People have accepted INDIA as alternative to BJP; oppn bloc clearly a winner: Congress
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Friday said the victory of four INDIA bloc candidates in bypolls to seven seats proves that the people have accepted the opposition alliance as an alternative to the BJP and the ruling dispensation is not unbeatable.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the news of the day is not the arrival of G20 leaders for the Summit but the "overall result of the seven by-elections that were announced today".
"Clearly, the winner is INDIA. INDIA beat the BJP 4:3," he said on X.
He said the BJP won in two seats in Tripura and the lone seat in Uttarakhand, but the lost in Kerala, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Of these, the BJP is the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh with a formidable majority, he noted. "The BJP and its money-power are not unbeatable. The INDIA alliance has demonstrated that the BJP can be defeated even in the BJP's fort.
"The results today are a good augury for the success of the INDIA alliance," Chidambaram said.
Congress deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari said the results announced on Friday are only a trailer to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when INDIA bloc will win majority across regions.
The "bumper" victory of Samajwadi Party candidate Sudhakar Singh in Ghosi confirms "my claim that India's candidate will get more than 50 percent votes on every seat", Tiwari said.
"This victory is the victory of 'INDIA' and those who were in doubt till now will become determined, and will give their everything to make 'INDIA' win and will save the country's democracy and defeat dictatorship," he said in a statement.
The assembly by-election results for seven seats in six states declared on Friday were a mixed bag for the BJP and the opposition INDIA bloc, with the saffron party winning three seats and one each going to Congress, JMM and TMC, while the Samajwadi Party won one seat.
The BJP retained the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Dhanpur in Tripura and wrested Boxanagar assembly seat from CPI(M) in the northeastern state, where the INDIA parties had joined hands, but lost the Dhupguri assembly seat in West Bengal to the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
"The people of the country are completely fed up with the statements, false promises, fraud, betrayal, cheating, inflation, unemployment and corruption of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The public was looking for an alternative and 10 percent voters of the country who were waiting for an alternative have now found an alternative in the form of 'INDIA' alliance," the Rajya Sabha MP said.
Tiwari also said the victory of INDIA candidates and the defeat of BJP in the by-elections held for district panchayat members in Mirzapur, Bareilly and Jalaun and Lucknow proves the BJP has been "uprooted" from East, West, North and South.
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Chinese astronauts return to earth safely after six-month stint in space station
Beijing, Nov 4: Three Chinese astronauts who spent six months developing China’s low orbit space station returned to Earth safely early Monday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said.
The capsule of the spaceship Shenzhou-18' carrying astronauts Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 1:24 am (Beijing Time).
The three astronauts, after staying in orbit for 192 days, were all in good health and the Shenzhou-18 manned mission was a success, the CMSA said.
Ye, the Shenzhou-18 mission commander, has become the first Chinese astronaut with an accumulative spaceflight time of more than a year, setting a new record for the longest duration of stay in orbit by a Chinese astronaut.
He served as a crew member in the Shenzhou-13 mission from October 2021 to April 2022.
"Chinese astronauts have flown to space in successive missions. I believe that the record of the duration in orbit will be broken in the near future," Ye said.
Another astronaut Li Guangsu said that they grew two types of plants -- cherry tomatoes and lettuce -- and they had harvested some lettuce leaves for food.
"Being able to eat fresh vegetables in space is truly a blessing. These green plants have also brought a touch of green and good cheer to our busy work," Li was quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency.
China launched the Shenzhou-18 manned spaceship in April this year.
During the mission, the Shenzhou-18 crew utilised the scientific experiment cabinets and extravehicular payloads to carry out dozens of experiments in the fields of basic physics in microgravity, space material science, space life science, space medicine and space technology, Xinhua report said.
The three were relieved by another set of three Chinese astronauts, including a woman who docked with the orbiting space station on October 30.
China changes crew for the station every six months.
China built its space station after it was reportedly excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) over concerns that China's space programme is manned by its military, the People's Liberation Army, (PLA).
The two robotic arms of the station, especially the long one which has the ability to grab objects including satellites from space, drew international concerns.
Early this month China announced its plans for the further development of space programmes which included launching a manned lunar mission, construction of a lunar space station, exploration of habitable planets and extra-terrestrial life to expand its space programme in the next few decades.
