PM Modi, other senior BJP leaders meet to pick candidates for LS polls
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP's Central Election Committee met here on Saturday to finalise the party's candidates in several states for the Lok Sabha polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda were joined by other CEC members as they went over the list of probables to take a final call.
The states for which candidates were discussed include Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan.
With the BJP and BJD alliance talks falling through, the CEC discussed candidates for all 21 Lok Sabha seats and 147 assembly seats in Odisha, state BJP president Manmohan Samal told reporters.
Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan and BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra are likely to be fielded from Odisha's Sambalpur and Puri respectively.
The CEC has met twice earlier and has named candidates for 291 Lok Sabha seats so far, including in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Telangana.
The BJP is yet to announce candidates for many seats in some of these states.
At least three of the declared candidates, including Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh, have withdrawn from the fray after their names drew some controversy or other.
The names of the leading figures of the party, including Modi, Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, have already been announced for the polls and all of them are contesting from their current constituencies.
The seven-phase polls are set to be held between April 19 and June 1 to elect MPs for 543 Lok Sabha seats, with the counting of votes scheduled for June 4.
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MediaOne TV Facebook page restored after block linked to ‘government request’
Kochi: The official Facebook page of Malayalam news channel MediaOne TV has been restored after being blocked without prior notice, the broadcaster said on Wednesday.
The channel was quoted by Maktoob as saying that the restriction was lifted automatically, with Meta Platforms informing it that the action had been taken following a “government request” which has now expired or been reversed.
The development came shortly after the channel approached the Kerala High Court challenging the blocking of its page, terming it arbitrary and in violation of legal provisions and judicial precedents. The High Court had issued notice to Meta via email hours before the restriction was withdrawn.
In its petition, the channel said access to its Facebook page had been restricted for users in India without citing any specific content or alleged violation. It contended that while individual posts may be taken down under applicable a rule, blocking an entire page goes beyond the scope of such measures.
The incident followed an earlier action taken against the channel in 2022, when the Ministry of Information and transmitting prohibited it from transmitting. It cited national security concerns regarding the Ministry of Home Affairs' refusal of security clearance.
The Supreme Court of India in April 2023 set aside the ban, observing that national security claims cannot be made without substantive basis and that criticism of government policies does not render a media outlet anti-national.
