INDIA bloc meeting on December 17: RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav
Patna, Dec 5: RJD president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said that top leaders of the INDIA bloc will be meeting on December 17 to chalk out the strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Prasad was posed with queries by journalists, in Buxar district of Bihar, about the meeting that was scheduled on Wednesday but was deferred due to the inability of several top leaders to attend.
"The meeting has now been rescheduled to December 17," said Prasad, a staunch ally of the Congress and also known to be close to the Nehru-Gandhi family.
Speculations have been rife that Prasad's ally Nitish Kumar, the CM of Bihar, was reluctant to attend the meeting on Wednesday. At a recent public meeting, Kumar had lashed out at the Congress for neglecting INDIA bloc during the recent assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
After the Congress' defeat in the crucial polls, many leaders of Kumar's JD(U) have gone on record saying that Congress made a mistake by failing to take on board regional parties and trying to fight the BJP on its own.
Besides, another key INDIA leader Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister who heads the Trinamool Congress, has also said that she would not be able to visit Delhi on December 6 as she had engagements elsewhere.
Senior Congress leader Gurdip Singh Sappal has, meanwhile, announced on X that "a coordination meeting of Parliamentary Party leaders of India Alliance will be at 6 pm on December 6th, 2023 at the residence of Congress President Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge. Thereafter meeting of Party Presidents/ Heads of the India Alliance will be scheduled in third week of December at a date convenient to all".
When Prasad was asked about the Congress' recent poll debacle, he said, "I don't think the party has grown weak. But it may need to work on its leadership in states like Madhya Pradesh."
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Bangladesh's ousted PM Sheikh Hasina condemns arrest of Hindu spiritual leader, demands his release
Dhaka, Nov 28: Deposed prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina on Thursday condemned the arrest of Hindu spiritual leader Chinmoy Krishna Das and said the leader must be released immediately.
Das who was taken into custody earlier this week on sedition charges.
"A top leader of the Sanatan religious community has been unjustly arrested, he must be released immediately," Hasina said in a statement.
"A temple has been burnt in Chittagong. Previously, mosques, shrines, churches, monasteries and homes of the Ahmadiyya community were attacked, vandalised and looted and set on fire. Religious freedom and security of life and property of people of all communities should be ensured," the former prime minister said in the statement posted on Awami League's X account.
Hasina fled to India on August 5 following widespread protests against her Awami League-led government over a controversial job quota system. Three days later, Yunus, a Nobel laureate, took over as the Chief Adviser of the interim government.
Hindu minority groups have been frequently reporting atrocities against their community members in different parts of Bangladesh, even after Yunus took charge.
There are also reports of the rise of extremist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami and similar ideological extremist wings.
