2 dozen pilgrims from West Bengal wounded in bus accident near Lucknow
Lakhimpur Kheri (UP) (PTI): Two dozen people were injured when a private tourist bus carrying over 60 pilgrims from Medinipur, West Bengal fell into a roadside ditch on the Bareilly-Lucknow national highway at Jang Bahadur Ganj (JB Ganj) bypass near Allipur village on Saturday morning, police said.
Ten of the wounded were transported to the neighbouring Shahjahanpur district for treatment, JB Ganj police outpost in-charge Hemant Katiyar told PTI.
All injured were reported to be out of danger barring a woman identified as Madhumita, who got a head injury, Katiyar said.
The bus driver and his helper fled after the accident.
Pilgrims said they had boarded the bus on August 25 and after visiting Gaya, Bodhgaya, Prayagraj, Chitrakoot, Vrindavan and Haridwar, were on their way to Ayodhya and Varanasi.
In another incident nearby, two brothers were killed and a third got injured after the motorcycle they were travelling on was hit by a bus in the Mirzapur Police Station area of the district.
"One Musharraf (30) and his brothers Mashroor (25) were travelling on a motorcycle with one Buddu (55). Their motorcycle was hit by a bus near Gaushera Village Friday night," Superintendent of Police (Rural) Sagar Jain said.
While Musharraf and Mashroor were killed on the spot, Buddu was taken to a hospital for treatment, Jain said.
The bus driver decamped with his bus after the incident. Police are trying to track him.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
