Want 'Next PM' Rahul Gandhi to contest from Karnataka: Siddaramaiah
Bengaluru, Mar 15: Former chief minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said the Karnataka Congress wants party president Rahul Gandhi to contest the coming Lok Sabha polls from the southern state.
Calling Gandhi the "next Prime Minister of India", the Congress Legislature Party leader recalled his grandmother Indira Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Karnataka in the past.
"Karnataka has always supported & encouraged @INCIndia leaders. It has been proved in case of Smt. Indira ji & Smt. Sonia ji.
We also want our next Prime Minister of India Shri. @RahulGandhi to contest from Karnataka & herald new developmental paradigm.
#RaGaFromKarnataka," Siddaramaiah said in a tweet.
While Indira Gandhi had scripted her political comeback from Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka by winning the Lok Sabha bypolls in 1978, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi had contested and won from Ballari in 1999, trouncing the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Sushma Swaraj.
Interestingly, the Congress has ceded the Chikkamagaluru seat to its alliance partner Janata Dal (Secular) this time, while Ballari remains with the grand old party.
Siddaramaiah's tweet has come amid reports about pressure within the Congress for Rahul Gandhi to contest from one of the seats in south India.
The Congress had, earlier this month, announced that the party chief would contest from Amethi and Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli, both traditional strongholds of the party in Uttar Pradesh.
Karnataka has always supported & encouraged @INCIndia leaders. It has been proved in case of Smt. Indira ji & Smt. Sonia ji.
— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 15, 2019
We also want our next Prime Minister of India Shri. @RahulGandhi to contest from Karnataka & herald new developmental paradigm.#RaGaFromKarnataka
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
