Haryana Assembly elections: BJP fields ex-jail superintendent linked to Ram Rahim’s parole
Chandigarh: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday announced its first list of 67 candidates for the upcoming Haryana Assembly elections, naming Sunil Sangwan, a former jail superintendent, as its candidate for the Charkhi Dadri constituency. Sangwan, who is the son of former Haryana minister Satpal Sangwan, served as the superintendent of Haryana’s Sunaria jail during six of the ten occasions when Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was granted parole or furlough.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017 for the rape of two women followers. In 2021, he received a life sentence for the murder of Ranjit Singh, a former manager of his sect.
In related developments, Haryana minister Ranjit Singh Chautala and MLA Lakshman Napa resigned from the BJP on Thursday after being excluded from the candidate list. Chautala, who held the energy and jails portfolios, announced his intention to contest the elections as an independent candidate. Chautala, the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, had previously won the 2019 elections as an independent and later joined the BJP. He had contested the recent Lok Sabha elections from Hisar on a BJP ticket but lost to the Congress candidate.
Meanwhile, Napa, who represents the Ratia constituency, announced his plans to join the Congress after visiting former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The BJP has fielded former Sirsa MP Sunita Duggal as its candidate for Ratia.
Additionally, former minister Karan Dev Kamboj resigned as the chief of Haryana BJP’s Other Backward Classes Morcha after being left out of the candidate list. He expressed disappointment, stating that his years of dedicated service to the party had been overlooked.
Haryana is set to go to the polls on October 5, with vote counting scheduled for October 8, coinciding with the counting in Jammu and Kashmir.
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RG Kar impasse: Bengal govt again invites junior doctors for meeting at Mamata's residence at 5pm
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal government on Monday "for the fifth and the final time" invited the protesting junior doctors for talks to end the RG Kar impasse, two days after the dialogue failed to take off over disagreement on live-streaming of the meeting.
In an email to the protesting junior doctors, Chief secretary Manoj Pant asked them to reach Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence at Kalighat at 5 pm on Monday for the talks.
"This is the fifth and the final time we are reaching out to you for a meeting between the honourable CM and the delegates. In line with our discussion the day before (Saturday), we are once again inviting you for the meeting with the CM at her Kalighat residence for discussions with an open mind," he wrote.
Pant hoped "Good sense will prevail" as mutually agreed on Saturday that there will be no live-streaming or videography of the meeting given the matter is sub-judice before the Supreme Court.
"Instead, the minutes of the meeting will be recorded and signed by both the parties," he said..
Responding to the mail, the agitating doctors said they will discuss among themselves and then announce their decision whether to attend the meeting.
Junior doctors of the state-run hospital have been on cease work in protest against the rape-murder of a doctor in the facility on August 9.
Banerjee on Saturday made a surprise visit to the site where junior doctors were protesting and assured them that their demands would be addressed, asking them to come for talks, but the proposed meeting fell through with the protesters claiming that they were asked to leave "unceremoniously" after waiting for three hours at the gates of CM's residence.
After the protesters refused to enter Banerjee's residence due to the government's rejection of their demand for a live telecast, she came out to appeal to the doctors to join the talks and urged them "not to insult her," and promised them that a signed copy of the minutes of the meeting would be given.
