu and Kashmir, the party has fielded Arif Majeed Pampori from Srinagar seat. The party also declared candidates for three seats in Uttar Pradesh where Keshav Mourya will contest from Phulpur, Sharad Tripathi from Sant Kabir Nagar and Rajesh Diwakar from Hathras (SC). In Odisha, BJP has fielded Sarat Dash from Bhadrak (SC) seat and Amiya Mallick from Jajpur (SC) seat. In Sikkim, the party has fielded N B Khatiwada. — PTI
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Congress candidate against Modi in Vadodara opts out
Ahmedabad, March 25 Ravat who earlier in the day lodged an official complaint with the election commission expressing apprehension of large-scale misuse of the official machinery in the constituency allegedly at the behest of the Chief Minister, offered to return the ticket to the party high command "to make way for naming a stronger candidate" against Modi later in the evening. A local youth Congress leader, Ravat was selected as the Congress candidate for the Vadodara seat after winning the party primaries. Vadodara was one of the 15 Lok Sabha seats in the country where the Congress had decided to hold internal elections to decide its candidate. Ravat had polled the highest votes among the dozen aspirants. After the BJP declared Modi as its candidate for the Vadodara seat in addition to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Ravat apparently developed cold feet and finally decided to opt out of the contest. Though he disagreed that he was "scared" of Modi, he said he offered the party to return the ticket to enable the party high command to decide on a "more competent candidate" who would be able to give "a better fight" to Modi. He also disagreed that his offer amounted to accepting defeat even before the election process had begun and said if the party high command insisted he would remain in the fray to contest against Modi. "But I want the party to put up a stronger candidate to fight against Modi," he said adding that he was leaving it to the party's central leadership to take the final decision. The state Congress headquarters witnessed angry demonstrations by supporters of one of the aspirants for the Ahmedabad (West) Lok Sabha seat. Several hundred supporters of Rajan Priyadarshi, a former IPS officer, staged a demonstration and submitted a memorandum to the party demanding that Ishwar Makwana, who had been named by the party for the seat, be replaced by
Priyadarshi.
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Defence challenges framing of fresh charge
Mumbai, March 25 The additional charge was framed yesterday under 376 (e) of IPC after the sessions court accepted the prosecution's application in this regard. Defence lawyer Prakash Falsingikar told Principal Judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi today he would file an application on behalf of his clients and mentioning it before High Court by 3 pm against the framing of the new charge. Earlier, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam today examined the investigation officer in the telephone operator gang rape case and one of the police constables to prove the charges of repeated offence, which was introduced after the December 16 Delhi gangrape case. The three men - Kasim Bengali, Vijay Jadhav and Mohammed Salim Ansari - have already been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the case related to gangrape of an 18-year-old telephone operator, which had taken place in the desolate Shakti Mills compound about a month before the photo journalist's gangrape last year. The prosecution said it qualified them for punishment under the amended section. Yesterday, the three common convicts while pleading not guilty had refused to sign the copy of the charge document, stating that they were yet to go through the judgement in the telephone operator's case. Also, during the proceedings, the court had rejected the defence plea to stay the trial when defence lawyer said that they want to move the HC, challenging the order to frame additional charges based on the application filed by Nikam. The court, however, had said that the accused can challenge the order even during the further trial. — PTI
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84 % Indians ‘low’ on vitamin D
Mumbai, March 25 "In the face of present-day lifestyles, dominated by ungodly working hours and limited outdoor activities, inherent vitamin D deficiency is increasingly becoming an eyesore among a large number of people. (There is) Vitamin D deficiency risk to 84 per cent of Indians," SRL Diagnostics said in its report. The human body's ideal dose of vitamin D ranges between 1,000 and 2,000 IU (International Units) per day. "Vitamin D deficiency was found to be prevalent in around 69 per cent of the population, while 15 per cent more were found to be vitamin D insufficient, thus making around 84 per cent of Indians risk-prone to this,” the study said. — PTI
