39 workers return after being stranded in Saudi Arabia for a year
Hyderabad, Jun 17: As many as 39 workers from Telangana,who had been stranded for around a year in Saudi Arabia, have returned here Monday, thanks to the efforts of the Centre and the Telangana government.
According to an official release, these daily wage labourers went to the Gulf nation last year to work in a construction company.
Most of them belonged to Karimnagar, Nirmal, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts.
The company, which hired these labourers, had allegedly not been paying salaries to them for the past six months and they were made to live in "terrible" condition, without proper food.
The labourers wrote to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) working president K T Rama Rao, over Twitter, seeking his intervention in helping them return to India, it said.
Rama Rao requested the Indian Embassy at Riyadh to help them, the release said.
He had also requested Telangana Chief Secretary SK Joshi to come up with a proper solution to address the problems of the labourers.
The Indian Embassy arranged for temporary exit visas and also flight tickets for the stranded workers, it said.
Rama Rao expressed his happiness over their return.
He also thanked the Indian Embassy and Telangana state NRI Affairs officials for their prompt response, the release added.
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West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee moves SC against SIR
New Delhi (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state, sources said on Sunday.
The petition names the Election Commission (EC) and the chief electoral officer of West Bengal as respondents. It was filed before the apex court on January 28, the sources said.
Banerjee arrived in Delhi on Sunday. She is scheduled to meet Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar at 4 pm on Monday to discuss the ongoing SIR exercise in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo would be accompanied by a delegation of party leaders.
She is also likely to meet party MPs in the Parliament House on Monday.
Talking to reporters at the Kolkata airport before leaving for the national capital, Banerjee claimed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre is resorting to the SIR exercise because it is certain of its imminent defeat in the West Bengal Assembly polls, due in a few months, and said the saffron party should contest the election politically and democratically.
The West Bengal chief minister has written several letters to the CEC, raising concerns over the conduct of the exercise.
In her most recent letter to the CEC on January 31, she alleged that the methodology and approach of the exercise went beyond the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the relevant rules, causing "immense inconvenience and agony" to citizens.
Earlier, TMC leaders, including Rajya Sabha MPs Derek O'Brien and Dola Sen, had moved the apex court, challenging certain aspects of how the SIR is being carried out in West Bengal.
