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Journalism of Courage
Having failed to get his conviction in a defamation case on use of “Modi surname” stayed by the Gujarat High Court, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will have his day in the Supreme Court on Friday. The conviction and sentencing of two years led to Rahul being stripped of his MP status, and disqualified from contesting elections for eight years.
A Bench headed by CJI D Y Chandrachud had on July 18 agreed to Rahul’s advocate’s plea for an urgent hearing. In his appeal, the Congress leader said that if the July 7 High Court judgment was not stayed, it would lead to “throttling of free speech, expression, thought, and statement”. Rahul needs a stay on his conviction to be reinstated as MP.
Rahul was convicted by a lower court in Surat on March 23, and dismissing his appeal for a stay, the High Court said “purity in politics” was the need of the hour.
Separately, the Supreme Court will Friday hear the pleas of Tamil Nadu Minister V Senthil Balaji and his wife Megala against the July 14 order of the Madras High Court, upholding his arrest in a money laundering case.
July 21 marks the Trinamool Congress’s annual Martyrs’ Day Rally — to mark the killing of 13 Congress workers in 1993 during a demonstration by the state Youth Congress, led at the time by the president.
The biggest event in the party’s calendar, it will have extra eyes on it this year in anticipation of what the TMC supremo and her No. 2 Abhishek have to say about the Opposition unity efforts. As reported by Manoj C G, Mamata emerged at the centre of the action in the latest round of talks held in Bengaluru.
The BJP though will try its hardest to keep the conversation about the Bengal panchayat election violence, and has announced a plan to gherao BDO offices throughout the state on the issue.
Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who arrived in India on Thursday, will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday. This will be his first visit to the country since assuming “current responsibilities”, as the External Affairs Ministry put it. Wickremsinghe took over as President of the cash-strapped country last year following the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a people’s uprising, and the visit coincides with the first anniversary of his appointment.
The talks between Wickremesinghe and Modi have been described as “wide-ranging”, covering all aspects of ties between the two countries.
Tamil Nadu, the state with the closest links to Lanka, has already put forth its list of issues to be taken up with Wickremesinghe: protection of the traditional fishing rights of Indian fishermen, the “retrieval” of Katchatheevu island and addressing “genuine aspirations” of the Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will address a public meeting in Gwalior on Friday, in her second visit to the poll-bound state in 40 days. Vadra will start off by paying homage at the memorial of Rani Laxmibai, the Congress said.
On June 12, Priyanka had kickstarted the Congress campaign in the state with a rally in Jabalpur, where she said that if voted to power in the state, the Congress would implement five schemes, including Rs 1,500 financial assistance per month to women, free electricity up to 100 units and restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
As reported by Anand Mohan J, the Congress has been trying to make inroads into the Gwalior-Chambal belt, the home turf of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose defection from the Congress had led to the collapse of the Congress government in 2019. The Congress’s efforts in the region are led by the son of old Scindia rival Digvijaya Singh, and recently saw several Scindia loyalists cross back to the Congress.
In his fortnightly column tracing the long arc of India’s politics via its castes and their cast, Shyamlal Yadav this time explores why Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan washing the feet of a tribal who was urinated upon is a symbolism with little meaning in a state where STs hold numerical power but rarely political heft.
A weekly tracker of ripples at the ground which travel far and wide, Deep Mukherjee takes a look at Ashok Gehlot government’s double push of welfare measures and landmark Bills.