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Yesteryear star Nanda passes away
Mumbai, March 25 Family sources said the 75-year-old actress, who was the niece of legendary filmmaker V Shantaram, died this morning at her Andheri residence here. "It is shocking as she did not have any history of illness," a relative of hers told PTI. The actress, who excelled equally in playing a coy Indian beauty as well as roles with modern sensibilities, paired up with many stars onscreen including Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna and Shashi Kapoor. Nanda was born in 1939 to Marathi actor-director Vinayak Damodar Karnataki. — PTI
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3 cops, civilian hurt in Maoist violence
Ranchi, March 25 "Murhu police station in-charge P K Jha, a constable and the civilian driver were going in a car to Potna village in Khunti district when the vehicle ran over a landmine, injuring the them," Khunti Superintendent of Police Anish Gupta told PTI. "The injured were out of danger. It appears People's Liberation Front of India ultras were behind it," he added. DIG Praveen Kumar Singh had earlier said all the injured were policemen. In the second incident, security forces clashed with a group headed by former Maoist, Krishna Bhuyan alias Krishna Dehati, at Khetrawarpahar in Garhwa district, exchanging gunfire for about two hours from 4 am. "A jawan of Jharkhand Armed Police, Abdul Satar, suffered bullet injury in his neck. He is admitted to a private hospital in Ranchi," Garhwa SP S K Jha said. Claiming that at least one Maoist from the group had suffered bullet injuries during the operation, the SP said the former Maoist had formed his own group and was engaged in extortion. In another incident, CRPF personnel and Maoist ultras exchanged gunfire in the dense forest of Lugupahar near Jhumra Hill under Lalpania police station, IG (Bokaro) Laxman Prasad Singh said. "There was no casualty on any side," he said. — PTI
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Court allows Tejpal to use pen in jail
Panaji, March 25 The permission to this effect was sought by Tejpal who is currently in judicial custody at Sada sub-jail. Fast track court Judge Vijaya Pol granted permission to Tejpal as jail authorities did not object to his application. Tejpal had filed an application on March 21 before the fast track court in Panaji asking for the scribbling pad and pen to jot down the legal notes. The authorities had told the court that as per the Jail Manual, this facility can be provided to him at prison canteen. — PTI
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Govt studying EC order to defer gas price hike
Bangalore/New Delhi, March 25 Deferring the new price regime by a few months will not have a material bearing on 85 per cent of the gas produced in the country. Firms such as ONGC will continue to sell gas at USD 4.2 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). But the government will have to decide on the gas produced from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 fields. The firm's sales contracts expire at the end of the month and it was looking at renewing supplies to customers including fertiliser plants at the new rates. Moily said delaying the rate hike will have implications on the investment climate and on subsidy as production will be hit in the absence of remunerative prices. "Unless there is production, there is no gas. If there is no gas, (we will have to) import at more than USD 15 to 18 (per mmBtu). That means to say - we have to live with that kind of an import and there will be higher prices. That means the subsidy will go up," he said. An Oil Ministry official in New Delhi said a directive could be issued to RIL to sell gas on existing terms to government-identified customers until further orders. "The matter is sub judice and so we would like to see what the Supreme Court decides (on the issue)," he said. The apex court today resumed hearing a petition by CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta and an NGO challenging the proposed rate hike from April 1. "Government lawyers have already mentioned about the EC directive in the court. We will now submit to the court on the terms (price) RIL can continue supplying gas beyond March 31. We will wait for what the court says," the official said. In New Delhi, RIL Executive Director PMS Prasad met Oil Secretary Saurabh Chandra, apparently to discuss the post-EC directive scenario. The EC order will directly affect only RIL, which produces less than 15 per cent of domestic gas, as its current sales contracts will have to be extended. The RIL is allowed to sell gas from KG-D6 only to customers identified by the government. It supplies 12-13 million standard cubic meters of gas a day to 16 fertiliser units under contracts that expire on March 31. — PTI
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