Maharashtra Congress suspends former MLA Ashish Deshmukh over anti-party comments
Mumbai, Apr 7: The Congress in Maharashtra has suspended former MLA Ashish Deshmukh from its primary membership for his public statements against the party leadership in the state.
A party notice, which announced the disciplinary action against the former legislator, said charges levelled against Deshmukh are serious in nature.
Deshmukh is a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Katol in Nagpur who later joined the Congress. He was the Congress nominee against BJP leader and now Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis from the Nagpur South West seat in the 2019 Assembly polls.
He is the son of former state Congress chief Ranjit Deshmukh.
On Wednesday, he was issued a show-cause notice by the state Congress's disciplinary action committee headed by former CM Prithviraj Chavan for his comments that MPCC president Nana Patole receives money from Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Deshmukh also said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the OBC community over his "Modi surname" remarks.
The notice, issued to the former MLA after a meeting of the disciplinary committee, sought a reply from him in three days as to why he shouldn't be expelled from the primary membership of the Congress.
The notice said since charges levelled against Deshmukh are serious in nature, he has been suspended from the primary membership of the Congress till further proceedings and final disposal of the matter.
In January this year, Deshmukh had written a letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge seeking removal of Patole from his post, saying the Opposition party's condition in Maharashtra was "alarming" and there was a need to change the state unit president.
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Air India flight from Mumbai makes 'priority' landing in Bhopal after snag; return leg cancelled
Bhopal (PTI): A Bhopal-bound Air India flight from Mumbai carrying 175 persons on board made a “priority” landing here on Sunday due to a snag, an airport official said.
The aircraft landed safely at Bhopal airport at 3.20 pm, he said.
Consequently, the return leg of the flight from Bhopal to Mumbai, with 178 passengers booked, was cancelled, the official said.
AAI-run Bhopal airport said in a statement that Air India flight AI 633 “reported a technical issue to Air Traffic Control (ATC) during the flight from Mumbai to Bhopal”.
Immediately, all prescribed safety protocols were activated, and seamless coordination was ensured between ATC, airline ground operations, CISF and airpiort fire and rescue team of Bhopal airport, it said in a statement.
The flight, carrying 175 persons, including 166 passengers and nine crew members, landed safely at Bhopal airport at 3.20 pm, the airport operator said.
All necessary assistance and support were extended by the airport and airline teams as per the requirements of the flight crew, it said.
“Due to the technical issue, the aircraft was declared unserviceable, and as a precautionary measure, the return flight AI-634 (Bhopal to Mumbai) was cancelled by the airline to facilitate detailed inspection and rectification,” the statement said.
