UP: BJP drops Varun Gandhi, VK Singh; Maneka Gandhi, Jitin Prasada get ticket
Lucknow, Mar 24: The BJP on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls including Ramayan TV serial-fame actor Arun Govil, who played the role of Lord Ram, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with UP PWD minister Jitin Prasada.
Varun Gandhi has recently been vocal against the BJP on several issues, including employment and health. However, his mother Maneka Gandhi has been retained in the list of the candidates, and has been fielded from Sultanpur parliamentary constituency.
The BJP has fielded Atul Garg from Ghaziabad and dropped sitting MP and Union Minister V K Singh. Shortly before the list was announced, Singh said in a post on X that he will not contest the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
Similarly, the party has fielded Ramesh Awasthi from Kanpur Lok Sabha seat, after sitting MP Satyadev Pachauri on Sunday expressed his unwillingness to contest the elections and conveyed the same to the party's national president J P Nadda.
This is the second list of candidates from UP released by the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections. The party is yet to declare its candidate for the Raebareli Lok Sabha seat.
In Budaun, the party has announced the name of Durvijay Singh Shakya, overlooking its current MP Sanghamitra Maurya.
In Bareilly, the party has replaced sitting MP Santosh Gangwar and given the ticket to Chattrapal Singh Gangwar.
The party has announced Raghav Lakhanpal as its nominee from Saharanpur, Sarvesh Singh from Moradabad and Satish Gautam from Aligarh seats.
On the reserved seats of Barabanki and Bahraich, the BJP has named Rajrani Rawat and Arvind Gond respectively.
The BJP in its first list had named its sitting MP Upendra Rawat from Barabanki. Rawat, however, refused to contest the election after an obscene video allegedly involving him surfaced on social media.
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Dalit outfits call state-wide hartal over dental student’s death
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Various Dalit organisations on Monday announced a state-wide hartal seeking justice in the death of Kannur Dental College student Nithin Raj.
The hartal will be observed on Tuesday from 6 am to 6 pm.
As many as 52 Dalit organisations, including Justice for Nithin Raj Action Council, have announced the strike.
Organisations requesting cooperation for the strike said that no vehicles will be forcibly stopped and that all essential services are exempted.
Raj, a first-year BDS student at a private dental college in Anjarakkandy in Kannur district, was found critically injured after falling from a building on April 10 and later succumbed to his injuries.
Police have registered a case against two faculty members on charges of abetment of suicide and under provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, following allegations by the student’s family that he was subjected to caste- and complexion-based harassment.
Kerala Pinnokka Samudaya Munnani (KPSM), one of the organisations supporting the hartal, alleged in a statement that police had shown apathy in the investigation and were attempting to protect the accused in the case.
KPSM state president K V Padmanabhan and general secretary S Anwar alleged that the probe into Raj’s death was being deliberately misdirected and delayed.
While the family has firmly alleged that caste discrimination and mental harassment by faculty members led to the student’s death, police were attempting to divert the investigation towards loan app borrowings, they claimed.
The organisation alleged that this was a planned move to shield the real accused.
KPSM further alleged that by deliberately delaying the arrest of the accused teachers, police enabled them to secure anticipatory bail.
They said there was no confidence in the present police investigation and demanded that the case be handed over to an independent agency at the earliest.
