UK PM Sunak sacks Suella Braverman as Home Secretary over Palestine remark: Reports
London (PTI): British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday sacked his Indian-origin Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, days after days it emerged that a controversial newspaper article attacking the Metropolitan Police was published without clearance from her boss, according to reports coming out from Downing Street.
The 43-year-old Goan-origin Cabinet minister has repeatedly courted controversy in her senior UK Cabinet role, most recently by accusing the Met Police of "playing favourites" when tackling aggressive Israel-Gaza protests in an article in The Times.
Sunak, the first Indian-origin British prime minister, had been under pressure from sections of his Conservative Party as well as faced attacks from the Opposition for allowing her to continue in her job after she went ahead with the article in a perceived breach of the ministerial code.
"Our brave police officers deserve the thanks of every decent citizen for their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter-protesters in London yesterday. That multiple officers were injured doing their duty is an outrage," Braverman said in a statement on Sunday evening following far-right violence during the protests over the weekend.
"The sick, inflammatory and, in some cases, clearly criminal chants, placards and paraphernalia openly on display at the march mark a new low. Antisemitism and other forms of racism together with the valorising of terrorism on such a scale is deeply troubling," she said.
However, her intervention in support of the police may have come a little too late to save her job in the end.
Prime Minister Sunak is expected to carry out a cabinet reshuffle today, the BBC reported.
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Will vacate one of two assembly seats won in 10 days: BJP''s Suvendu
Kolkata (PTI): BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur and secured Nandigram for three times in a row in the recent assembly polls, said on Wednesday that he would vacate one of the two constituencies within 10 days.
Adhikari also asserted that the party's central leadership would decide which constituency he would retain.
"I will vacate one seat within 10 days. The party will decide which one I retain. I will not forget my responsibility towards the people of Bhabanipur and Nandigram," he said.
Adhikari on Monday defeated Banerjee in Bhabanipur by over 15,000 votes, puncturing what was long seen as her safest political refuge and delivering a decisive psychological blow to the TMC, amid a sweeping BJP surge across West Bengal.
Addressing party workers and supporters in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district, the BJP leader appealed to them not to take out victory processions immediately and instead maintain peace.
"Do not take out victory rallies now. Maintain peace and discipline. Celebrate after May 9, after taking permission," he told party workers.
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Wednesday announced that the oath-taking ceremony of the new government will be held on May 9 at Brigade Parade Ground.
Referring to alleged attacks on BJP workers during the TMC regime, Adhikari said he would not forget the “atrocities" faced by them and assured them of taking appropriate action against perpetrators through legal processes.
"I was part of the 2011 ‘poribartan’ (change), and now I am part of the real change. I offer my gratitude to the people of Nandigram," Adhikari said.
He was referring to the TMC's victory in 2011 when the Mamata Banerjee party dismantled the 34-year Left Front regime in the state.
Adhikari offered prayers at a Hanuman statue in Nandigram and remembered the BJP workers, who had died in political violence.
"We will work in such a way that the BJP government in Bengal stays for 100 years," he said, expressing hope that the BJP’s vote share in the state would rise from the current 46 per cent to 60 per cent in future elections.
The BJP leader also assured residents of Nandigram of improved drinking water supply and better hospital and education infrastructure.
