NEWS

On a day Pashupati Kumar Paras, leader of a faction of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) that walked away with most of the party's Lok Sabha MPs, was administered the oath of office as Union Cabinet minister, the opposing faction led by Jamui MP Chirag Paswan moved Delhi High Court against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla's decision to declare Paras as the LJP Parliamentary party leader.

Stating that the party had never been in contention for a Cabinet berth, LJP principal general secretary Abdul Khalique told The Indian Express, “We have no issues at Paras being made a (Union) minister. But he cannot be treated as an LJP minister.”

In what can be seen as a soft swipe at the saffron party, the party also said that the BJP “did not follow gathbandhan (alliance) dharma”.

Justice Kausik Chanda Wednesday recused from hearing the petition filed in the Calcutta High Court by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenging the Assembly poll result in Nandigram, but imposed a cost of Rs 5 lakh on her for “calculated psychological offensives and vilification adopted to seek recusal”.

On June 24, the single-judge Bench of Justice Chanda had reserved its order on Banerjee’s plea seeking his recusal and pointing to the “likelihood of bias” on the part of the judge given his association with the BJP during his time as a lawyer.

In his order, Justice Chanda said he was recusing from the case to prevent “trouble-mongers” from creating “newer controversies”.

While the overall Covid situation remains stable in the country, there has been a steady increase in cases in Kerala. Incidentally, on Wednesday, the total caseload of the state also crossed 30 lakh, making it second state after Maharashtra to record these many cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

Kerala reported 15,600 cases on Wednesday. The state breached the 15,000 benchmark last on June 9 when it had reported 16,204 cases. Even the state’s death toll of 148 was the highest since June 24.

Concerned over the rampant violation of Covid-19 protocol by tourists thronging to Shimla, Manali and other hill stations in Himachal Pradesh, the Union Health Ministry has taken up the matter with the state government and written a letter, sources in the government have told media.

The heavy influx of tourists comes days after the Himachal Pradesh government relaxed Covid-19 related restrictions, including the mandatory RT-PCR test.

The result was massive tourist influx resulting in midway holdups on national highways and unprecedented traffic jams in most tourists destinations, including the state capital Shimla.