Congress to formally start seat-sharing talks with allies next week
New Delhi (PTI): Congress's National Alliance Committee, set up to facilitate seat-sharing talks with allies, will hold meetings with party leaders from the states here on Friday and Saturday, and the negotiations with the allies will formally start next week after the panel submits a report to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
With the clock ticking for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and preparations taking shape for the party's "Bharat Nyay Yatra", the Congress, which sounded its poll bugle at a rally in Nagpur on Thursday, is set to hold a series of high-level meetings.
According to sources, Kharge held an interaction with the Congress general secretaries in-charge of all states after the rally at Nagpur on Thursday evening and discussed the upcoming polls and organisational issues.
The five-member National Alliance Committee of the Congress is scheduled to hold meetings on Friday and Saturday with leaders from the states where the party is likely to contest the general election in an alliance with other INDIA bloc constituents.
The committee will then submit a report to the party president, providing details for the negotiation, including listing out the seats where the Congress is in a strong position.
The sources added that while in some states, talks with the allies have already started at the local level, the negotiations will formally start next week, after the report is presented. They also said while the equations with other parties may differ in states, the final call on the alliance will be taken from a "national perspective".
The committee formed last week is headed by senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik and has Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Salman Khurshid and Mohan Prakash as its members.
The first meeting of the party's manifesto committee for the general election, headed by former Union minister P Chidambaran, is scheduled to be held on January 4.
Kharge, along with former party chief Rahul Gandhi and general secretary K C Venugopal, held a series of meetings with state Congress chiefs and other leaders over the last few days. While broad discussions were held on forming alliances, the meetings largely focused on organisational matters and the strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
Another meeting will be held on January 4 with party leaders, including Congress chiefs and legislative party leaders from the states through which the "Bharat Nyay Yatra" will pass. The final route of the march will be decided at the meeting.
The detailed route of the yatra will be announced on January 8 while a theme song will be released on January 12.
The sources said the yatris will cover around 120 kilometres a day, including around five to seven km on foot.
A number of public meetings and interactive sessions with locals and marginalised groups have been planned during the yatra.
The "Bharat Nyay Yatra" led by Gandhi will start from Manipur in the east on January 14 and conclude in Mumbai in western India in March. It will cover 14 states and 85 districts.
The march will traverse through Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Leaders from other INDIA bloc parties are also expected to join the yatra, though the plans are yet to be finalised.
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Questioning religious practices will break religion, civilisation: SC in Dawoodi Bohras case
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Thursday remarked that if individuals start questioning certain religious practices or matters of religion before a constitutional court then there will be hundreds of petitions questioning different rituals, leading to the breaking of religions and the civilisation.
The nine-judge Constitution bench is hearing petitions related to discrimination against women at religious places, including the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, and on the ambit and scope of the religious freedom practised by multiple faiths, including Dawoodi Bohras.
The bench comprises Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices B V Nagarathna, M M Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B Varale, R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi.
The Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community filed a PIL in 1986 seeking the setting aside of a 1962 judgment, which had struck down the Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act, 1949 -- this law made excommunication of any community member illegal.
The 1962 Constitution bench judgment said, "It is evident from the religious faith and tenets of the Dawoodi Bohra community that the exercise of the power of excommunication by its religious head on religious grounds formed part of the management of its affairs in matters of religion and the 1949 Act in making even such excommunication invalid, infringed the right of the community under Article 26(b) of the Constitution."
Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, representing a group of reformist Dawoodi Bohras, submitted that a practice which is conducted in response to secular and social actions of an individual cannot be the subject of Constitutional protection under Article 25 of the Constitution and consequently cannot be a ‘matter of religion’ under Article 26 of the Constitution.
Ramachandran told the court that a practice which may have a religious aspect but also significantly and adversely impacts fundamental rights is not immune to restriction under Article 25 of the Constitution or Article 26 of the Constitution.
Responding to the submission, Justice Nagarathna said that if everybody starts questioning certain religious practices or matters of religion before a constitutional court, then "what happens to this civilisation where religion is so intimately connected with the Indian society".
"There will be hundreds of petitions questioning this right that right, opening of the temple, and the closure of the temple. We are conscious of this," she said.
Adding to the response, Justice Sundresh said, "Every religion will break and every constitutional court will have to be closed.
"If the dispute between two entities are allowed then everybody will question everything. In your case there may be a civil wrong committed to you but in another case, another member will say I don't agree. It is regressive. To what extent can we go in a country like ours which is progressive and on the move is the question," he said.
Justice Nagarathna went on that what sets apart India from any other region is that "we are a civilisation" despite having so many pluralities and diversities?
Asserting that diversity is the country's strength, she added, "One of the constants in our Indian society is the relationship of human beings -- man, woman and child -- with the religion."
"Now, how a religious practice or a matter of religion is questioned, where it is questioned, whether it can be questioned, whether it has to be a question within a denomination for a reform or whether the state will have to do or you want the court to adjudicate upon all these aspects. This is troubling us.
"What we lay down, is for a civilisation that is India. India must progress despite all its economy, everything there is a constant in us. We can’t break that constant. That is what is troubling us ," she said.
Ramachandran replied that India is a civilisation under the Constitution and therefore nothing which goes against the grain of constitution can be continued in a civilised society.
He said that's where court's task come in and "it can't throw hands" and say there will be so many petitions.
