Centre 'deactivating' Aadhaar cards to stop people from getting social benefits: Mamata Banerjee
Suri (WB), Feb 18: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday alleged that the BJP-led central government "deactivated" Aadhaar card of people in the state before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections so that they do not get the benefits of various social welfare schemes of her government through their bank accounts.
Speaking at a public distribution programme here in Birbhum district, Banerjee said that her government would continue paying the beneficiaries of the various state-run welfare schemes even if a person does not have an Aadhaar card.
"Be aware, they (BJP-led Centre) are deactivating Aadhaar cards. Several Aadhar cards have been deactivated in many districts of Bengal. They (BJP-led Centre) are delinking Aadhaar cards so that before polls people do not get benefits of Lakshmi Bhandar through banks, free ration," Banerjee said.
"But we will continue paying the beneficiaries of the schemes even if they have no Aadhaar card. Not a single beneficiary will be affected," she said.
Referring to the agitation of the farmers in Haryana, Punjab demanding the government's guarantee on minimum support price of their produce, Banerjee said that farmers in Bengal do not face any problem.
"I salute farmers' protest. I condemn the attacks on them," the West Bengal CM said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
