Toll in Lucknow hotels blaze reaches 6
Lucknow, June 20 : The death toll in the blaze at two hotels here climbed to six on Wednesday, with one person succumbing to his burn injuries, police said. A magisterial probe into the blaze has begun.
Five persons died on Tuesday after a massive fire broke out at the SSJ International Hotel which soon spread to the adjacent Hotel Virat International, gutting both the buildings.
While five bodies have been identified, the identity of a badly charred body of a woman is yet to be ascertained, an official said.
The deceased have been identified as Ganesh Prasad (55) and his son from Patna, Priyanshu Sharma (40) of Aligarh, Santosh Mane (32) of Pune and a one-and-half-year-old Mehar from Kanpur. The mother of Meher, Rani, is in critical condition and is warded at the Civil Hospital.
Others who were seriously injured in the incident include Asif from Kanpur, Indra Kumar Shukla from Rae Bareli, Sarthak from West Bengal, Amit Pathak from Delhi and Shubhashish Chatterjee from Allahabad.
While their condition is stated to be out of danger, they are still in serious condition with over 30-40 per cent burn injuries.
Meanwhile, the magisterial probe into the inferno has begun. A senior police official privy to the investigation told IANS that there were many shortcomings and non-compliances of safety measures and fire prevention in both the hotels.
A safety audit of other hotels in the area has also been initiated by the police and the Fire Service Department. The owners of both the hotels continue to be on the run.
An FIR under sections 285, 337, 338 and 304 (6) has been registered against the owners and management of these hotels.
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Nitish likely to resign as Bihar CM after last meeting of cabinet on April 14
Patna (PTI): Bihar inched towards a political transition on Sunday with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar convening a meeting of his cabinet on April 14, following which the JD(U) president is likely to relinquish the post to make way for a BJP-led government.
According to a notification issued by the cabinet secretariat department, the meeting will take place at 11 am, after which the longest-serving CM of the state, who got elected to the Rajya Sabha last week, was expected to submit his resignation to Governor Syed Ata Hasnain.
Earlier, Kumar's close aide and JD(U) national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha had told reporters that the process of formation of a new government was likely to "roll out after April 13".
Meanwhile, the BJP, which has been approaching the prospect of having its first- ever chief minister in the state with considerable restraint, got down to business and named Shivraj Singh Chouhan as a "central observer", who would oversee the change of guard.
A statement issued by the BJP headquarters in Delhi said the parliamentary board has appointed Chouhan, a Union minister and a multiple-term former CM of Madhya Pradesh, as “central observer for electing the leader of legislature party in Bihar”.
Senior JD(U) leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, had said here earlier in the day "the new chief minister will be elected by the NDA, upon the recommendation of the BJP, which has a big role to play".
Speculations are doing the rounds that Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who holds the crucial Home portfolio in the outgoing government, is the frontrunner among contenders for the top job.
BJP leaders in the state, who have been making frantic visits to Delhi in the recent past, are keeping their cards close to the chest.
"Who will be the next CM is a decision to be taken by our central leadership," minister Dilip Jaiswal, who is a former state BJP president, had said a day ago, adding, "I am not at all in the race".
Other than Choudhary, who had joined the BJP less than a decade ago, those whose names are doing the rounds include Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai and state ministers Lakhendra Paswan and Shreyasi Singh.
According to BJP sources, all these leaders fit the bill in different ways. Choudhary is a ‘Koeri’, and his elevation could ensure that the ‘Luv Kush’ (Kurmi Koeri) equation nurtured by Kumar during his 20-year-rule remained intact in favour of the NDA, after the JD(U) supremo's departure.
Rai is a Yadav and brings the promise of support of the largest caste group in Bihar, which has been with Lalu Prasad's RJD, the BJP's principal rival in the state, for decades.
Paswan is a Dalit and his elevation could help the BJP transcend its "pro-upper caste" image, which brings its own disadvantages in the Hindi heartland, where the Mandal agitation of the 1990s has cast a long shadow, the sources said.
Singh, in her 30s, is an upper caste Rajput, but her elevation could be projected as the party giving preference to young blood.
Moreover, the party has also been trying to present itself as a champion of gender equality, by pushing through the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ that ensures 33 per cent reservation to women in both Houses of Parliament.
However, the BJP sources admitted that there was a strong possibility of the central leadership springing a "surprise", citing examples of many states ruled by the party, where less fancied leaders have landed the top job in the recent past.
Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a Trinamool Congress MP who spent nearly three decades in the BJP, had said, while commenting on the political situation in Bihar that "we have plenty of deserving people here but we must be beware of a baba who may arrive with a parchi".
The allusion was to Rajasthan, where Bhajan Lal Sharma was named the chief minister two years ago at a legislature party meeting, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was seen on camera taking out a piece of paper with the name of the first-term MLA written on it.
