I am the candidate in Channapatna no matter who contests: D K Shivakumar
Channapatna: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Friday reiterated that he would be the Congress candidate for the Channapatna bypolls no matter who contests from here on his party's ticket.
The constituency in Ramanagara district fell vacant after JD(S) second-in-command H D Kumaraswamy resigned from the assembly after he won the Mandya Lok Sabha election as the NDA candidate and became the Union Minister for Steel and Heavy Industries.
"I am the one who issues B-form and I am the signatory for it. Hence, it is a vote for me, no matter who contests," Shivakumar told reporters at his Sadashivanagar residence in the city.
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Since the Congress will be taking on a combined opposition of the BJP and JD(S) in the bypoll, Shivakumar said it would not matter who joined hands.
Replying to a query on whether he would welcome BJP MLC C P Yogeshwara if he showed interest in joining Congress, he said no one has approached him and such proposals are not before him.
Channapatna has been a JD(S) fort.
Kumaraswamy won from here in the assembly polls in 2023 and in the Mandya Lok Sabha election in 2024.
The Congress is trying hard to wrest the seat from the JD(S).
However, the JD(S) leadership is buoyed by the alliance it has forged with the BJP.
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Several Indians inducted into Russian Army remain missing: Report
New Delhi: In a concerning development, several Indians who were illegally enlisted in the Russian Army and forcibly sent to the war zone on the Russia-Ukraine border are reportedly still missing.
According to a report published by The Hindu on Sunday, citing communication from the Ministry of External Affairs and statements from the families of two missing men, Mohammad Amin Sheikh, a 65-year-old resident of Kupwara in Tangdhar, Jammu and Kashmir, said that his 27-year-old son, Zahoor Sheikh, last contacted the family on December 31, 2023.
Amin Sheikh mentioned that his son said that he was going for training and would not be available for the next three months on phone. “But when we started getting news about the deaths of Indians in Russia in January, we got worried and called on his number. We could not reach him. We are yet to hear from him,” Sheikh, a retired Inspector from the Public Health Department in Jammu and Kashmir, was quoted as saying by the publication.
Last week, Mohammad Amin Sheikh and his two other sons travelled to New Delhi to seek answers from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Russian Embassy after the Indian Embassy in Moscow failed to give them information about Zahoor Sheikh.
“We submitted a petition at the Russian Embassy,” 31-year-old Aijaz Amin, Zahoor Sheikh’s elder brother, told The Hindu. “They said they are looking into the matter. The MEA officials said that at least 15 Indians are still missing and though the Russian government is cooperative, their commanders on the ground are not responsive,” he added.
Zahoor had travelled to Russia after he came across a YouTube video promising the job of a security helper in Russia. Instead, he was reportedly deceived into joining the Russian Army.
Similarly, 30-year-old Mandeep, from Jalandhar in Punjab, has been missing since March. His brother, Jagdeep Kumar, also arrived in Delhi, looking for answers from the government about his sibling's whereabouts.
“We last spoke on March 3. He initially went to Armenia and was supposed to go to Italy from there in search of work. Instead, he was tricked by an agent to go to Russia and was forced to join the Russian Army. He was sent to the war zone after a few days of training,” Kumar told The Hindu.
Kumar said he met officials from the External Affairs Ministry in the capital city, who told him that at least 25 Indians were reported missing in Russia.
