Bringing back Indian students from Ukraine important, but PM Modi busy in UP poll meetings: Mamata
Varanasi, Mar 3: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said while Indians are stranded in war-torn Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is busy in poll meetings in Uttar Pradesh.
Banerjee, who was in Modi's parliamentary constituency of Varanasi for a campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in support of the Samajwadi Party alliance, also accused the Centre of leaving Indians in Ukraine on their own in the midst of a raging war.
"Look what is happening right now. There is a war underway in Ukraine and Modi is doing meetings here. What is important? Isn't bringing back our Indian students important?" Banerjee said.
"If you have such good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and knew three months in advance that a war would break out, why did you not bring back Indians (from Ukraine)," the TMC supremo said.
Banerjee also slammed the Centre over handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the exodus of migrant workers from big towns which resulted because of the lockdown imposed by it in 2020.
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.
Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
