Rahul should clearly spell out his stand on NRC: Amit Shah
Kolkata, Aug 11 : Asking Congress President Rahul Gandhi to clearly spell out his stand on the NRC in Assam, BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday asserted that his party was committed to completing the registration process to identify infiltrators notwithstanding opposition from Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.
"Mamatadi, NRC will not stop just because of your opposition. You are free to oppose. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is free to oppose. But it is our commitment that we will complete NRC in Assam, by following the due process of law, and identify all infiltrators one by one," Shah said at a rally here.
Banerjee has been strident in her criticism of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, after 40 lakh people did not find a place in the document's first complete draft published on July 30.
Accusing Gandhi of not making clear his position on the NRC for the sake of votebank politics, Shah pointed out that the work on the document was being done as per the Assam accord which was signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985.
Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi's father, headed the Congress government at the Centre from 1984 to 1989.
"The work of the NRC is being done as per the Assam accord. Who formulated the Assam accord? It was formulated by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi n 1985.
"Then the Congress had no problem, but now for votebank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not making clear his stand," Shah said at the rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
