Amit Shah to release Chouhan govt's 'report card', address BJP meet in poll-bound MP
Bhopal (PTI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah will release the Madhya Pradesh government's "report card" in Bhopal on Sunday and address the BJP's working committee meeting in Gwalior, a party functionary said.
The state assembly polls are due this year-end.
Gwalior is the home turf of Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
"Shah will release the report card of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government at a function here. Thereafter, he will leave for Gwalior where he will chair and address a working committee meeting," state BJP media cell head Ashish Agrawal told PTI over phone on Saturday.
This will be the last meeting of the state working committee before MP goes to polls.
BJP insiders said party MLAs, MPs, district presidents and general secretaries have been told to reach Gwalior. Around 1,500 office-bearers have been called to the meeting where the party is expected to come out with its final plan for the polls, they said.
"We want to increase our movement in Gwalior, the erstwhile kingdom of the Scindias," another BJP leader said.
According to political observers, the BJP is striving to put up a good show in Gwalior and Chambal region, especially after losing the Gwalior mayoral elections last year to the Congress, after 57 years.
This will be Shah's second visit to the state in the last 21 days. On July 30, Shah visited Indore district where he addressed booth-level workers.
In the 2018 assembly polls, the Congress won 26 of the 34 seats in the Gwalior and Chambal region. Jyotiraditya Scindia was a part of the Congress then.
After Scindia switched over to the BJP along with his loyalists, the Congress could win just 7 of the 19 seats in the bypolls in Gwalior and Chambal region in November 2020.
However, after the setback in last year's Gwalior mayoral elections, the BJP doesn't want to take any chances, said a political observer.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
