NEWS

Shiv Sena leader and former Union minister Anant Geete has said that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, who once “backstabbed” Congress, cannot be a “guru” for Sena workers.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the Sena, NCP and Congress in Maharashtra was only an “adjustment”, he said at a rally in Raigad district, his home turf, on Monday.

While the opposition BJP claimed that Geete expressed the views of Sena workers, an NCP leader said he had been sidelined and the comment did not warrant reaction.

Charanjit Singh Channi has emerged as a compromise and politically correct choice for the Congress in Punjab for the chief ministerial position. Both factions — led by Captain Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu — could not oppose Channi as Punjab chief minister. He is a Sikh and a Dalit — a deciding combination in Punjab election.

However, Channi's elevation as chief minister in Punjab seems to have a ripple effect in Uttar Pradesh that will go to the polls around the same time as Punjab. Though the Congress that is facing the challenge of retaining power in Punjab has practically very little stake in Uttar Pradesh's electoral outcome early next year, its Dalit candidate move saw reverberations in India's most populous state.

Senior BJP leader from Tamil Nadu and Union minister of state for information and broadcasting (I&B), L Murugan on Tuesday filed his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha by-election from Madhya Pradesh. He is believed to be elected unopposed to the Upper House as the Congress has refused to field any candidate for the post.

Murugan reached the state assembly along with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union minister Prahlad Patel, BJP MP chief Vishnu Dutt Sharma and other party leaders to file his nomination papers. He submitted the papers to the returning officer and principal secretary of assembly, Awadhesh Pratap Singh.

The Election Commission had earlier this month announced by-polls for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh after it fell vacant due to the resignation of former Union minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, who has been appointed governor of Karnataka. The BJP decided to field L Murugan as its candidate from the state.

Former Uttarakhand chief minister and AICC general secretary in-charge of Punjab, Harish Rawat, on Monday said that he prays to the Ganga for a chance to see a Dalit Chief Minister in Uttarakhand after “history” was created in Punjab with the appointment of a Dalit (Charanjit Singh Channi) to the top position.

Addressing a public meeting in Laksar area in Haridwar during the Uttarakhand Congress parivartan yatra, Rawat, without naming Channi, said everyone was crying when the latter spoke about his family background at a press conference.

Rawat, from the Thakur community and a frontrunner for the CM post in Uttarakhand, said that Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and the Punjab legislature party unanimously elected a person from a poor family as the chief minister.