Focus

New Delhi, Sep 28 (IANS) A day after the probe agency CBI arrested Vijay Nair in connection with the alleged corruption in Delhi's liquor policy, party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that he was a mere party worker.

"They arrested Vijay Nair yesterday. I fail to understand why they have arrested him. He is just a small party worker. He handles communication for us. Earlier, he handled the communication work in Punjab and we formed the government there. Now, he is handling the communication strategy in Gujarat. He was handling social media outreach in Gujarat", said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal while addressing the media here on Wednesday.

Kejriwal alleged that Nair was forced to take the name of Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. "Over the past few days, he was being called for questioning every day. He was being pressured to name Manish Sisodia, and threatened with arrest if he did not name him. Earlier, they raided Manish Sisodia, examined the locker and found nothing. They are trying to crush the AAP", Kejriwal alleged.

The government's first duty should be to liberate the people from inflation and unemployment, but the government is not interested in solving the problems being faced by the common man, said Kejriwal.

"People from across the country are suffering because of price rise and inflation. Everything is expensive, there is joblessness and businesses are shutting down. At a time like this, it is the biggest job of any government to find solutions. But they don't care. They only want to indulge in dirty politics. They are only looking for ways to finish AAP, to crush Kejriwal and AAP," he said.

He added further that Manish Sisodia too can be arrested in the next one week. But it will not have any impact on AAP party workers. "If they can arrest a small party worker like Nair, they can arrest anyone. Today I appeal to all AAP workers across the county to be ready for arrest", the chief minister said.

--IANS
avr/

Lucknow, Sep 28 (IANS) In a major development, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has said that it can join the opposition alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, provided the alliance partners are ready to project Mayawati as their Prime Ministerial candidate.

BSP national spokesperson Dharamveer Chaudhary said that the "ultimate decision, however, will be taken by Behenji (Mayawati)",

Chaudhary added that if the opposition parties reach out to BSP in a respectful manner and apprise the party chief of their agenda, there is no harm that the party would see in aligning with them.

"The opposition parties have no leader of Mayawati's stature. She is a big leader with a pan-India appeal," he said.

Asked about the possibility of an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav, Chaudhary said: "Mayawati ji is a much bigger leader than Akhilesh Yadav. She has been the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh four times, while Akhilesh has held the post only once. She also is a large-hearted eader and forgives the mistakes of others. If Akhilesh accepts her as a leader with a clean heart, we will welcome him with flowers."

Notably, the BSP was kept out of the meetings of the opposition parties called by TMC and NCP when they were to decide their candidates for the President and Vice President posts.

Mayawati had expressed her anger in public in a tweet on the opposition's behaviour.

--IANS
amita/ksk/

New Delhi, Sep 26 (IANS) After the action taken by the various central investigating agencies against the extremist organisation -- Popular Front of India (PFI), the demand for banning the latter has started growing louder with each passing day.

The Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an affiliate of the right wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has demanded an immediate ban on the PFI from the Central government after holding a meeting with other nationalist organisations.

The RSS Muslim wing has asked the Union government: "If the PFI has become so dangerous, then why is it not being banned at the earliest? Why are the organisation's bank accounts not being frozen yet? Why are its properties not being attached? Why strict action is not being taken against the leaders, office-bearers and representatives of the PFI on the basis of their involvement in violence-related incidents?"

However, a few days ago the Union government told the Supreme Court that PFI is being banned in several states and it is going to impose a ban on the extremist organisation.

After a meeting with other nationalist organisations, Mohammad Afzal and Shahid Akhtar, the National Convenor of Muslim Rashtriya Manch, described PFI as a more dangerous terrorist organisation than SIMI and said that the evidences recovered during the raids conducted by the central investigating agencies are enough proof to ban this organisation. Hence, the government should immediately ban the PFI by taking strictest action against it.

The Rashtriya Muslim Manch Media In-charge Shahid Saeed said that all the evidences found against the PFI clearly shows that it is a terrorist organisation which receives funding from foreign countries and slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad' are raised in the rallies conducted by it.

--IANS
stp/khz/

Jaipur, Sep 25 (IANS) The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting called on Sunday at Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence has been cancelled as more than 90 Congress MLAs loyal to the veteran party leader threatened to resign, while demanding the new CM face be picked from their group.

"The MLAs want either Gehlot or his pick to be Chief Minister instead of Sachin Pilot," Rajasthan minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas told the media.

Gehlot reportedly received a call from Rajya Sabha MP K.C. Venugopal who asked him to "handle the situation" but the Chief Minister told the Congress' central leadership that it was "not in his hands".

Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Pilot, meanwhile, is believed to be the central leaders' choice for the chief ministerial position.

A delegation from the Gehlot camp has went to meet senior Congress leader Ajay Maken who is in Jaipur as observer for the CLP meeting.

These include state Urban Development and Housing Minister Shanti Dhariwal, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Mahesh Joshi.

Maken, speaking to the media, said: "We are not going to Delhi as of now. We have been asked to take feedback from each and every single MLA."

Meanwhile, sources said that the Congress high command has called both Gehlot and Pilot to Delhi.

