Punjab Assembly speaker undergoes dope test
Chandigarh, July 6: A day after AAP legislator in Punjab Aman Arora underwent a dope test, Punjab Assembly speaker Rana K.P. Singh also opted for it on Friday.
He volunteered and took the test at the Mohali Civil Hospital, around 10 km from here.
"It is very disheartening that Punjab, the land of Gurus and legendary warriors, is facing the menace of drug abuse," the speaker said after undergoing the dope test.
Appealing to all political parties to join hands with the state government in its fight against drugs, he said there was an urgent need to build an apolitical mass movement against drugs.
"It is a complex problem. Neither did it crop up in days nor will it be cured immediately," he added.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Aman Arora later challenged Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to undergo the dope test.
Accepting the challenge, the Chief Minister on Thursday said he was willing to undergo a dope test.
Opposition leaders are demanding that the Chief Minister should ask his Cabinet members and Congress MLAs to take the test.
However, Amarinder Singh said that he would "leave it to the conscience of other elected representatives to take a decision on the same."
The Chief Minister had earlier ordered mandatory dope test for all state employees, including police during recruitment as well as during their service.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
