Vajpayee's 'asthi visarjan' in Haridwar on Sunday
New Delhi, Aug 18: The "asthi visarjan" (immersion of ashes in river) ritual of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be held on Sunday in Haridwar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Saturday.
The same ritual, thereafter, will be performed in 100 other "sacred rivers" of the country.
"The 'asthi visarjan' of Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be done tomorrow at Haridwar by the family members. Party President Amit Shah, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat will attend the ceremony.
"They will leave from Jolly Grant Airport of Dehradun in the morning and the ritual will be performed in Haridwar in the afternoon," BJP spokesperson Bhupender Yadav told the media.
He said that mass prayer meetings in the memory of late Prime Minister will be organised in all states in 10-15 days, starting with one in Delhi on August 20. It will be held inside the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium between 4pm and 6pm at K.D. Jadhav Hall and will be attended by all parties.
"Since Atalji had a unique connection with Lucknow, a memorial will be held there also on August 23, to be attended by Yogi Adityanath, Rajnath Singh and Atalji's family members. His ashes will also be immersed in the Gomti river the day," Yadav added.
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Cong performed better in Kerala, anti-incumbency trends influenced WB, TN: CM Siddaramaiah
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said the Congress had largely met or exceeded expectations in several States, even as results in some regions reflected shifting voter sentiments.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said the party accepted the mandate in Assam while performing better than anticipated in Kerala.
He also pointed to possible anti-incumbency trends influencing outcomes in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
“In Assam, we got the expected result, and we accept the people’s mandate. In Kerala, we have won more seats than expected. We anticipated around 76 to 80, but we have gone up to around 95,” Siddaramaiah said.
In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, there may have been an anti-incumbency trend, and that could have influenced the results, he added.
Siddaramaiah also extended his congratulations to a new political entrant in Tamil Nadu, noting the emergence of a different electoral dynamic in the State.
“I congratulate the new entrant who has achieved success there,” he added.
Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said electoral outcomes in some States had diverged from the party’s internal assessments, reflecting evolving voter expectations.
“We expected a certain trend, but the results have been different. Political reading was wrong in some places,” he said.
“People were looking for change in some States, and that has been reflected in the results,” Shivakumar, who is also the Congress Karnataka unit president, said.
Referring to Kerala, he said the Congress-led alliance had benefited from public sentiment.
“There was already an expectation based on local body elections, and people had shown confidence in us. That has translated into a strong result,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.
On Tamil Nadu, he acknowledged that the scale of political shift had come as a surprise.
“We expected to secure around 30 to 40 per cent of the vote share, but such a major shift was not anticipated. It shows that voter expectations were different,” he said.
Shivakumar added that electoral outcomes underscored the need for better political assessment in future.
“We have to understand these changes carefully. Political reading cannot go wrong like this,” he said.
