Scott Morrison set to become new Australian PM
Canberra, Aug 24 : Former treasurer Scott Morrison is set to become Australia's 30th Prime Minister following a leadership vote on Friday, ending a week of chaos.
A member of the party's conservative faction and former immigration minister, Morrison defeated former Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton by 45 votes to 40 at a closed door leadership vote earlier in the day, reports CNN.
It followed days of speculation and confusion over whether now former leader Malcolm Turnbull, who took office in 2015, could maintain his grip on the premiership in the face of a conservative uprising.
The leadership crisis began on Tuesday following a backlash in the ruling Liberal Party over Turnbull's climate change policy, which would have legislated the Paris Agreement goals.
The right-wing of the party would prefer greater investment in the country's coal sector and policies to lower Australians' power prices.
Dutton, a leader in the party's conservative faction, stood against Turnbull for the leadership in a vote on Tuesday, losing only narrowly by 48 votes to 35 and all but guaranteeing a second vote.
But as Dutton's momentum began to grow, Morrison put his hand up for the leadership in the face of questions over Dutton's eligibility to sit in parliament.
Turnbull said on Thursday that he would step down and leave Parliament following the vote, potentially cracking the government's slender one-seat majority and leading to a by-election or even a general election.
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PM's silence on Kharge's insult by Himanta is his consent: Rahul
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the use of "derogatory language" against party chief Mallikarjun Kharge by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is an insult to the entire SC/ST community, and the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter "is not his helplessness, but his consent".
"If the prime minister sees an attack on the dignity of crores of Dalits in the country and does not speak up - he is not only shirking his responsibility, but is also a party to that insult," Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.
Gandhi said the use of "vulgar and derogatory language" by Sarma against Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Kharge "is entirely condemnable, shameful, and unacceptable".
"Kharge ji is a senior and popular Dalit leader of the country - his experience, stature, and prestige are unparalleled. Insulting him is not an insult to one individual alone, but also to crores of people from the SC-ST community in this country," he posted.
This, he said, just reflected the "old and premeditated mindset" of the BJP-RSS and was nothing new, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha said.
"Whether it is the insult to Babasaheb Ambedkar, belittling Dalit leaders, or personal attacks on representatives of the SC-ST community - the history of BJP and RSS bears witness that whenever a Dalit leader speaks the truth, they stoop to humiliate him," he posted.
"This is their ideology, this is their true character and face," he added.
Posing a direct question to the PM, he asked, "do you support Himanta Sarma's use of this language? Your silence is not helplessness, it is consent."
Sarma earlier hit out at Kharge, claiming that he was "speaking like a madman" due to old age, after the latter put the onus on central agencies to probe the charges made against the Assam chief minister.
Slamming the Congress chief, Sarma said, "Kharge is ageing and is speaking like a pagal (madman)."
