Mangaluru: Cong leaders not happy with tickets distribution for MCC elections; blames Ramanath Rai
Mangaluru: The internal problems of Congress party ahead of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) elections are in no mood to stop anytime soon. Senior local leaders of party on Friday called press conference and expressed their displeasure over reports that four former Mayors were not given party ticket in a bid to ignore supporters of former union minister Janardhan Poojary.
Speaking at the press conference called at press club in the city, former MLA Vijaykumar Shetty added that some party leaders with vested interests were compromising on the principles of the Congress party.
“Former Corporator Gulzar Banu, who became the Mayor when BJP was in power was ignored for party ticket in her own constituency. Now her son is framed for attacking for MLA and has been jailed. All this is very shameful. Former Mayors Purandar Das Koloor and Mahabala Marla were also ignored for tickets. The party is ignoring those who have worked really hard for the party” Shetty told reporters.
Slamming former minister Ramanath Rai over the issue, Shetty said “Ramanath Rai says he missed home ministry because of me. I told his history to everyone during the meeting. But still he was made minister and now he is blaming me for missing home minister’s post. He doesn’t have any knowledge about the principles of Congress party. I am not scared of anybody when it comes to speaking truth. I was offered tickets for assembly election by other parties but I never accepted it because for me Congress is the only political party I can be a part of. That’s why I am still in the party. There are a lot of things that are happening in the party which the senior party leader should know about”.
Another local party leader Tharnath Shetty added that informing Purandar Das that he would not get the ticket for the election would have been fair. “But inviting him to office, asking him to prepare B form and them cancelling his name in the last ten minutes was wrong. This is why we have called this press conference”.
Tharnath further alleged that the local leaders have this time ignored the party’s norms of selecting a candidate for the election, and has not taken anybody under their confidence before finalizing the names.
“Purandar Das, a Dalit leader has done remarkable job in his constituency. KPCC Incharge KC Venugopal and former Minister UT Khader had also discussed about it. But everything changed in last ten minutes which is very wrong” Tharnath said.
Congress leader Karunakar was also present at the press conference.
Meanwhile Purandar Das has added that he has received many call after he was dropped from the party’s ticket list. “I will decide in next two days about whom to support in the election” Das told reporters.
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FM Sitharaman launches 'VijAIpatha' labs in govt schools in Karnataka
Hampi (PTI): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday launched Cyient AI Labs (CyAILS) -- 'VijAIpatha', aimed at democratising access to Artificial Intelligence, STEM and Robotics education in government schools here.
In a series of posts on 'X', the minister's office shared pictures of the initiative launched at a girl's government school in Hosapete taluk and said that under the pilot phase, five world-class AI, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and Robotics laboratories are being established in government schools.
Each lab will be equipped with high-performance computers, AI-ready software, robotics kits, IoT devices, sensors and secure broadband connectivity.
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"Aligned with NEP 2020, Digital India and Hon'ble Prime Minister @narendramodi's mission of Viksit Bharat 2047, the programme integrates CBSE's AI curriculum and strengthens technology-enabled learning in public education," it said.
Focusing on rural and semi-urban India, the initiative introduces future technologies at the school level, helping build early digital fluency, computational thinking and innovation capacity among students, the minister's office said.
"Benefiting over 2,000 students and training more than 200 teachers, 'VijAIpatha' is a scalable CSR model fostering innovation, career readiness and grassroots digital empowerment," it added.
According to the office, the initiative has been designed as a scalable, replicable and sustainable model that can be adopted across districts and states in collaboration with government education departments, positioning it as a benchmark CSR model for a national AI education rollout.
