Congress retaining power in 2028 hinges on Guarantee Committees, says DKS
'The State Government has allocated ₹1 lakh crore to support the poor, which constitutes 25 per cent of the state's budget. Of this, ₹50,000 crore has been spent on the Guarantee Schemes. It is the responsibility of the Guarantee Committees to take these schemes to the people, and the election results will depend on their efforts,' he said.
Shivakumar stated that plans are underway to hold Guarantee Conventions in every ward and panchayat in the coming days. Addressing Guarantee Committee office-bearers from state, district, and taluk levels on Tuesday, he said that many of the Congress party's schemes and initiatives—such as MNREGA and the land-to-the-tiller policy—are unmatched.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
27 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Review additions to electoral roll to weed out ‘fictitious' voters: Bengal CEO to DEOs
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal has directed all the District Election Officers (DEOs) to conduct sampling of one per cent of Form 6 disbursed in the past one year to check if any 'fictitious' voters were added to the electoral rolls. West Bengal will go to the Assembly polls early next year. In a letter to the DEOs and DMs, CEO Manoj Agarwal directed them to form a team of senior officers to check the disbursed Form 6 in their respective districts and submit a report by August 14. 'Sample checking of less than 1 per cent Form 6 disposals by the EROs (Electoral Registration Officers) during continuous updation has revealed a considerable number of Form 6 for fictitious voters. In all these cases, BLOs verification was dispensed with, without any apparent urgency/requirement and similar documents were captured for a large number of application forms and their verification reports,' the CEO wrote. The CEO has also ordered that the OC Election, posted in the BDO Office, and the casual and daily wages contractual data entry operators should not be involved in the disposal of the forms or any of the functions and duties in ERONet, the electoral roll management system. 'The EROs have since admitted that they had provided user access to the ERO net to the AERO/OC Election in BDO Office/ Casual Data Entry Operators who had thereafter disposed of the Form 6 applications. While appropriate action in these and other cases is being contemplated, District Election Officers are hereby directed to form a team of senior officers and have the sample checking of all Form 6 disposals done during the last one year and send a report to the undersigned by 14th August, 2025 positively,' the July 28 letter stated. Reacting to the report, BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition in Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, demanded a probe, accusing the TMC government in the state of 'rigging the electoral system'. 'This latest memo from the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal to all the District Election Officers (DMs) exposes a scandalous betrayal of democracy… Fictitious Voters added to the rolls and unauthorized meddling by Casual Data Entry Operators IS THE DEPTH OF CORRUPTION UNDER MAMATA BANERJEE'S RULE. Booth Level Officers pressured to fudge records, Electoral Registration Officers handing over Voter Lists related jobs to unqualified hands is an assault on every citizen's right to participate in a fair election,' Adhikari posted on X. West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal is in New Delhi to meet Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the implementation of the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll, which is currently being conducted in neighbouring poll-bound Bihar, sources said. According to sources in the state election commission, Agarwal will discuss with the CEC on the timeline of conducting the SIR and the necessary preparations for it. Earlier, the CEO started the SIR training workshop for the Booth Level Officials (BLOs) from Saturday. 'The SIR may be held in the future in the state. Training will not take place again and again. Since the Assembly election is six to eight months away, we will not be able to conduct these training workshops again,' Agarwal had said earlier. ENS Recently, the Chief Electoral Officer made voter lists from the 2002 electoral roll revision available online, sparking speculation that the exercise will begin in the state in August.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Ahead of elections, Maharashtra govt had cleared road works worth Rs 9,300 crore in tribal areas
