Delhi Confidential: Surprise Visit

SHASHI THAROOR appears to be the most vocal among the Congress MPs over the new citizenship law. This is perhaps the reason why a pamphlet that advertised his Bharat Bachao protest has come under severe criticism for a map of India it had on its background. RSS weekly Organiser has done a report on the pamphlet Tharoor posted on Twitter. The article said the post had a “disfigured map of India which omitted parts of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir”. Tharoor replaced his Twitter post with a new one, but on Sunday, a few hours after the weekly report, Tharoor posted a picture used by pro-CAB and NRC supporters with a wrong map of India. “The Hindutva elements who made such a huge fuss about a designer’s illustration for the Kozhikode #bharatbachaorally seem anxious to give away even more Indian territory to our enemies! Will this shame them into stopping their ridiculous campaign of calumny?,” the MP tweeted.

Staying Put

AN AICC functionary camping in a state which he is in charge of for over a month is unheard of in the Congress. R P N Singh — the AICC in charge of Jharkhand — spent close to 35 days in Ranchi ever since the Congress announced its candidates. The Congress is playing second fiddle to the JMM in Jharkhand, contesting in 31 seats of the total 81 but Singh did not want to take chances and spent over a month in Ranchi tying up loose ends in the campaign. He will be in Ranchi on Monday as well when counting of votes will take place. Unlike the JMM, the Congress is contesting mostly in urban or semi-urban seats where the BJP has a strong presence. The Congress has its fingers crossed now as it hopes to better its 2014 tally of six seats and cross the two-digit mark for the second time ever since the state came into existence.

Stalled

THE NITI Aayog’s meeting to draft the roadmap for population stabilisation in the country, scheduled to be held on Friday, was postponed at the last minute. Though no specific reason was cited for the postponement, it is learnt that the decision to hold the meeting on another date was taken as some of the participants were unable to reach on time due to ongoing protests against CAA-NRC in Delhi. It is not clear when the meeting will be held. Meanwhile, a programme organised by the MSME Ministry to distribute Electric Potter Wheel by Khadi & Village Industries Commission was also cancelled.