Rs. 2 lakh to those who lost homes, Rs 5 lakh for families of deceased: Chief Minister Kumaraswamy
Bengaluru, August 18: Chief Minister Kumaraswamy has stated that more than 1,000 personnel, including NDRF, have indulged in rescue operations in the Kodagu district where continuous rainfall, floods, and rockslides have worsened the normal life.
Speaking after receiving the updates about the situation, rescue and relief operations from the flood-affected districts; he said that 3,500 people had been rescued so far.
A team led by Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner has so far rescued 347 people who were trapped at Jodupala on Friday evening. The rescue operation is on in Kodagu, he added.
Relocated: 31 gruel centers have been established for victims. Furthermore, 2,250 people have been sheltered, and if necessary, more gruel centers will be opened. Officials from the revenue department who have been assigned to the Kodagu from other districts have already reached, he said.
Kerosene, cooking gas cylinders and petrol will soon be arranged for the citizens there. A video conference regarding this has already been held with the deputy commissioner. Besides, the banks have been asked to store enough cash in all the ATMs in the area.
It has been instructed to provide ten medical and nursing staff to Kodagu district. Arrangements for infant feeding have also been made. There are reports of many people including a pregnant woman trapped in the village of Mukkodlu in the district, and the army has already been sent to protect them.
As many as 50 JCBs will be used to repair the roads and felicitate the rescue operations temporarily. Geologists and technical experts are deployed as the Mangaluru-Mysuru National Highway -275 has been cracked.
Aid: Over 800 houses in the district are destroyed and the records of the victims' are lost. Arrangements are being made to get copies of their documents immediately. It has been instructed to give Rs. 2 lakh to those who lost homes, and Rs 5 lakh for the families of the deceased; The Chief Minister informed.
A committee comprising senior officials, headed by the chief secretary, has been asked to take action not to confront any financial crisis for relief and rescue operations.
Aid for crop loss: The outflow of the reservoirs has increased due to which crops have been lost in many parts of Kodagu, Shimoga, Dakshina Kannada, Mysuru and Hassan districts. The district administration has been instructed to submit a report regarding the crop loss within three days. After reviewing that report, action will be taken on the distribution of aid," he said.
“To re-provide the lost networking systems, instructions have been given to immediately repair the mobile towers that have fallen out because of the rain-flood situation. Deployment of additional staff from other districts has been instructed to provide electrical connection in rural areas. As many as 153 people have been killed, and 11,427 houses are damaged in the state since April to this day. 723 animals have died. In Kodagu district, at least six people have been killed, and more than 800 houses have been collapsed.”
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Not surprised EC gave itself clean chit: Cong slams poll panel on Haryana complaints
Warns ECI of legal action over 'condescending' tone
New Delhi, Nov 1: The Congress on Friday hit out at the Election Commission after it rejected allegations of "irregularities" in Haryana assembly polls, saying if the poll panel's goal is to "strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality", then it is doing a "remarkable job" at creating that impression.
The opposition party claimed that the EC's reply was written in a tone that is condescending and warned that if the poll panel persists with such language then it would have no choice but to seek legal recourse for getting such remarks expunged.
The Congress's response came days after the EC rejected allegations levelled by it over "irregularities" in assembly polls, saying the party was raising "the smoke of a generic doubt" about the credibility of an entire electoral outcome as done in the past.
The Congress said it is not surprised that the ECI has examined its complaints and "given itself a clean chit". The answer given to the question of the machines' fluctuating batteries seeks to confuse rather than clarify, it said.
"At any rate, the ECI reply is nothing more than a standard and generic set of bullets on how the machines function rather than a specific clarification on specific complaints. In short, while our complaints were specific the ECI response is generic and focused on diminishing the complaints and the petitioners," the Congress said.
In its letter to the EC signed by nine senior Congress leaders, including general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh, the party said, "We have carefully studied your response to our complaints. Not surprisingly, the ECI has given a clean chit to itself. We would normally have let it be at that. However, the tone and tenor of the ECI's response, the language used, and the allegations made against the INC compel us to submit the counter-response."
The Congress letter said that if the Commission grants a recognised national party a hearing or examines issues raised by them in good faith it is not an 'exception' or 'indulgence' but it is the performance of a duty required to be done.
"If the Commission is refusing to grant us a hearing or refusing to engage on certain complaints (which it has done in the past) then the law allows recourse to the higher courts' extraordinary jurisdiction to compel the ECI to discharge this function (as happened in 2019)," the letter said.
The Congress leaders, who had petitioned the EC alleging irregularities in the polls, said every reply from the EC now "seems to be laced with ad-hominem attacks" on either individual leaders or the party itself.
"The ECI's reply are written in a tone that is condescending. If the current ECI's goal is to strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality, then it is doing a remarkable job at creating that impression," the party said in its letter to the EC.
"Judges who write decisions do not attack or demonise the party raising the issues. However, if the ECI persists then we shall have no choice but to seek legal recourse to expunge such remarks," said the letter signed by Ramesh, K C Venugopal, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupinder Hooda, Ajay Maken, Abhishek Singhvi, Uday Bhan, Partap Bajwa and Pawan Khera.
They also said that the "pattern" sought to be identified by the ECI in its reply is "disingenuous" as sometimes acting on complaints immediately is the key.
"If they are not redressed on the ground then they become redundant. And then the only remedy available is an Election Petition which is a lengthy process taking years to resolve. Thus, we approach the ECI with whatever information we have, and the ECI with the vast resources at its command, examines and reviews this information to see if the same is correct. Many times, the ECI has found our information to be correct. Other times, not so. But we do not name and shame the ECI for those moments after the Election is over," they said.
The Congress said if they were "bad faith actors", then they would never engage with the ECI to begin with. "We would focus on naming and shaming the Commission with examples from the ECI's own recent history which do not shroud it with glory," it said, adding that they would have never engaged in that case.
The Congress said it has sent over a hundred complaints against the prime minister and home minister, but "the ECI has taken action in precisely zero complaints, while calling our party president and former party president to account for their actions/speeches".
"We would point out how the ECI never published a dissent note, actively suppressing it instead, by a former Commissioner in this regard. We would point out that the ECI has almost always fought any move for transparency and increase in VVPAT verification numbers, with the same having to be ordered by the Supreme Court. We challenge the ECI to fact check the above since it finds the INC's misgivings to be based on phantoms," the Congress said.
In a strongly-worded letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the poll panel had said such "frivolous and unfounded" doubts have the potential of creating "turbulence" when crucial steps like polling and counting are in live play, a time when both public and political parties' anxiousness is peaking.
The BJP retained power in Haryana winning 48 of the 90 seats in the October 5 assembly polls.
