Chandigarh 8212; Headlines

Nitish quits as Railways Minister
Claiming 8220;moral responsibility8221; for the devastating train collision in North Bengal, Railways Minister Nitish Kumar today quit only to be told that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had refused to accept his resignation saying 8220;it was not required.8221; Kumar had sent his resignation after a visit to the site where the Brahmaputra Mail collided head-on with the Awadh-Assam Express killing at least 300 passengers.

PM to contest from Lucknow
The Bharatiya Janata Party today released a list of 115 candidates. These include 63 members of the dissolved Lok Sabha, Party General Secretary M. Venkaiah Naidu said. These include names of stalwarts like PM A. B Vajpayee Lucknow and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani Gandhinagar.

EC announces fresh poll dates
The Election Commission today announced a revised Lok Sabha poll schedule spread over five phases from September 5 to October 3 as the original schedule clashed with festivals and posed administrative and logistic problems. The poll dates will now be September 5, 11, 18, 25 and October 3. Counting will begin on October 6 instead of October 5. The earlier schedule was September 4, 11, 17, 24 and October 1.