Congress wins Ludhiana civic polls with majority
Chandigarh: The ruling Congress on Tuesday won Punjab's cash-rich Ludhiana Municipal Corporation polls with an absolute majority by winning 62 out of 95 wards.
The Shiromani Akali Dal won 11 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party got 10 seats. The Lok Insaaf Party won seven seats and its ally Aam Aadmi Party got just one seat. Independent candidates won four wards.
Opposition Shiromani Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party leaders had accused the ruling Congress of malpractices in the municipal elections.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh hailed the civic body results, saying they were a clear vindication of the government's policies in the past one year.
The Congress, which has been at the helm in Punjab since March 2017, had earlier won the municipal corporation elections of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala in December. It had also emerged victorious in 20 out of 29 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats.
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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.
