
Decline in law-&-order in CG shows impact of BJP: Pilot
Raipur: Congress' Chhattisgarh in-charge
Sachin Pilot
criticised the BJP govt for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, alleging that governance was being controlled from Delhi even though they were elected here.
On a two-day visit to Raipur, Pilot met with party leaders to discuss organisational strengthening for 2025.
He said Congress MLAs would raise critical issues in the upcoming monsoon session. Responding to Union home minister Shah's comments on Maoist operations, Pilot said that while Congress opposes violence, anti-Naxal actions must be transparent, sensitive, and inclusive, warning against politicising internal security.

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Hindustan Times
15 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
BJP fails to replicate Lok Sabha success in Ludhiana West bypoll
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which secured over 45,000 votes from the Ludhiana West segment in the 2024 Lok Sabha Election, couldn't even hold on to half the votes in the byelection, the results for which were declared on Monday. The party's vote share fell by more than 55% as compared to the 2024 general election. (Gurpreet Singh/HT) The party's candidate Ravneet Bittu scored an impressive 45,424 votes in the Lok Sabha election last June. Congress candidate Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who had won the Lok Sabha seat, was a distant second in the segment with 30,889 votes. Expecting to translate the performance into a victory in the bypoll, the party fielded heavy weights like Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Anurag Thakur, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, Haryana CM Nayab Saini and Punjab BJP head Sunil Jakhar in the campaign. Former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani, who died in the Air India crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, had camped in Ludhiana and planned the campaign. Despite all this, party candidate Jiwan Gupta could secure only 20,323 votes, finishing third. BJP district president Rajnish Dhiman attributed the relatively poor performance to two factors. First, he claimed, was the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led state government throwing all its weight in the bypoll. It is being speculated that the bypoll was of critical importance to the AAP as it plans to send party supremo Arvind Kejriwal to Rajya Sabha by freeing the seat occupied by Sanjeev Arora, who has now been elected the new MLA from Ludhiana West. Kejriwal is expected to be nominated to Rajya Sabha from Punjab as Arora resigns from his seat. Second, the local BJP leader argued there was a difference in the nature of the elections. 'The Lok Sabha poll were fought on national agenda with issues like the Ram Mandir at the heart of the campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,' he said. He argued that it was those national issues and Narendra Modi as the PM which had driven the party's domineering performance in the segment in the Lok Sabha elections. The bypoll, he claimed, was 'too local' in comparison to Lok Sabha to be comparable. While accepting the people's decision, BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta also took pot shots at the state government and alleged that it 'abused' the administrative system to win the bypoll. He pointed out that while at some polling booths the turnout was very low and at others clocked 65%-70% votes. 'At one booth only 465 votes were cast, and 412 of these went to AAP,' he said, alleging discrepancy.


Indian Express
25 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Bypolls: AAP retains seats in Gujarat and Punjab, calls it ‘semi-final' to 2027 state polls
AFTER successive setbacks, the Aam Aadmi Party had some reason to rejoice Monday as the party won two Assembly seat bypolls, with the victory in Gujarat particularly sweet. Taking to X, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal called the bypolls 'a semi-final to 2027'. Both Gujarat and Punjab, the other state where the AAP picked up a seat, will see Assembly elections in 2027. 'Both the parties, Congress and BJP, contested the elections together in both places. Both of them had the same objective — to defeat AAP. But people rejected both these parties in both the places,' Kejriwal said in a post on X. Both the Assembly seats that the AAP won had also gone to the party in the 2022 state polls. While the Ludhiana West bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi, the Visavadar seat in Gujarat fell vacant after the sitting AAP MLA defected to the BJP. Another bypoll with political repercussions was Nilambur in Kerala, where the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) was delivered a shock by the Congress. The Assembly elections in Kerala are just months away, and both the LDF and Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) had built up the Nilambur contest as a pointer to the 2026 elections. The fifth bypoll, in West Bengal's Kaliganj, held no surprises, but the ruling Trinamool Congress had the comfort of not only retaining the seat but also increasing its vote share. For the AAP, the Gujarat win clears the way for the Assembly debut of its senior leader Gopal Italia, who lost in the 2022 polls. He won the Visavadar bypoll by a respectable margin of 17,554 votes, with the Congress virtually wiped out, getting just about 5,000 votes. With the Congress also losing vote share in the bypoll for the Kadi SC-reserved seat in Gujarat, with the BJP's Rajendra Chavda retaining the party's bastion by a margin of 39,452 votes, Gujarat PCC chief Shaktisinh Gohil announced his resignation. The Kadi seat had fallen vacant following the death of BJP MLA Karsan Solanki. The AAP will also cherish its Ludhiana West win, having poured all its energy — and, as per the Opposition, resources — into retaining the seat after the Delhi Assembly poll loss led to questions about its future. While the AAP's Sanjeev Arora, a sitting Rajya Sabha MP, won by 10,637 votes, the Congress's Bharat Bhushan Ashu was second, with the infighting between the party's leaders hobbling its campaign. Later in the day, Ashu quit as the Punjab Congress working president. The BJP finished third, besting the Shiromani Akali Dal and adding to its former ally's woes. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, whose government has been under attack on various fronts, said the result showed the people of the state were 'extremely happy' with AAP's work. The Nilambur seat was won by Congress candidate Aryadan Shoukath, the son of the late Congress stalwart Aryadan Muhammed, by 11,077 votes. The LDF had hoped to send a message ahead of the elections by winning the seat, and fielded its state Secretariat member M Swaraj. Instead, Nilambur has now become the fourth by-election defeat for the LDF under its government. The Nilambur constituency falls within the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat represented by Congress's Priyanka Gandhi. Shoukath got 44.17% vote share, while Swaraj got 37.88%. In the 2021 elections, LDF had polled 46.9% of votes and UDF 45.34%. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Independent candidate P Anvar had won Nilambur, backed by the Left. After failing to get the Congress ticket this time, he entered the Nilambur bypoll as a Trinamool Congress nominee. The wide gap between the winner and the nearest rival in the bypoll is mainly attributed to Anvar bagging 11.23% of the votes. Shoukath called his victory 'a major win against the LDF government'. In Bengal, the TMC's Alifa Ahmed beat BJP's Ashish Ghosh by 50,000 votes. This is better than the 2021 winning margin of her father Nasiruddin Ahmed, whose demise in February this year necessitated the byelection.


