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The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined urgent hearing to Patidar leader Hardik Patel’s plea against his conviction so that he can contest Lok Sabha polls.

Hardik Patel, who had recently joined the Congress, had filed a plea in the top court challenging the Gujarat High Court ‘sorder rejecting stay on his conviction in the 2015 Vispur rioting case. The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra. The bench also comprising Justices M M Shantanagoudar and Navin Sinha told the counsel appearing for Patel that there was no urgency in hearing the matter as the high court order was passed in August last year.

“The order was passed in August 2018. What is the urgency now?” the bench said while refusing to accord urgent hearing on the petition, news agency PTI reported.

Hardik Patel moved the top court after his plea for stay was rejected by Gujarat High Court last week. The Patidar leader, who joined the Congress in March, was awarded a two-year prison sentence by a Visnagar court in July 2018 for leading a mob that ransacked local MLA Rishikesh Patel’s office in July 2015.

The Representation of the People Act bars anyone who has been sentenced to two or more years of imprisonment from contesting elections.

The 25-year-old, who is said to be keen on contesting from Gujarat’s Jamnagar, is running against time as April 4 is the last date for filing of nominations for the polls in Gujarat, to be held in the second phase of elections.

“My only crime is that I have raised voice against the BJP. I will campaign for the Congress and we will form the government,” Hardik wrote Twitter after the HC verdict.

Advocate Dharmesh Devani, who was representing the state government, said the high court accepted the fact that Patel had been a “lawbreaker” and so cannot contest an election.

The railways found itself caught on the wrong side of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) yet again when passengers on Friday reported that tea was being served in paper cups with “Main Bhi Chowkidar” (‘I’m also a watchman’) written on them.

As the image of the paper cup tweeted by a passenger on New Delhi Kathgodam Shatabdi Express went viral, the railways said its has withdrawn the cup and penalised the contractor.

It has been claimed that tea was served in these cups twice. The advertisement on the cup was by Sankalp Foundation, an NGO.

This issue comes days after the railways was found in violation of the poll code for issuing tickets with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pictures on them. Later, the railways said that it was an “unintentional and inadvertent mistake”.

“Reports that tea has been served in cups labelled as “Main Bhi Chowkidar” have been investigated. This was without any prior approval of IRCTC. Explanation has been sought from supervisor/pantry Incharges over dereliction of duty.

“A fine of Rs 1 lakh fine has been imposed on the service provider. A show cause notice has also been served to the service provider for this misconduct,” an IRCTC spokesperson said.

The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday attached hotel Holiday Inn, valued at Rs 120 crore, located in the upscale Aerocity area in the national capital, in connection with a money laundering case against alleged aviation lobbyist Deepak Talwar. Talwar, who was deported from Dubai in January this year and arrested by the agency, “beneficially owned” a company, Wave Hospitality Private Limited, that, the ED alleged, used tainted money to construct the hotel, next to the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

The multi-storeyed plush hotel boasts of some of the most expensive boarding and dining facilities in the Aerocity complex that was constructed few years ago for international and domestic air passengers coming to Delhi.

The agency said a provisional order for attaching the property was issued by it under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED is probing Talwar in a criminal case of money laundering. 

The agency alleged that he “illegally engaged in liasoning/lobbying with politicians, ministers and other public servants and officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation for airlines such as Emirates, Air Arabia and Qatar Airways for securing undue benefits for them” during the tenure of the UPA government.

“He (Talwar) illegally managed to secure favourable traffic rights for these airlines during 2008-09 at the cost of the national carrier, Air India,” the agency said in a statement. The investigation revealed that in lieu of securing favourable traffic rights, these airlines made payments to the tune of Rs 272 crore to Talwar during 2008-09, it said.

“It has been revealed that Talwar created a web of entities owned by him and his family members in India and international offshore havens to launder proceeds of crime of Rs 272 crore received from foreign airlines,” the statement said.

“Part of these payments were made to an account in Bank of Singapore, belonging to a company Asiafield Limited registered in the British Virgin Islands and beneficially owned by Deepak Talwar,” it added. These proceeds were “layered” through a series of international money transfers, to finally integrate in India in Wave Hospitality Private Limited, a company beneficially owned and controlled by Talwar and his family members, in the name of his son, Aditya Talwar, the ED alleged.

