Today in Politics: Kharge to Rahul to Priyanka, the Congress top brass in Belagavi for  two-day extended session 

The first day of the session would be held at the Veera Soudha, the same venue of the 1924 session, while on the second day, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi sanctioned by the Karnataka government will be unveiled at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha – the state Assembly in Belagavi.

According to a Congress leader, a rally will also be held by the party in Belagavi to mark the occasion. He said the rally, “Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan”, will be addressed by Kharge, Rahul, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, and state Congress chief D K Shivakumar, among others.

IN CONTEXT: The 1924 Belgaum session was presided over by Gandhi as the party chief. Gandhi had held the post of the Congress president between December 1924 and April 1925.

It was during this session in the erstwhile Bombay state that Gandhi laid down his ideas of non-violence, communal harmony as well as “swaraj (self-rule)”.

A day after NDA meeting 

Members of the ruling NDA met Wednesday at the New Delhi residence of BJP president and Union Minister J P Nadda to discuss ways to put up a united front to counter the Opposition “narrative” on the issue of the Constitution and Dr B R Ambedkar.

Crucially, The TDP, a key partner of the BJP, underlined the need for better NDA coordination on the lines of what the INDIA bloc has been doing to attack the government and the ruling alliance, especially after Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s remark in Rajya Sabha which the Congress claimed was an “insult” of Ambedkar.

Sambhal row: An RSS and BJP perspective 

Amid a growing clamour for surveys of Muslim mosques and shrines in different parts of the country, ranging from Sambhal’s Shahi Jama Masjid to Ajmer Sharif Dargah, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recently said that raking up such issues on a daily basis was “unacceptable”.

The latest issue of the RSS-affiliated magazine, The Organiser, has however argued in an editorial that knowing the real history of disputed sites and structures was important for “civilisational justice”. 

Also Read| https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/mohan-bhagwat-concern-rss-linked-magazine-truth-disputed-sites-key-civilisational-justice-9744186/ 

Meanwhile, BJP sources said Sambhal is set to join Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi (Varanasi) as pre-eminent religious sites in UP for the party.

On February 19 this year, a month after inaugurating the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a grand temple for Kalki in Sambhal. Like Kalki, Ram is considered an incarnation of Vishnu.

In his speech at the ceremony, Modi said: “When Lord Ram ruled, its impact was felt for thousands of years. Like Lord Ram, Kalki will impact a thousand years.” He also said that the ceremony had come to pass after “18 years of waiting”.

Also Read| https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/sambhal-latest-up-battleground-bjp-boost-9744055/

During the recent Winter Session of the UP Assembly, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath defended the survey of an ancient mosque in Sambhal in November that had triggered violence, saying the Baburnama talked of a temple at the site. He also invoked the town’s Kalki “connection”, saying that as per the Puranas, the 10th incarnation of Vishnu would be born in Sambhal.