Union Minister Bandi Sanjay hits out at Rahul Gandhi for 'prioritising' Messi event in Hyderabad
Hyderabad (PTI): Union Minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Sunday attacked Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for attending the GOAT India Tour event featuring football legend Lionel Messi here, alleging that a soccer star gets priority over Telangana’s "pain".
The Minister of State for Home, in a post on 'X', said that Rahul Gandhi promised that he would be in Telangana in a minute when people need him. However, that minute clearly runs on a "luxury" time zone.
"For the people of Telangana, his clock never works. It only ticks for VIP events and photo ops. A football star gets priority over Telangana’s pain", Kumar said.
Rahul Gandhi, who landed here on Saturday afternoon, joined Messi and his Inter Miami team-mates Luis Suarez and Rodrigo de Paul and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy at the felicitation towards the end of the event.
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Kumar further slammed Rahul Gandhi, alleging that the Congress government is playing with people’s lives in Telangana.
He alleged that the Congress party's six guarantees and several poll promises were unfulfilled.
The union minister tagged a video of the speech by Rahul Gandhi promising that he would be in Telangana in a minute when people needed him. He further claimed that Rahul Gandhi was "absent during suffering. On vacation during chaos. Fully present when the spotlight is on."
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England sticking with Key, McCullum and Stokes despite Ashes humbling
London (AP): England is not sacking anybody following the 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia.
A review of the tour by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced within hours of the final match in January, was concluded on Monday. Firing people would “be the easy thing to do,” ECB chief executive Richard Gould said but he insisted, "This is not the time to throw everything out."
Managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes kept their jobs after the best England side to go to Australia in 14 years lost the Ashes in 11 days with two games to spare.
“Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That's not the route that we're going to take,” Gould said. “I've seen the driving ambition and determination that we're lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward.”
Gould previously was the chief executive of Bristol City soccer club and said the ECB would not follow the same route as soccer's hire-and-fire culture.
“Cricket is a very unique sport in that it takes a team of leadership ... it's not like football where there's a single point of failure or success with a manager," he said. He added the ECB would not “select or deselect management based on a popularity campaign.”
The main criticisms of England's tour were poor preparation, player misbehavior, and selection mistakes.
At a press conference at Lord's, Gould and Key said McCullum and Stokes have not had a “bust up,” they did not want McCullum to “completely change” but “to evolve,” the behavior of some players was “unprofessional,” there will be more consequences for underperforming, and a commitment to “better long-term planning” ahead of major test series.
Some changes were already implemented for the Twenty20 World Cup, where England reached the semifinals. Gould implied that performance saved McCullum.
Key acknowledged that England supporters would be disappointed to see the management team go unpunished.
“I know people want punishment and that people then should be sacked for that,” Key said. “That doesn't mean we don't feel like we've gone through some serious pain: Brendon, myself, Ben. It's been as tough a time as I think I've had.”
