NEWS

As enthusiasm surrounding the upcoming assembly elections in Kerala reaches its peak, a prominent figure missing from the campaigning phase is Velikkakath Sankaran Achuthanandan, one of the tallest communist leaders in the country.

In the southern state, the 97-year-old leader, who hails from the communist bastion of Alappuzha, has had a key role to play in elections over the past seven decades. And what made his rallies popular were sharp and witty one-liners and thundering political denunciations of opponents.

After the 2016 assembly elections — in which the Left Democratic Front (LDF) returned to power — he took a political back seat.

A seven-time legislator, Achuthanandan, or VS (as he is popularly called), resigned as the chairman of the state Administrative Reforms Commission in January-end, sparking speculations that he was retiring from politics.

Kerala BJP leader Kummanam Rajashekharan has said that the party will include petrol and diesel in the GST ambit and bring fuel prices down to Rs 60 per litre if they are elected to power.

BJP leader Kummanam Rajashekharan has said that BJP will include petrol and diesel in GST if they are elected to power in Kerala. He was speaking at a press conference in Kochi ahead of the election preparation in Kerala.

He also questioned the LDF government on why they are not allowing the inclusion of petrol and diesel in the GST fold. It is a national issue, the Centre will explain it and there must be some factors that lead to this, said the BJP leader.

On the face of it, the crisis in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra seems to have blown over with the resignation of forest minister and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Rathod.

But the episode has left too many unanswered questions about the larger state of affairs in the alliance government and power struggles within the Shiv Sena.

On Sunday, Sanjay Dulichand Rathod (49) became the first minister from the Uddhav Thackeray-led regime to quit the cabinet. This followed the suicide of a 22-year-old woman Pooja Chavan. On February 8, Chavan, who hailed from Parli Vaijyanath in Beed district and was described as a Tiktok star, died by suicide at Hadapsar in Pune.

For the first time, junior commissioned officers (JCOs) and jawans will take part in India’s top military conference to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat’s Kevadia this weekend, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The JCOs and jawans are expected to make presentations on some military topics during a segment of the Combined Commanders' Conference, said one of the officials cited above.

The conference will be attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat, the three service chiefs and commander-in-chief ranked officers of the armed forces. The three-day conference will begin on Thursday, with the PM delivering his address on March 6, said a second official.