Today in Politics: Akhilesh set to join Rahul, Priyanka on Yatra’s final day in UP; PM Modi to unveil 5 AIIMS

AIIMS campuses in Andhra Pradesh’s Mangalagiri, Punjab’s Bathinda, Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli, and West Bengal’s Kalyani. The five super-speciality hospitals have been built by the Centre at a cost of Rs 6,300 crore, an official said.

While in Gujarat, Modi will also inaugurate the four-lane cable-stayed Sudarshan Setu bridge between Okha and Beyt Dwarka in Devbhumi Dwarka district apart from holding road shows and rallies in Rajkot and Jamnagar.

Modi will also inaugurate and perform ground-breaking for projects of Rs 48,000 crore of different state and Central departments. Of these, projects of Rs 35,700 crore are for Gujarat, while the remaining are for other states.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is headed to Madhya Pradesh on Sunday to review the BJP’s preparation for the Lok Sabha polls. Shah will visit Gwalior, Khajuraho and Bhopal, and hold meetings with party functionaries and also address a public meeting, state unit chief V D Sharma said.

Akhilesh at Rahul Yatra

After a series of setbacks for the Opposition INDIA alliance, with the loss of key allies and failed seat-sharing talks in West Bengal and Punjab, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will get a boost with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav set to join it on Sunday – a day after All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joined the Yatra as it resumed its journey from Moradabad for the march’s final leg in Uttar Pradesh.

Priyanka will accompany her brother as the Yatra passes through Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras, Agra, concluding at Fatehpur Sikri on Sunday. It will then enter Rajasthan’s Dholpur before taking a break till March 2.

Akhilesh will join Rahul and Priyanka during the Yatra in Agra just days after the two parties announced their seat-sharing pact for UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. After weeks of tense negotiations and hard bargaining, the SP and its smaller allies are set to contest 63 seats and the Congress 17, as reported by Maulshree Seth.

As part of the deal, the Congress has also agreed to allot Madhya Pradesh’s Khajuraho seat to the SP and contest in the remaining 28 seats in the state.

In the lead-up to the announcement, the SP had been claiming for months that the Congress was not a strong force in UP and should demand seats accordingly. On January 30, the SP sprang a surprise after it “unilaterally” announced that it would give the Congress just 11 Lok Sabha seats out of a total of 80 in the state, as reported by Asad Rehman.

Congress sources said that Priyanka played a “crucial role” in resolving the standoff between the two INDIA parties by speaking with Akhilesh over the phone to clinch the deal. The SP-Congress seat-sharing pact comes as a shot in the arm to the beleaguered INDIA bloc which has been lurching from crisis to crisis. Prior to the agreement, Akhilesh had said he would only participate in Rahul’s Yatra once the two parties’ seat-sharing was finalised.

Things appear to be looking up for the INDIA bloc, with the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also announcing their seat-sharing deal in Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, Gujarat and Goa after weeks of contentious negotiations, as reported by Jatin Anand.

Maratha quota activist’s next move

With the Maharashtra legislature unanimously passing a Bill to provide 10% reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs under a separate category on February 20, Manoj Jarange-Patil, the leader of the agitation for quota for Marathas, remains firm on his demand for this quota under the OBC category.

Addressing the media, Jarange-Patil said he would disclose his next course of action on Sunday. He alleged that the Eknath Shinde-led coalition government was deploying “tricks and conspiracies” to scuttle their efforts for a quota.

Siddaramaiah govt holds Constitution event

Meanwhile, the Congress government in Karnataka is holding a two-day event to spread awareness on the Constitution from February 24-25 in Bengaluru. Inaugurated by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday, over 80,000 people are expected to participate in the programme on Sunday.

– With PTI inputs