Delhi Confidential: Iconic Calendar

Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has prepared a ‘Samajwadi PDA panchang’ for 2026, a calendar that apart from displaying the key dates of national, historical and cultural importance also highlights death and birth anniversaries of party’s ideologues, party founders, and other former social icons belonging to PDA (pichhda, dalit, alpsankhyak) caste groups. After the calendar was released by Akhilesh, it is now being circulated among the party workers across the country.

SIR Surprise

Senior Congress leader Gurdeep Singh Sappal’s name, along with other members of his family, didn’t figure in the draft electoral roll following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Uttar Pradesh. According to Sappal, the names of his family members were in the electoral roll of 2003 and they had submitted all required documents. He said the names were deleted because he shifted residence from UP’s Sahibabad to Noida. The Congress plans to use the exclusion of its leader to target the Election Commission over ‘flaws’ in the SIR exercise. The party’s state unit may also raise the issue with the UP Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and highlight it across the state, said sources.

Foreign Affairs

In a break from the tradition of cornering the government on foreign policy issues inside Parliament, some Congress leaders are coming up with books on the subject. Former Foreign minister Salman Khurshid’s ‘India’s Tryst with the World’, scheduled to be launched this week, weighs in on how India should position itself as it moves towards 100 years of Independence in 2047. His colleague Manish Tewari, who is a member of the parliamentary committee on external affairs, launches his ‘A World Adrift’ next week.