NEWS

With an eye on the 2023 assembly elections, the state Congress is making key appointments within the outfit while attempting to reach out to communities and sections that are not considered part of its support-base.

The recent appointments include UT Khader, a Muslim, as the deputy leader of the opposition and BK Hari Prasad, a Billava, as the head of the Congress party in the upper house of the state legislature.

MB Patil, who was named the campaign chief for the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) is from the dominant Lingayat community, believed to be the single-largest caste group in the state.

The Congress party has decided that it will not field any candidate from Karhal, Uttar Pradesh. This means the Congress is fielding no candidates against the Samajwadi Party president and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav on Karhal and Jaswant Nagar assembly seats where the deadline for filing nominations ended Tuesday (February 1, 2022). "So we didn't file nomination on Tuesday. The seat was on hold," said Manish Shah, AICC-Coordinator of Mainpuri. 

A Congress party spokesperson said the party pitted no candidates against the two in a reciprocal gesture of the SP which too had fielded no one on Rae Bareilly and Amethi Lok Sabha seats against INC leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the 2019 general elections.

Most colleges in the state are going to start offline classes from Tuesday and the students should be prepared to sit for offline exams, said Uday Samant, the Maharashtra higher and technical education minister.

Samant was speaking at Karad on Monday after holding meetings with the authorities of government engineering and pharmacy colleges.

“No one in the government was in favour of online classes for college education. But we had to go online because of the Covid situation. Most colleges are going to resume offline classes from February 1 and the exams will be held offline as well. Students must be prepared to write their exams offline. The district collectors have been asked to assess the local Covid situation, vaccination status of the college students and speak with the vice-chancellors before allowing colleges to resume offline classes in their respective districts.”

The Congress on Tuesday (February 1) released the list of its star campaigners for the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections which are scheduled to be held on February 14.

INC's enlisted 30 star campaigners for the second phase of the UP polls including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Sachin Pilot.

Polling across Uttar Pradesh's 403 constituencies will take place in seven phases starting from February 10 to March 7. The counting of votes in all states will take place on March 10.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 Assembly seats. The party secured a 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections for 403-member Assembly.