Today in Politics: BJP, Congress poll panel meetings likely to discuss second list; SBI plea in SC

The BJP’s first list included 51 seats from Uttar Pradesh, 24 from Madhya Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, 15 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 from Kerala, nine from Telangana, 11 each from Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, five from Delhi, three from Uttarakhand, two each from Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, and one each from Goa, Tripura, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Daman and Diu. It also replaced as many as 33 sitting MPs with new faces.

The Congress, in comparison, released only 39 names in its first list last Friday and the names of candidates from Uttar Pradesh are likely to be discussed on Monday. Earlier, Manoj CG reported that Rahul Gandhi might contest again from Amethi, which he lost to Union Minister Smriti Irani in 2019 while there is suspense over the electoral debut of AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Raebareli, a seat her mother Sonia Gandhi has represented in the Lok Sabha since 2004.

Related to the elections, more importantly, the Election Commission (EC) is scheduled to hold a meeting of all its observers — the police, general, and expenditure observers — on Monday. After the briefing in Delhi, the observers, numbering almost 2,000, will be sent to their constituencies. The EC is also expected to Srinagar for its review of preparations for the elections in Jammu and Kashmir on March 12 and 13. The EC has been under the spotlight since Saturday because of the resignation of Arun Goel as Election Commissioner.

SBI plea before SC

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the application filed by the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking an extension till June 30 to disclose details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud will also hear a separate plea that has sought initiation of contempt action against the SBI, alleging that it “wilfully and deliberately” disobeyed the apex court’s direction to submit details of the contributions made to political parties through electoral bonds to the Election Commission (EC) by March 6.

In context: On February 15, a five-judge Constitution Bench scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional”, and ordered disclosure by EC of the donors, the amount donated by them, and the recipients by March 13.

The top court subsequently directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit to the EC by March 6 the details of the electoral bonds purchased from April 12, 2019, to date. The bank was also asked to publish the information on its official website by March 13. On March 4, the SBI moved the apex court seeking an extension till June 30 to disclose the details. The bank contended that retrieval of information from “each silo” and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise.

Modi to inaugurate highways worth Rs 1 lakh crore

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate and lay the foundation of 112 national highway projects across India worth Rs 1 lakh crore at an event in Gurugram on Monday.

According to an official statement, the PM will inaugurate the Haryana section of the landmark Dwarka Expressway, which will help improve traffic flow and ease congestion between Delhi and Gurugram on the National Highway-48. The 19-km-long Haryana section of the eight-lane Dwarka Expressway has been built at a cost of around Rs 4,100 crore and includes two packages of 10.2-km-long Delhi-Haryana Border to Basai Rail-over-Bridge (ROB) and 8.7-km-long Basai ROB to Kherki Daula.

— With PTI inputs