NEWS

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared the names of 15 people with Delhi Police, CBI and ED and asked them to "conduct raids and file fake FIRs" against those on the list and "ruin them before the next elections".

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta rejected the allegations as "unfounded and baseless" and accused the Arvind Kejriwal government of resorting to issuing "concocted statements" to make AAP relevant in the upcoming elections in few states.

During an online briefing, Sisodia claimed that many names on the list are from the Aam Aadmi Party.

The expansion of the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh slated for next week is likely to amplify the OBC push in the reshuffle of the central council of ministers effected recently. A decision to this effect was taken during a meeting at the residence of home minister Amit Shah on Thursday.

Representation for communities like Kurmi, Nishad and Rajbhar is in sync with the central leadership's concerted bid to promote OBC leaders. A record 27 OBC leaders were included in the central government in the recent reshuffle.

BJP president J P Nadda, Yogi, state president Swatantra Dev Singh and state general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal were present at the meeting which lasted for over three hours. While there is a possibility of allies being inducted, new entrant to the party former Congress member Jitin Prasada, may also get a berth in the ministry.

Police on Sunday invoked the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against four persons out of ten arrested so far for allegedly raising pro-Pakistan slogans during a Muharram event in Ujjain of Madhya Pradesh, a senior police officer said. The development comes a day after some right-wing organisations and religious leaders clad in saffron staged demonstrations, torched effigies of Pakistan, and demanded tough action by the police against those people who had raised pro-Pakistan slogans in the Geeta Colony area on the night of August 19.

Ujjain superintendent of police Satyendra Shukla confirmed that the NSA has been invoked on four persons who among others had allegedly shouted the slogans.

He refused to give names of the accused.

Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's adviser Sam Pitroda, who was to virtually address a session on 'IT for Good Governance' as the chief guest, had to attend the function using his mobile phone as his computer was allegedly hacked during the event. Pitroda, who had joined in from Chicago, US, said: "It seems that some people did not want me to join this function."

The programme, organised by the Rajasthan government on the occasion of Rajiv's 77th birth anniversary, was marked with technical glitches. Earlier, while showing a short film on the state government's IT achievements, the show was paused for about five minutes due to technical reasons. As soon as Pitroda started his speech, he lost audio. Since it took time to establish contact, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot filled the vacuum with his speech. Pitroda later joined the function by using his mobile. Alleging a conspiracy, he said his computer was hacked and locked.