Actor-turned-politician Vijayashanti returns to BJP
New Delhi, Dec 7: Actor-turned-politician Vijayashanti on Monday joined the BJP, a party she had chosen in the late 90s to start her political career before joining other outfits, and asserted that only the saffron party can fulfil the aspirations of the people of Telangana.
Vijayashanti, a very successful Telugu film actor in the 80s and 90s who also acted in a few Hindi movies, had met Home Minister Amit Shah earlier and joined the BJP in the presence of its general secretary Arun Singh, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy and Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar at the party headquarters here.
After leaving the saffron party, she had joined the TRS and the Congress. The 54-year-old politician is also a former MP.
Associated with the movement for Telangana's statehood, she said the ruling TRS had failed to fulfil the people's dreams for the new state and alleged that there was rampant corruption in the government headed by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
She also recalled her earlier stint in the BJP.
The BJP is confident about its prospects in Telangana following its impressive show in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls followed by its shock win over the TRS in Dubbaka assembly bypolls and then the gains in the recent Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls.
The steady decline in the fortunes of the Congress has also helped the party emerge as the main challenger to the TRS.
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Trump says he is planning to attend Jimmy Carter's funeral
Palm Beach (AP/PTI): President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he's planning to attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
Asked about it as he walked into a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, "I'll be there.” Pressed on whether he'd spoken to members of Carter's family, Trump said he'd rather not say.
Funeral services honouring Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, will be held in Georgia and Washington, beginning January 4 and concluding January 9.
Trump was a frequent and fierce critic of Carter on the campaign trail ahead of November's election, using the rising inflation rates of the 1970s to unfavourably compare President Joe Biden to Carter and his administration.
But the president-elect was gracious about the former president in posts on his social media site after Carter's death Sunday, writing that the nation “owed him a debt of gratitude.”
“While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realised that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for,” Trump wrote of Carter. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”
Wearing a tuxedo as he entered the festivities, Trump took a few minutes of questions from reporters on various topics. He was asked about the possibility of a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, but said only, “We're going to see what happens."
The president-elect added of hostages seized more than a year ago by Hamas, “I'll put it this way: They better let the hostages come back soon."
Trump also said he thought 2025 would be a “great year” and "we're going to do fantastically well as a country.”
“There's a whole light over the whole world, not just our country. They're a lot of happy people,” Trump said of recent weeks.
Asked about his resolutions for the new year, Trump said, “I just want everybody to be happy, healthy and well.”
Trump later took the stage to briefly address the crowd ringing in the new year at Mar-a-Lago and promised “to do a great job as your president.”
Biden, for his part, spent New Year's Eve celebrating the wedding of his niece Missy Owens in Greenville, Delaware, followed by the reception in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Biden and first lady Jill Biden cut short their traditional holiday trip to the US Virgin Islands to attend the ceremony.
