Amit Chavda appointed Congress Legislature Party leader in Gujarat
Ahmedabad (PTI): The Congress on Tuesday appointed Amit Chavda as its legislature party leader in Gujarat and Shailesh Parmar as the deputy leader.
Chavda had earlier served as the Gujarat Congress chief.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K C Venugopal in a communication to Gujarat unit head Jagdish Thakor said the party president has approved the proposal for the nomination of Chavda as the leader and Parmar as the deputy leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the state.
The Gujarat Assembly secretariat recently asked the opposition Congress to appoint its "authorised person" or leader in the House before January 19.
Chavda, 46, is the five-term legislator hailing from Anand district in central Gujarat. He served as the state Congress president between 2018 and 2021.
In the Gujarat Assembly elections held in December 2022, Chavda won from Anklav seat in Anand, defeating Bharatiya Janata Party's Gulabsinh Padhiyar.
Parmar, 53, won his fourth election last year from Ahmedabad's Danilimda seat, reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, by defeating BJP's Naresh Vyas.
As per rule, the opposition parties are supposed to appoint their respective leaders in the House within 30 days of swearing-in of the newly-elected members of the Legislative Assembly.
Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly in Gujarat were sworn in on December 19, 2022.
The ruling BJP won 156 seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly in the polls last month, while the Congress finished a distant second with 17 seats.
The Aam Aadmi Party won five seats, while three seats went to independents and one was bagged by the Samajwadi Party.
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Odisha: Normalcy returns to violence-hit Malkangiri; internet services fully restored
Malkangiri (PTI): Normalcy returned to Odisha’s Malkangiri district on Monday, nearly a week after around 200 villages were damaged in violent clashes in a village, with the district administration fully restoring internet services, a senior official said.
Additional District Magistrate Bedabar Pradhan said internet services, suspended across the district on December 8 to curb the spread of rumours and misinformation following the clashes, were restored after the situation improved.
The suspension had been extended in phases till 12 noon on Monday.
The administration also withdrew prohibitory orders imposed under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita within a 10-km radius of MV-26 village, where arson incidents were reported on December 7 and December 8.
Though the violence was confined to two villages, tension had gripped the entire district, as the incident took the form of a clash between local tribals and Bengali settlers following the recovery of a headless body of a woman on December 4, officials said.
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The violence broke out after residents of Rakhelguda village allegedly set ablaze several houses belonging to Bengali residents, forcing hundreds to flee. The headless body of Lake Podiami (51), a woman from the Koya tribe, was recovered from the banks of the Poteru river on December 4, while her head was found six days later at a location about 15 km away.
Officials said the district administration held several rounds of discussions with representatives of the tribal and Bengali communities, following which both sides agreed to maintain peace.
Relief and rehabilitation work has since been launched at MV-26 village, with preliminary assessment pegging property damage at around Rs 3.8 crore.
A two-member ministerial team headed by Deputy Chief Minister K V Singh Deo visited the affected village, interacted with officials and locals, and submitted a report to the chief minister.
So far, 18 people have been arrested in connection with the violence, the officials said, adding that despite the withdrawal of prohibitory orders and restoration of internet services, security forces, including BSF and CRPF personnel, continue to be deployed to prevent any untoward incident.
On Sunday, Nabarangpur MP Balabhadra Majhi visited MV-26 and neighbouring Rakhelguda villages, and held discussions with members of both communities as part of efforts to rebuild confidence and restore peace.
More than two lakh Bengali-speaking Bangladeshis were rehabilitated by the Centre in Malkangiri and Nabarangpur districts in 1968, and they currently reside in 124 villages of Malkangiri.