Running a coalition government, either in the states or at the Centre is not easy. There are many an example of how they collapsed at the whim of a party. Over time, we are seeing how challenging it is for even larger nationwide parties to sew up alliances, especially when the smaller parties at the states try, and succeed, in calling the shots. In Maharashtra, where the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena have tied up with a 25-23 Lok Sabha seat-sharing arrangement, the alliance is not out of the woods yet. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis — the key point man for the BJP in the state — has now been forced to officially ask his cadre to help the ally Shiv Sena wherever BJP is not contesting.

The directive is more towards ensuring that the Shiv Sena softens up sufficiently to allow the BJP to field Kirit Somaiya from a Mumbai seat. The Sena is not only averse, but has set its face against his candidature because it nurses a grievance: Somaiya has been a battering ram against the Sena, especially in its handling of the Mumbai civic body. One does not yet know what the final choice of the BJP would be for the Mumbai North East seat, but it has been warned explicitly enough that the Sena would not countenance such a nomination. There are sufficient indications that the Sena may encourage a rebel from within its party should Kirit Somaiya be put on the ballot. BJP apparently sees a real risk if, somehow, Sena’s concurrence was obtained.

To massage the Sena into agreeing, the BJP even loaned a candidate of its own to the Sena for the Palghar seat which it was assigned to it, but had no candidate who could get past the post in polling. Yet, the matter has not been resolved to the liking of the BJP. Frankly, it is not the business of the Sena to pressurise an ally about its choice. A national party is being held hostage by a regional party.

This is an unusual situation. In coalition governments, the choice of who the minister should be is of the partner, not of the coalition. Sena withdrew Suresh Prabhu from the Union Cabinet for undisclosed reasons and the prime minister of the time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had no choice. When Chhagan Bhujbal, deputy chief minister in the Sushilkumar Shinde cabinet had been asked to resign by the NCP, Shinde had to wait for the NCP’s nominee — whoever it was — to fill the vacancy.

Likewise, once the seats are allocated after discussions, one party asks for a change on the perceptions it has about its electability and after assessing which party stood a better chance, it is agreed to. Even this is rare because seats are distributed after assessing each party’s worth in the constituency.

External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is known for her wit on Twitter. And she displayed it once again on Saturday morning when she replied to a question posed to her on the social networking site.

Swaraj, who had changed her Twitter handle to Chowkidar Sushma Swaraj in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ campaign, was asked why she called herself Chowkidar.

In his question, the person wrote, “Ma’,m we thought you were our Foreign Minister. The only one most sensible in BJP. Why do you call yourself Chowkidar.”

The person was replying to her tweet regarding the death of an Indian in a stabbing incident in Munich.

In response to the question, Swaraj tweeted, “Because I am doing Chowkidari of Indian interests and Indian nationals abroad.”

Swaraj is known for her personal engagement with people on Twitter in addressing their concerns. This is one of the primary reasons that make her popular on the social media platform.

In 2017, a Twitter user had written to her on the micro-blogging site saying, “I am stuck on mars, food sent via Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is Mangalyaan-II being sent ? @isro”

In response, Swaraj had tweeted, “Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you.”

The Samajwadi Party has officially confirmed the end of its alliance with an eastern UP party whose giant killing act on the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat in the 2018 bypolls cemented Akhilesh Yadav’s alliance or “gathbandhan” with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati had launched a test version of their alliance on the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats by taking on the BJP jointly in bypolls to the seats of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Maurya.

In a result they shocked many, the SP-BSP joint candidates had won both seats.

The victory was astonishing in Gorakhpur, where the Samajwadi Party fielded Praveen Nishad of the Nishad Party, which has support from the OBC Nishad community, on a Samajwadi Party symbol. Mr Nishad managed to defeat the BJP on a seat Yogi Adityanath held continuously for over two decades.

However, the Nishad party now seems set to switch over to the BJP, in what could be a blow to the Akhilesh Yadav-Mayawati-Ajit Singh coalition in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav, meanwhile, has announced a new candidate for the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat – a Nishad community leader from his party. 

The developments are in sharp contrast to just two days ago, when Akhilesh held a press conference in Lucknow, with Nishad Party leaders besides him, and announced that the Nishad party would be part of the UP gathbandhan. There was speculation that Praveen Nishad would be given the ticket from Gorakhpur again, but Akhilesh Yadav did not announce it.

