Kodagu disaster: A pall of gloom descends on marriages, festivals
Madikeri, August 22: The disaster that shook the people of the district has now affected the marriages and festivals. The life was thrown out of gear in most part of the district. People are worried about their future as they have lost everything.
However, those who are in safe place compared to the distressed people, have no interest in celebrating the festivals or conducting the marriages. Because of this worst ever disaster, some of the marriage programmes were postponed.
In Kodagu district, the marriage programmes would start soon after the completion of the Ati month. As per this, the marriages were fixed after August 15. Now, majority of the marriages were postponed and parents have been sending messages to their relatives.
Many of the families have given advertisements in the Madikeri Radio about the postponement of the marriage programmes. Many engagements were also postponed.
The election scheduled for Agriculture Credit Cooperative Society was also postponed. Many general body meetings of the associations were also postponed. Following the disaster, the election to be held for Virajpete, Somawarpete, and Kushalnagar town panchayats on August 29 were also postponed.
In Madikeri and Somawarpete, the Ganesh festival committees have decided to celebrate the festival in a simple manner. The disaster shadow cast on major festival of Kodagu, Kail, to be held on September 3.
Villagers of Mukkodlu, Makkandur, Kalur and other villages who were in preparation for the festival, have lost everything and they are not in a position to celebrate any festival. If their shattered life is improved with the planned decisions and executions, then they could celebrate the festivals.
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Sanjay Raut demands re-election, alleges irregularities in EVMs during Maharashtra polls
Mumbai, Nov 25: Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Monday demanded a re-election in Maharashtra using ballot papers, claiming there were irregularities with the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Talking to reporters, Raut alleged several complaints about EVMs malfunctioning and questioned the integrity of the recently held elections.
The BJP-led Mahayuti won 230 out of 288 seats in the assembly elections, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi managed 46 seats, with Shiv Sena (UBT) winning just 20 out of 95 seats it contested.
"We have received nearly 450 complaints regarding EVMs. Despite raising objections repeatedly, no action has been taken on these issues. How can we say these elections were conducted fairly? Hence, I demand that the results be set aside and elections be held again using ballot papers," Raut said.
Citing some instances, he said a candidate in Nashik reportedly received only four votes despite having 65 votes from his family, while in Dombivli, discrepancies were found in EVM tallies, and election officials refused to acknowledge the objections.
The Sena (UBT) leader also questioned the credibility of the landslide victories of some candidates, saying, "What revolutionary work have they done to receive more than 1.5 lakh votes? Even leaders who recently switched parties have become MLAs. This raises suspicions. For the first time, a senior leader like Sharad Pawar has expressed doubts about EVMs, which cannot be ignored."
Asked about the MVA's poor performance in the elections, Raut rejected the idea of blaming a single individual.
"We fought as a united MVA. Even a leader like Sharad Pawar, who commands immense respect in Maharashtra, faced defeat. This shows that we need to analyse the reasons behind the failure. One of the reasons is EVM irregularities and the misuse of the system, unconstitutional practices, and even judicial decisions left unresolved by Justice Chandrachud," he said.
Raut stressed that though internal differences might have existed within the MVA, the failure was collective.
He also accused the Mahayuti of conducting the elections in an unfair manner.
"I cannot call the elections fair given the numerous reports of discrepancies in EVMs, mismatched numbers, and vote irregularities across the state," Raut said.