In months leading to the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, Maharashtra's Tribal Development department had approved road works worth Rs 9,300 crore against the approved budget of merely Rs 2,830 crore. As per the data accessed by The Indian Express, the government has dues pending Rs 10,100 crore for the works undertaken in the past three years. The finance minister has directed to avoid taking up the new projects and focus on paying up the dues. Directions have also been given to review the works which were given administrative approval but could not be started for over a year. The Tribal Affairs department of the state government undertake road works in tribal areas (budget head 5054 5117). Since the year 2022-23 to 2024-25, works worth Rs 13,016 crore were approved against the approved budget of just Rs 3,230 crore. As per the data, in December 2023 (leading up to Lok Sabha 2024 polls) woks worth Rs 4,500 crore and in July 2024 (leading up to Assembly 2024 polls) works worth Rs 4,800 crore were approved, which amounts to a total of 70 per cent of the total works in the past three years. Prior to December 2023, the total amount of administrative approval for the year 2023-24 was Rs 2,900 crore only. As per the data, works worth Rs 700 crore were given administrative approval in the year 2022-23 against the budget of Rs 400 crore. On Tuesday, Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar held a review of the financial situation of the department. 'The total pendency of the dues is around Rs 10,000 crore for last three years. The minister has directed us to ensure that dues are paid and there will be no new projects,' said an official who attended the meeting. Pawar has also asked to take the review of the pending road works for more than a year. 'There are works which did not start for more than a year despite administrative approval. Directions have been given that those works will be cancelled,' said the official. The associations of Maharashtra's contractors and engineers have been demanding their dues from the government since last year. In February they wrote a letter to state government's top leadership warning to stop all ongoing infrastructure works as payments worth Rs 89,000 crore from different departments have allegedly not been paid since July 2024. Despite stopping the works in phase-wise manner across the state, the contractors have yet not been paid. Among the alleged Rs 89,000 crore dues of the contractors include Rs 46,000 crore from the Public Works Department (PWD), Rs 18,000 crore from the Jal Jeevan Mission under Water Supply and Sanitation department, Rs 8,600 crore from the rural development department, Rs 19,700 crore from the irrigation department and Rs 1,700 crore from the works done under DPDC, MLA fund and MP fund.
The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Keralite nuns' arrest: KPCC takes out protest march to Raj Bhavan
The Governor should convey to the Centre about the public outrage in Kerala over the arrest and imprisonment of two Keralite nuns by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Chhattisgarh, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president and MLA Sunny Joseph said. Addressing a march organised by the KPCC to Raj Bhavan on Wednesday to protest against the arrest and the unconstitutional actions of the BJP administration in Chhattisgarh, Mr. Joseph pointed out that the Chhattisgarh government had foisted false charges against the nuns and had manipulated the first information report (FIR) by adding non-existent legal clauses, thus denying them bail. He said that the BJP was challenging the rule of law and it was shameful that the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh was justifying its action against the nuns, which was a violation of the civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Inaugurating the march, the Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the Kerala Chief Minister should not waste any time in informing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister the State's strong protest against the unfounded action against the nuns . He said the Chhattisgarh government had been unfair in imprisoning the nuns who were engaged in humanitarian work. The Sangh Parivar's hallmark was intolerance. Instigating people and communities to fight against each other over religious freedom and rights was how the BJP was playing the people of Kerala, Mr. Satheesan said. An example He said the incident in Chhattisgarh was a stark example of the fate that awaited the minorities and the marginalised wherever the Congress was out of power The incident has tarnished the nation's secular image on the international front, he pointed out. Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala spoke about the anxiety and insecurities faced by the religious minorities in the country today. The arrest of the nuns who were engaged in humanitarian activities amongst the poor and marginalised in Chhattisgarh was a joint attempt by the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to unleash a communal riot, he said. Mr. Modi, who makes a song and dance about greeting Christians on the occasion of Christmas, has been silent about the atrocities that were being committed against the Christians by the BJP's feeder organisations, Mr. Chennithala added. AICC general secretary Deepa Dasmunshi, KPCC working president P.C. Vishnunath, acting president of Thiruvananthapuram DCC N. Sakthan and senior Congress leaders M.M. Hassan, V.M. Sudheeran, K. Muraleedharan, among others, spoke