--IANS
arc/pgh

New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) The sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have claimed that apart from the BJP and the RSS leaders, a few Congress leaders were also on the radar of a few who were either associated or were in touch with the PFI.

A source said that they came know about this during the course of interrogation of arrested members of PFI.

The sources have claimed that the Congress leaders from southern India were the target of a few persons who were in touch with the Popular Front of India (PFI).

Both NIA and the ED are currently investigating the PFI case.

The NIA is investigating a total of 19 PFI related cases.

Sources have claimed that PFI members had known that the government is going to take action against them due to their suspicious activities and hence they had created a number of dummy organisations to fool the intelligence agencies.

--IANS
atk/pgh

Lucknow, Sep 25 (IANS) Yoga will soon be made compulsory for school students in Uttar Pradesh.

The policy, which is expected to be released soon, aims at cultivating a strong sporting culture, development of sports infrastructure and promoting sportspersons, even in the most remote parts of the state.

Additional chief secretary (sports) Navneet Sehgal said, "The aim of the policy is to increase participation of young children by identifying talent in the age group of 5 to 14 years and strengthening of the sports ecosystem through public private partnership, public association partnership and public federation partnership."

He said that the Centre has given consent to develop Guru Gobind Singh Sports College, Lucknow as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for three sports. Courses in sports management, sports journalism, sports law, sports data analytics, among others, will be conducted for the youth.

High performance centres will support the development of 20 best athletes from each sport for national and state level competitions.

Sehgal further said that each district will have one District Sports Centre to provide training to promising young talent.

The DSC will also include a District Sports Coaching Centre (DSCC) to impart basic sports and fitness training.

Under the new policy, sports federations and international level players will be given land on lease for setting up of academies. Gram Sabha land earmarked for 'Khel Ka Maidan' will be given on lease for rural academies. At least 50 per cent players in the academy will be from UP.

To encourage participation in this programme, social media and other channels will be used for spreading information regarding admissions etc.

The state government also proposes to create the Uttar Pradesh Sports Development Fund with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crores.

Under the policy, yoga will be compulsory in the training program of players and also for school students.

Facilities will be provided for training and practice of yoga in sports stadiums of all district headquarters.

UP Sports Development and Promotion Committee will work to promote sports among all sections of society, like women, handicapped, etc.

It will identify talent and develop their skills. It will also coordinate between sports associations and departments such as youth welfare, education, social welfare, women welfare, health, urban development, industry, army, railways, public undertakings and voluntary organizations.

--IANS
amita/dpb

By Saiyed Moziz Imam Zaidi
New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) The coming week Congress leaders will be filing nomination papers for the presidential poll. It now seems that apart from Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari will throw his hat into the ring and some others may also join the fray.


While the Gandhis are likely to be neutral in the elections, party interim president Sonia Gandhi has asserted that the polls will be fair and she will not endorse any candidate.

Sources said that the issue of Rajasthan in the event of Gehlot joining national politics was also discussed, but there is no official word on it yet.

This will be the first election since 1998 that a non-Gandhi will be elected as party president. After Sonia Gandhi got elected for the first time defeating Jitendra Prasada, since then she was elected unopposed and in 2017, Rahul Gandhi was elected unopposed.

Gehlot said that Rahul Gandhi has refused to contest the party president's election and wants a non-Gandhi to be the party president. Gehlot said, "I will be filing nomination soon and it's the need of the hour that the opposition should be strong."

Gehlot will have to relinquish the post of Chief Minister if he gets elected as Rahul Gandhi has hinted that the Congress will adhere to the 'one man one post' formula as per the Udaipur declaration.

When asked he said "I think we have made a commitment in Udaipur and I hope that it will be maintained."

The Congress had reiterated that anyone can contest the party president's poll as it was a democratic and transparent process and no nod was required from the leadership.

Jairam Ramesh, party general secretary said, "It's important to reiterate that any member is welcome to contest for Congress president. This is a democratic and transparent process. Nobody needs anybody's nod to contest, especially that of the party leadership."

Jairam has also asked the spokespersons not to comment on any candidate as their duty is to highlight that the Congress is the only party which is conducting an election.

The direction comes a day after party spokesperson Gourav Vallabh openly supported the candidature of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

"We all have our individual preferences but our job is to highlight ONLY the following," he said in a message to AICC spokespersons, media panellists, office-bearers of the communications department.

He said that the Congress is the only political party to have a democratic and transparent system in place for election to the post of its president and this should be highlighted.

The Congress is the only political party in India to have an independent Election Authority to conduct organisational elections. A person wanting to contest needs no nod from anybody to do so except from 10 PCC delegates for filing the nomination form, he added.

The Congress' central election authority had issued a notification for the AICC president polls on September 22.

According to the notification, while the nomination forms will be available from Thursday, the filing of nominations will take place between September 24 and 30.

Scrutiny of the nominations will take place on October 1, and the same day, a valid candidate list will be published. The last date of withdrawal is October 8 following which, a final list will be brought out. While the poll will be held on October 17, counting will take place on October 19.

