Be alert on counting day, Kharge and Rahul Gandhi tell Cong's LS poll candidates
New Delhi, Jun 2: Stay alert and put in place measures to check any attempts of rigging on vote counting day, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi told the party's Lok Sabha poll candidates on Sunday, according to sources.
Kharge and Gandhi interacted with Congress candidates during a virtual meeting which was also attended by party general secretaries Jairam Ramesh and K C Venugopal, legislative party leaders and state unit chiefs to review preparations for June 4 -- the day when votes of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls will be counted.
The sources said a standard operating procedure has been shared with the candidates for counting day.
Gandhi and Kharge asked Congress workers and leaders to not leave counting centres till all formalities are completed. They also called on Congress leaders to keep the morale high and stressed that the exit polls were aimed at demoralising the party cadre.
Exit polls on Saturday predicted that Prime Minister Modi will retain power for a third straight term, with the BJP-led NDA expected to win a big majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
Terming the exit polls "bogus", the Congress on Sunday said they were a "deliberate attempt to justify rigging" of the elections and part of "psychological games" being played by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lower the morale of the INDIA bloc workers. Former Congress president Gandhi dubbed the exit polls as "Modi media poll".
Ramesh said that the exit polls were "orchestrated and masterminded by the man whose exit is inevitable and guaranteed on June 4".
"These are all part of the psychological games being played by the outgoing prime minister (Modi) and the outgoing home minister (Amit Shah). The outgoing home minister called up 150 district magistrates and collectors yesterday. The results that the exit polls have come up with, bear no relation to reality," the Congress leader said.
Leaders of several INDIA bloc parties had also met here on Saturday and took stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and asserted they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
The leaders of the alliance dwelt on a host of issues, including the precautions to be taken on the counting day on Tuesday, Kharge had told reporters after two-and-a-half-hour confabulations at his residence.
He had said they have instructed their party workers to not leave the counting halls till all formalities are completed.
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19-yr-old woman found hanging from tree in UP village; juvenile held
Lucknow/Pratapgarh (UP) (PTI): Police have apprehended a 16-year-old boy for his alleged involvement in the rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman whose body was found hanging from a tree in a village here, officials said on Monday.
Additional Superintendent of Police (West), Brijnandan Rai, said that the body of a 19-year-old woman was found hanging from a tree in an orchard in the Manikpur police station area on Sunday morning. A post-mortem examination subsequently confirmed that she had been raped.
Police registered a case against unidentified persons under sections 103(1) (punishment for murder) and 70(1) (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and initiated an investigation.
During the course of the investigation, the police found that the deceased was in contact with a juvenile who was also her relative.
Acting on this information, during a joint checking operation, sub-inspector Amit Kumar Singh of Manikpur police station and SOG In-charge Amit Kumar Chaurasia, along with their team, apprehended the 16-year-old near the Lehdari Ganga River bridge.
The search for other accused persons is ongoing, police said.
According to the police, the woman had gone to sleep after dinner on Saturday night but was found hanging in an orchard nearly 400 metres away from her home the following morning.
Additional Superintendent of Police (West), Brijnandan Rai, had earlier said that the circumstances suggest foul play.
"The victim's slippers and undergarments were recovered 50 metres away from the spot where the body was found. There are visible injury marks on her body," Rai said.
While locals have alleged that the woman was murdered after being raped, the ASP said that it is "prima facie a case of murder."
"Based on the complaint filed by the victim's brother, a case of murder has been registered against unidentified persons," the officer added.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, in a post on X in Hindi on Monday, said, "The news of the heinous murder of a Dalit daughter in Pratapgarh is deeply tragic and condemnable."
"The question remains: why does the spate of murders of 'PDA daughters' continue unabated in Uttar Pradesh? Are the BJP government's claims regarding women's safety merely hollow rhetoric, or is there, in fact, discrimination even in the provision of security for women?" he said.
"Whenever the 'wandering Honourable (ghumantu maananiye)' finds a moment of respite from election campaigning, he should cast a glance at the plight of the daughters of his own Uttar Pradesh. In any case, apart from injustice and oppression, no sister, daughter, or mother of this state holds any hope from you," Yadav added.