But within 48 hours, the Nishad Party chief met with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and told the media his party was not with the gathbandhan anymore. “Akhilesh Yadav had said he’ll make announcement on seats for our party. But they didn’t put our name on poster/letter or anything. My party workers, authorities, core committee were upset,” Mr Nishad said, adding that his party was now free to either contest independently or go with another formation. 

The Nishad Party is no more in alliance with the Samajwadi Party,” Nikky Nishad, also known as Riteash Nishad, media in-charge of the party told news agency PTI in Gorakhpur.

“There was conflict between the two parties on Maharajganj seat as Nishad Party wanted to contest with its own party symbol whereas Samajwadi Party was not ready for it,” he added.

The party workers were not willing to contest on the Samajwadi Party symbol and many of them began quitting, he said. “So, our national president Sanjay Nishadji went to Lucknow and on late Thursday, it was confirmed that the Nishad Party is no more a part of the alliance,” he said.

A CRPF bus was damaged on Saturday after an explosion took place in a car on Jammu-Srinagar Highway. No casualties have been reported.

The incident occurred in Ramban’s Banihal district due to cylinder leak, an official said, adding that no terror links have been established yet. 

Ahead of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s scheduled visit to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, posters portraying her as a ‘ram bhakt‘ (followers of Lord Ram) have emerged across the city. 

In the poster, Lord Ram’s image has been placed in the centre and Priyanka is seen on the left side with folded hands. On the right side, her brother – Congress president Rahul Gandhi is seen praying.

In September last year, similar posters depicting Rahul as a ‘shiv bhakt’ or devotee of Lord Shiva emerged in Bhopal ahead of Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections 2018.

The Congress general secretary for Uttar Pradesh East is scheduled to kick-off a three-day election campaign to Ayodhya on March 27. Since her official political debut in January 2019, Priyanka has already visited two significant temple towns in the state – PM Modi’s constituency Varanasi and Prayagraj. She is likely to halt at 32 points between Faizabad to Amethi including Raebareli and Barabanki during the campaign, sources told news agency ANI.

Several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders raised questions on Priyanka’s Ayodhya visit. 

“Those who are questioning the existence of Lord Ram, what are they going to find in Ayodhya? They (Congress) did not go to Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. There was a `deepotsav` event in Ayodhya. That was also not attended by them. They are going (to Ayodhya) as they have remembered Babur (Mughal ruler). They want to search for his remains there. So, Priyanka is a Siberian bird, who migrates from one place to another after seeing the weather conditions”  questioned Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister and BJP leader Mohsin Raza on Monday, dubbing her campaign a “picnic”.

UP BJP spokesperson Chandrmohan also took a dig, asking if she would “say sorry” there for her party “putting hurdles” in building the Ram temple.

“Will Priyanka Gandhi Vadra take the pious Saryu river waters in her hand there and atone the sins committed by the Congress in Ayodhya?” he asked.

The Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19. UP will vote in all the phases on April 11, 18, 23, 29 and May 6, 12 and 19. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.There are 80 Lok Sabha seats at stake in UP. 

Nearly 30,000 world maps showing Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India and Taiwan as a separate country were destroyed by customs authorities in a northeastern Chinese city last week.

Reports said it was the largest such exercise in recent years and was carried out to protect China’s “territorial integrity”. The maps were in English and manufactured by a company in a Chinese province called, Anhui.

Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by Beijing as a part of China and depicted on its official maps as a part of south Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Beijing also considers Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, as a breakaway province to be eventually unified.

The Supreme Court Tuesday termed as “very, very serious” the revelations made by CBI in its fresh status report relating to the recent interrogation of the then Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar in connection with the Saradha chit fund case.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it cannot “close its eyes” if some “very, very serious facts” are disclosed to it and directed CBI to file an application seeking appropriate relief against Kumar, who had earlier headed the state SIT on the chit fund case.

The bench, which also comprised Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, granted 10 days to the probe agency for filing the application.

Kumar and others can respond to the plea seven days thereafter.

Supreme Court said that as the CBI’s status report was filed in a sealed cover, it cannot pass any order at the moment without hearing the other side.

The apex court was hearing the CBI’ contempt application against various senior officials of the West Bengal government including state’s DGP and then Kolkata police chief on the ground of non-cooperation in its probe and alleged destruction of evidence.