--IANS
miz/bg

Surat, Sep 24 (IANS) Gujarat's Harmeet Desai and West Bengal's Sutirtha Mukherjee clinched the men's and women's singles table tennis titles at the 36th National Games, here on Saturday.

Local hero Harmeet thrashed Haryana's Soumyajit Ghosh 4-0 while Sutirtha proved too good for national champion Sreeja Akula, with the Olympian winning 4-1 in the women's final.

Sutirtha ended the Games on a high with three gold medals -- women's singles, doubles and team -- while Harmeet and another Gujarat paddler Manush Shah now have two gold medals to show for their efforts.

Gujarat men had won the team gold, with Harmeet and Manush playing stellar roles in front of adoring crowds. The latter also clinched the mixed doubles title, partnering wife Krittwika Sinha Roy.

West Bengal emerged as the overall champions from the table tennis arena bagging four gold medals, one silver and three bronze. Gujarat finished second with three gold and three bronze. Maharashtra finished third with one silver and four bronze medals.

The final day of the table tennis event well and truly belonged to Harmeet and Sutirtha as they vanquished top seeds G Sathiyan and Manika Batra in their respective semifinals before dominating the gold medal matches.

Harmeet, who had won the silver medal in Kerala seven years ago, wasn't going to let go of another chance of standing atop the podium and began the match with an aggressive mindset. He kept Ghosh on the defensive by finding angles from both forehand and backhand shots to win 11-8, 11-4, 11-7, 11-8.

Sutirtha was equally clinical in quelling the attacking instinct of 2022 Commonwealth Games mixed doubles champion Sreeja, who had thrashed the likes of Ayhika Mukherjee and Diya Chitale on her way to the final.

Sreeja also ended up on the losing side in the mixed doubles final as she and partner FR Snehit were beaten in straight sets by Shah and Krittwika.

Earlier, Sutirtha had teamed up with Ayhika to defeat Karnataka's Yashaswini Ghorpade and Kushi V in straight sets in the women's doubles final.

West Bengal's Jeet Chandra and Ronit Bhanja clinched the men's doubles gold, beating statemates Arjun Ghosh and Anirban Ghosh in straight sets.

--IANS

avn/bsk

New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has claimed that members of Popular Front of India (PFI) had allegedly collected a large amount of cash to the tune of Rs 120 crore to carry out attacks on important personalities.

ED sources claimed that Prime Minister Narender Modi was also on the radar of PFI, which had planned to attack the Prime Minister during a rally in July 2020. However, due to some reason, PFI didn't go ahead with the plan.

The sources claimed that the PFI members had even planned to organise a terror camp to execute an attack on Modi.

The sources said that around Rs 120 crore were collected by the PFI to carry out attacks and create unrest and riot-like situation in the country.

The ED had arrested a PFI member named Shafeequr Payeth from Kerala, who was produced before a special court in Lucknow on Friday. The remand paper of the ED, which has been accessed by IANS, said that the PFI was planning to carry out attacks on important personalities.

"In the past few years, PFI collected around Rs 120 crore, including cash coming from abroad. The cash was deposited in different bank accounts belonging to PFI," the remand paper read.

It added that some part of the money was allegedly used in North-East Delhi riots in 2020. The money was also about to be used to purchase arms and ammunition to create unrest and carry out terror acts in Uttar Pradesh.

The sources also said that PFI has scores of active members in the Gulf countries.

--IANS
atk/arm

Kolkata, Sep 24 (IANS) Amir Khan, the prime accused in duping several people through a mobile gaming app and from whose residence the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had recovered Rs 17.32 crore of cash on September 10, has been finally arrested from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh by a team of Kolkata Police.

A city police official informed on Saturday morning that Amir Khan was absconding when the ED sleuths were recovering cash from his residence at Shahi Astabal Lane in Garden Reach area in Kolkata.

However, the police started tracing him by tracking the tower locations but faced difficulties in the process as the accused constantly changed his hideout from one city to another.

However, he has been arrested from Ghaziabad and the arresting team of city police has started the process of bringing him back to Kolkata through transit remand. However, Kolkata Police is yet to specify the exact time of his arrest.

Kolkata Police said that the residence from where ED sleuths recovered huge cash was actually owned by Amir Khan's father Naser Khan, who is a transport trader by profession.

Besides the huge amount of cash, the ED sleuths had also recovered certain documents and a diary from the room where the cash was stashed on September 10.

The ED conducted raids on September 10 under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at six premises in Kolkata.

A case was registered at the Park Street police station in Kolkata based on a complaint filed by Federal Bank authorities against Amir Khan and others.

Amir Khan had launched a mobile gaming application named E-Nuggets, which was designed for the purpose of defrauding the public.

During the initial period, the users were rewarded with commission and the balance in the wallet could be withdrawn in a hassle-free manner which provided initial confidence to the users, who started investing bigger amounts for greater percentage of commission and a greater number of purchase orders.

After collecting handsome amounts from the public, all of a sudden withdrawal from the said app was stopped on one pretext or the other. Thereafter, all data, including profile information, was wiped out from the said app server.

--IANS
src/svn/