Congress president Sonia Gandhi forms 3 groups to chart road ahead for party
New Delhi(PTI): To chart the Congress' future course, its chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday formed three groups -- on political affairs for guidance on key issues, Task Force-2024 to implement the Udaipur 'Nav Sankalp' declaration and another to coordinate the October 2 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
While Rahul Gandhi and two prominent members of the G23 -- Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma -- are part of the political affairs group, senior leaders P Chidambaram and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are members of the Task Force-2024.
G-23 is a group of dissenting Congress leaders who have demanded an organisational overhaul.
Sonia Gandhi has also set up another group to coordinate the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' planned from Kanyakumari to Kashmir from Gandhi Jayanti.
"Following the Udaipur Nav Sankalp Shivir, the Congress president has constituted a Political Affairs Group that will be presided over by her, a Task-Force-2024 and a Central Planning Group for the coordination of the "Bharat Jodo Yatra", an official communication from the party said.
The Political Affairs Group, headed by Sonia Gandhi, comprises Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Digvijaya Singh, Anand Sharma, K C Venugopal and Jitendra Singh.
The members of the Task Force-2024 are P Chidambaram, Mukul Wasnik, Jairam Ramesh, K C Venugopal, Ajay Maken, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Randeep Singh Surjewala and Sunil Kanugolu.
"Each member of the Task Force shall be assigned specific tasks related to organization, communications and media, outreach, finance and election Management.
"They shall have designated teams which will be notified subsequently," the statement said, adding the Task Force will also follow up on the Udaipur Nav Sankalp declaration.
The Central Planning Group for the Coordination of the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' includes Digvijaya Singh, Sachin Pilot, Shashi Tharoor, Ravneet Singh Bittu, K J George, Jothi Mani, Pradyut Bordoloi, Jitu Patwari and Saleem Ahmed.
All members of the task force and all heads of the Congress' frontal organisations will be ex officio members of the central group, the statement said.
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BharatPe fraud case: Delhi HC quashes lookout circular against Ashneer Grover, wife
New Delhi, Nov 12: The Delhi High Court has ordered cancellation of a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Ashneer Grover, the former MD of payment app BharatPe, and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, noting that the FIR lodged against them over allegations of cheating and forgery has already been quashed.
Justice Sanjeev Narula passed the order on Monday after the court was informed that another bench of the high court quashed the FIR on the same day.
The FIR was quashed by Justice Chandra Dhari Singh after considering a plea moved by the Grovers stating that they have arrived at a settlement with the fintech company.
In his order, Justice Narula said, "Although the copy of the order (quashing the FIR) is not available as of now, the aforenoted fact is not disputed by the counsel for the parties.
"In light of the fact that the underlying FIR has been quashed, the LOC issued by respondent No. 3 (Bureau of Immigration), in the opinion of the court, will not survive."
The LOC was issued by the Bureau of Immigration at the instance of Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in view of the investigation against the Grovers in the cheating and forgery FIR.
The court was hearing a plea moved by Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover seeking quashing of the LOC issued against them in connection with the investigation into the cheating and forgery case.
"Accordingly, the present petitions are disposed of with a direction to the respondents to cancel the LOC against the petitioners in their records," the court noted.
Earlier, the Grovers claimed that they were informed about the LOC for the first time when they were detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on November 16, 2023, while they were scheduled to travel to the US.
After being detained, they were informed that the LOC was operational from November 6, 2023.
In May last year, the EOW filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri, and others under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 and 468 (forgery), and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) for an alleged Rs 81 crore fraud after a complaint was lodged by BhartPe, the fintech unicorn.
In its complaint, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family caused damages to the tune of Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri, and destruction of evidence.
Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe before she was fired in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities.
Subsequently, Grover resigned as the chief executive officer of the fintech firm in March 2022.
