Lucknow, April 21: Dinesh Pratap Singh, a confidante of former Congress President and Rae Bareli MP Sonia Gandhi, on Saturday joined the BJP in the presence of party chief Amit Shah. His younger brother and Zila Panchayat Chairman Avdhesh Singh also joined the BJP.
The two brothers are said to enjoy considerable clout in the Gandhi family bastion of Rae Bareli.
Soon after he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, Dinesh Pratap Singh said he was disappointed at what he got in return from the Congress for his loyalty for so many years.
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power for a second term after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
He claimed that no one from the Gandhi family, not even the United Progressive Alliance Chairperson's daughter Priyanka Vadra, will be able to win Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli in future.
Dinesh thanked the BJP for what he called "grooming and developing" the constituency, which otherwise should have been done by the Congress leaders when they held the seat for decades.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses defence minister in surprise announcement
Jerusalem, Nov 5: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his popular defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in a surprise announcement that came as the country is embroiled in wars on multiple fronts across the region.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” between the men in his Tuesday evening announcement.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defence minister,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defence minister.”
In the early days of the war, Israel's leadership presented a unified front as it responded to Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack. But as the war dragged on and spread to Lebanon, key policy differences have emerged. While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant had taken a more pragmatic approach, saying that military force has created the necessary conditions for a diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the Hamas group.
Gallant, a former general who has gained public respect with a gruff, no-nonsense personality, said in a statement: “The security of the state of Israel always was, and will always remain, my life's mission."
Gallant has worn a simple, black buttoned shirt throughout the war in a sign of sorrow over the October 7 attack and developed a strong relationship with his US counterpart, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
A previous attempt by Netanyahu to fire Gallant in March 2023 sparked widespread street protests against Netanyahu. He also flirted with the idea of dismissing Gallant over the summer but held off until Tuesday's announcement.
Gallant will be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister who was a junior officer in the military. Gideon Saar, a former Netanyahu rival who recently rejoined the government, will take the foreign affairs post.
Netanyahu has a long history of neutralising his rivals. In his statement, he claimed he had made “many attempts” to bridge the gaps with Gallant.
“But they kept getting wider. They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy - our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it,” he said.
