What some of our leaders were up to on Friday, November 11.
Bucking anti-incumbency, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party pulled off a hat-trick of wins in Haryana to retain power and halt Congress' comeback attempt in the assembly elections, results of which were announced on Tuesday.
Union minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani said it was "absolutely shocking" to see the former Haryana chief minister sitting calmly on a tractor while having woman members of his party pulling it physically.
As per the latest trends, the BJP and Congress is neck-and-neck with 35 seats. The fledgling JJP, which fought its maiden assembly polls, is also ahead in 10 seats.
'It is evident that the BJP govt in Haryana no longer commands a majority,' former Deputy Chief Minister and JJP leader Dushyant Chautala said in his letter to the governor on Wednesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party replaced at least 25 sitting MPs with new faces as the party released its second list of 72 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on Wednesday.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had earlier admitted that the choice of words by Ayush Sinha, a 2018-batch IAS officer, was wrong but had defended the police action.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which pulled off a hat-trick of wins in Haryana by bucking anti-incumbency, managed to make significant inroads into the Dalit seats and Jat strongholds.
Once people throw out the Congress, they do not let it come back. They put 'no entry' boards for the Congress, he said. It always thought power was its birthright but it has now been exposed, the prime minister said
Top government functionaries, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh attended International Yoga Day events across the country on Friday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a yoga event at the Prabhat Tara ground in Ranchi said everybody should practice the ancient Indian discipline lifelong.
The Haryana minister said he cared little about such threats.
A number of Congress workers were accompanying Gandhi from Punjab's Patiala district, but the procession was stopped on the highway near Teokar village on Pehowa border for an hour. Before Gandhi arrived at the Punjab-Haryana border, senior Haryana police officials at the spot told reporters that they would not allow more than 100 people to gather at one place as per the guidelines in place due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
The Goa police team reached Sangwan's residence on Sunday and made some enquiries there before leaving for Gurugram to conduct further investigation, sources said.
Jannayak Janta Party leader Dushyant Chautala on Thursday said his party is ready to support the Congress in the Rajya Sabha election and ruled out any alliance with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Haryana before or after the next assembly polls.
A day earlier while extending his support to the farmers gathered at Delhi's borders protesting the Centre's new farm laws, Sangwan had tendered his resignation as chairman of the Haryana Livestock Development Board.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has been fielded again from Karnal.
Mobs killed a cleric in a late night attack on a mosque, torched an eatery and vandalised shops as communal violence that began in Haryana's Nuh spilled over into Gurugram, taking the death toll to five, the police said on Tuesday.
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One person lost his life while three were injured during celebratory gunfire at a wedding in Karnal, Haryana allegedly by controversial Hindu Mahasabha leader Sadhvi Deva Thakur and her security guards.
Another video of the two Rohtak sisters, who grabbed news headlines by thrashing molesters on a moving bus, surfaced on Tuesday showing one them beating up a youth in a park for allegedly teasing them.
He also accused Pakistan of wanting to destabilise and weaken India through terrorism.
The voter turnout recorded in the 2019 assembly polls was around 68 per cent.
The Hindu-right group carried out its demonstration despite the imposition of CrPC Section 144 in the city.
"Centre and state will soon begin the process of giving reservation, following the Delhi High court order," Khattar told reporters in a joint press conference along with All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti chairperson Yashpal Malik.
India achieved a major milestone in its vaccination programme against COVID-19 as the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 100-crore mark on Thursday.
A bomb disposal squad was rushed to the spot after an unexploded bomb was found a few hundred metres away from the helipad used by Punjab and Haryana chief ministers in Chandigarh on Monday, officials said.
While Singh slammed Khattar for stopping farmers from moving towards the national capital, terming it as 'totally undemocratic and unconstitutional', the latter told the Punjab chief minister to stop 'inciting innocent farmers'.
What did Mamata and Yogi, who were seated one seat away from each other, say to each other, we wonder.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The committee has been tasked to come up with policy measures to boost agriculture exports, raise growth in food processing, attract investments in modern market infrastructure, value chains and logistics.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday sought four additional companies of central forces following communal clashes in the state and said a battalion of the India Reserve Battalion will also be deployed in Nuh.
The high court also took note of Khattar's statement on Friday in which he blamed anti-social elements for the violence, which also spilled over into neighbouring Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi.
By conventional yardsticks, Das was an audacious choice by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP president Amit Shah, like Devendra Fadnavis was in Maharashtra and Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana. Will his choice pay off in the elections next month?
Two home guards were killed and at least 15 others, including several policemen, were injured on Monday as a mob in Haryana's Nuh district tried to stop a Vishwa Hindu Parishad procession, pelting stones and setting cars on fire, officials said.
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Cow vigilante Monu Manesar, who was booked by Rajasthan Police for the murder of two Muslim men in February and is also accused of inciting communal hatred in home state Haryana, was arrested Tuesday, officials said.
Haryana government on Saturday said it is considering making it mandatory for a sportsman to compete for at least six years.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet keeping in view the sentiments of a large number of people who felt that historical had been "distorted" in the period drama.
