New Delhi:The Congress late Thursday night issued a list of 31 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav from Jodhpur and former BJP leader Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra from Barmer.

The party's latest list has 19 candidate for Rajasthan and six each for Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

With this, the number of total candidates announced by the party for the Lok Sabha polls has reached 293.

In Rajasthan, the party has fielded forer Union minister Jitendra Singh from Alwar, senior leaders Ramnarayan Meena from Kota, Savita Meena from Dausa (ST), Jyoti Khandelwal from Jaipur, Namo Narayan Meena from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur and Jyoti Mirdha from Nagaur, among others.

In Gujarat, the party announced Jagdish Thakor from Patan and Lalit Kagathara from Rajkot, among others.

In Uttar Pradesh, it fielded Maj. JP Singh (Retd) from Sambhal and Niaz Ahmed from Deoria and Pankaj Niranjan from Phulpur.  

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Belagavi (Karnataka) (PTI): Karnataka Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre on Tuesday said that police have arrested a man for allegedly attempting to encroach upon 532 acres of forest and government land at B M Kaval near Bengaluru by submitting forged documents and obtaining court orders fraudulently.

He said the accused, M B Manmatha alias M B Nemannagowda, had earlier also attempted to claim ownership over 512 acres and 26 guntas of forest and government land in Chikkamagaluru's Mudigere by producing fake records.

In connection with the case, an Assistant Conservator of Forests had lodged a complaint at the Mudigere Circle police station on November 28, following which the Tahsildar also lodged a separate complaint, the minister said in a statement issued by his office.

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Based on these complaints, police registered an FIR and have now taken Manmatha into custody. "The investigation will reveal who were all involved in this conspiracy to encroach upon forest and government land," he said.

The FIR was registered against the accused at Mudigere police station in Chikkamagaluru district on December 13 under Sections 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant section of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act.

Khandre further claimed that it had come to his notice that some officials and government advocates were directly or indirectly assisting those attempting to encroach upon government and forest land worth thousands of crores of rupees.

The minister said he has written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seeking a CID or Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the matter.

Warning of strict action, the minister said no one attempting to grab forest land using forged documents would be spared and termed the development a "wake-up call".