Wayanad landslides: 138 people missing according to draft list released by district administration
Wayanad (Kerala) (PTI): As many as 138 people are missing following the massive landslides that hit this north Kerala district more than a week ago, according to the initial figures released by the local administration on Wednesday.
The draft list of 138 missing people was prepared based on ration cards and voter records of the disaster-hit areas, the district administration said in a release.
"The list of missing people was prepared after collating the official records held by Gram Panchayat, ICDS, District Education Office, Labor Office, District Disaster Management Authority etc.," it said.
The names of those living in the camps, with relatives or admitted in hospitals and those whose deaths were confirmed were also removed from the list, it said.
The district administration said that it was the first draft and the public can check it and inform the authorities if they have information about those missing.
Further changes will be made to the list based on information received and verifications carried out, the administration said in the release.
"The draft list will be available on the official website https://wayanad.gov.in/ of the district administration, on the social media accounts of the district collector etc. and on the notice boards of the collectorate etc.," it said.
The public can give information on the phone number 8078409770 regarding the list of missing persons, it added.
Meanwhile, the search for those missing from the landslides-hit Chooralmala and Mundakkai areas continued for the ninth day with 1,026 personnel from various forces, including the army and navy, over 500 volunteers and heavy machinery being deployed there.
The number of deaths resulting from the devastating landslides in the Mundakkai and Chooralmala areas of Wayanad on July 30 has increased to 226.
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Lok Sabha elections not fought on level playing field, alleges Rahul Gandhi
Washington (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged the general elections in India this summer were not fought on a level playing field, asserting that the polls have destroyed the idea of Modi.
The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, who is currently on a four-day visit to the United States, made the remarks at the prestigious Georgetown University here on Monday.
Addressing the event, Gandhi said that the ruling coalition had collapsed and was broken "right down the middle".
“It's not just the prime minister, it's deeper than that. What has happened in India is that the coalition that brought Mr (Narendra) Modi to power has collapsed. It's broken right down the middle," Gandhi said.
"So you'll see in these elections that they will struggle. Because the basic idea that Mr Modi is running a government for the people of India is gone,” he added.
Alleging that the Lok Sabha elections were not fought on the same footing, Gandhi said, "I don’t see it as a free election. I see it as a heavily controlled election."
"I don't believe that in a fair election, the BJP would come anywhere near 240 seats. I would be surprised," he said, asserting that the party had a "huge financial advantage".
"The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. The entire campaign was structured so that Mr Modi could carry out his agenda across the country, with different designs for different states," Gandhi claimed.
"The Congress party fought the elections with their bank accounts frozen and has basically destroyed the idea of Modi. You can see it because when you see the prime minister now in Parliament...he is psychologically trapped, and he basically cannot come to terms, he cannot understand how this has happened," he said.
Responding to a question, Gandhi said that halfway through the campaign, Prime Minister Modi didn't think he would get anywhere near 300 or 400 seats.
“I think early on he realised that this thing's going wrong. We were getting inputs from regular sources...It was pretty clear that they were in trouble,” he said.
“So, there was this internal thing going on in the prime minister that I could see. And psychologically, how is this now happening? Because he's a person, as you know, he was in Gujarat for many years, never faced political adversity, then prime minister of India. Suddenly, this idea started to crack,” Gandhi said.
“We knew. When he said that I speak directly to God, we knew that we had actually blown him apart. And that the psychology had gone. So people think that, well, this was the prime minister sort of saying that, look, 'I'm special, I'm unique, and I talk to God'. But that's not how we saw it. Internally, we saw it as a psychological collapse, what happened here? How is this thing not working?” he said.
"Now that idea has been replaced," he said.
Gandhi, who arrived in the US on Saturday, interacted with members of the Indian diaspora and youths in Dallas, Texas. He also plans to meet lawmakers and senior officials of the US government in Washington DC.
