PDP MLA revolts against Mehbooba Mufti
Srinagar, July 1: In a bitter attack on former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, senior PDP legislator Abid Hussain Ansari on Sunday said that she has converted the party into a "family fiefdom".
Addressing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) workers and supporters in Zadibal area here, Ansari said: "She has destroyed the party and finally converted it into a family fiefdom.
"She got her cameraman brother out of the blue and made him Tourism Minister even when he did not have an elementary knowledge of tourism."
Ansari said that he has "always told her that she was surrounded by sycophants who are destroying the party and giving her wrong advice" but "she never listened to me because she was busy giving remote control of highly sensitive institutions like the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) to a relative who was running the institute from London".
He said he has now decided to join a political party that would protect the interests of his workers and community members.
After the PDP-BJP coalition government fell in the state, this is the first public attack on Mehbooba Mufti by a senior party leader.
Ansari belongs to a powerful religious family of the Shia community and sitting MLA and former Education Minister Imran Ansari is his nephew.
Imran Ansari represents the Pattan constituency in Baramulla district while Abid Ansari represents the Zadibal constituency here.
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Tirupati laddu row: Samples of Ayodhya Ram temple 'prasad' sent for testing
Ayodhya, Sep 27: The Food Safety and Drug Administration Department on Friday collected samples of 'elaichi daana' or cardamom seeds being distributed as 'prasad' at the Ram Janmabhoomi temple here and sent them for testing, officials said.
The action was taken following a complaint lodged through the Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS), Assistant Food Commissioner Manik Chand Singh said.
Singh said the samples were procured from Haiderganj, where the cardamom seed offerings are prepared and sent to the Jhansi State Laboratory for comprehensive testing and evaluation.
Prakash Gupta, the officer in charge of the Ram Temple trust, revealed that on average, around 80,000 packets of cardamom seeds are distributed daily as a sacred offering.
Amid a row over the alleged presence of animal fat in laddus at the Tirupati Temple in Andhra Pradesh, the chief priest of the Ram temple here on Thursday questioned the purity of ghee being sold nationwide and said 'prasad' should be prepared under the supervision of temple priests only.