The Hindu
33 minutes ago
- The Hindu
TMC accuses Centre of not releasing funds for Ghatal flood management plan
As several wards of Ghatal municipality in Paschim Medinipur lay submerged due to excessive rainfall in the last several days, the West Bengal Government blamed the Union Government for not releasing funds for the Ghatal Master Plan. The Ghatal Master Plan is a comprehensive flood management scheme by the West Bengal government, aimed particularly at the flood-prone areas in Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur. The Detailed Project Report was sent to the Ganga Flood Control Commission under the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti in December 2014, according to the West Bengal government. The project remains incomplete. Meanwhile, like most years, this year too, places including Ghatal and Garbeta in Paschim Midnapore district, and certain areas of Bankura, Hooghly, and Howrah districts have been flooded due to excessive rain and the release of water from reservoirs, leading to a surge in local rivers. Despite extensive relief efforts by the West Bengal government, including rescue operations and flood shelters, two people reportedly lost their lives due to drowning in the flood-hit Ghatal area last week. Thousands had to be evacuated from their homes, and considerable damage has been incurred in agricultural lands, homes, and roads. Amidst the ongoing flood crisis, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) waged a war of words over who was to be held accountable for the severe floods. Former BJP MP Locket Chatterjee took to social media on Sunday (June 22, 2025) and posted a video, reportedly from the Ghatal floods. 'The Ghatal Master Plan was supposed to be implemented by December 31, 2024. The image of 2025 is before the whole of West Bengal, including Ghatal,' Ms. Chatterjee said. A few days earlier, the BJP's State unit had also accused the Trinamool MP from Ghatal, Dev Adhikari, of being an 'absentee representative' in the face of the perpetual flooding crises. On Monday (June 23, 2025), the State government sharply retorted to Ms. Chatterjee's post alleging that the Union government had not sanctioned any funds for the Ghatal Master Plan till date, despite the State sending a formal proposal of inclusion under the Central Flood Management and Border Area Programme funding scheme in June 2022. 'In 2014, the Indian government came under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Ms. Chatterjee, you were also an MP. But did you appeal to the Union government or to the Prime Minister to provide money for the Ghatal Master Plan, along with your party MPs? You did not,' Manas Ranjan Bhuiyan, West Bengal Minister for the Irrigation and Waterways Department, said on Monday (June 23, 2025). He added that in the State Budget for the 2025-26 financial year, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had approved the Ghatal Master Plan project of ₹1,500 crore, of which ₹500 crore had been allocated this time. Meanwhile, State authorities, in an official statement from the Irrigation and Waterways Department on Monday (June 23, 2025), said that work was in progress for the Ghatal Master Plan and that it was expected to be completed by March 2027. 'The work of construction of five sluices has already started in the field from February, 2025 with the current progress at around 60-70%. The dredging of Chandreswar Khal is almost completed. The works of two pump houses in Ghatal [Municipality] is going to start soon as work orders have been issued. The tenders for dredging of Silabati river, Old Cossye, Tamal, Parang, Buri Ganga, Solatopa, Old Solatopa channels of total length around 75 km have been floated,' the Irrigation and Waterways Department's statement said.