Telangana cabinet meets amid talk of early polls
Hyderabad, Sep 2 : A crucial meeting of the Telangana cabinet was underway on Sunday amid talks that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was planning to dissolve the state Assembly to go for early polls.
The meeting began at 1 p.m. at the Pragati Bhavan, official residence of the Chief Minister.
According to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leaders, the cabinet will take some key decisions and the same will be announced by the party chief later in the day at a public meeting titled 'Pragathi Nivedana Sabha', being held on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
Rao has already dropped strong hints that he wants to go for early polls. However, it is not clear if the decision will be taken on Sunday or later this week.
Cabinet Minister T. Nageswara Rao said while he had no idea as to what the cabinet will decide on Sunday, it was certain that Assembly elections will be held this year.
TRS sources hinted that the cabinet may decide major sops for various sections of people and Rao may announce the same at the rally, being billed as the "mother of all rallies".
TRS claims that 25 lakh people will attend the meeting in Kongara Kalan in Ranga Reddy district. Rao will present a progress report, highlighting the achievements of his government during the last four years.
The term of the Telangana Assembly is ending in May 2019 but the TRS is keen to go for early polls to delink them from the Lok Sabha elections.
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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.
