BJP Unveils 14 Candidates for Rajya Sabha Elections Across 7 States

Posted on by Vividh Bharthi

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made a significant move on Sunday, revealing the names of 14 candidates slated to contest the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections across seven states, with a notable focus on Uttar Pradesh, where seven candidates have been nominated.

In Uttar Pradesh, the party has put forward spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former minister R.P.N. Singh, Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, Sadhna Singh, Amarpal Maurya, Sangeeta Balwant, and Naveen Jain as its contenders.

The remaining candidates include Dharamsheela Gupta and Bhim Singh from Bihar, Raja Devendra Pratap Singh from Chhattisgarh, Subhash Barala from Haryana, Narayana Krishnasa Bhandage from Karnataka, Mahendra Bhatt from Uttarakhand, and Samik Bhattacharya from West Bengal.

This move underlines the BJP’s strategic approach towards the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, reflecting the party’s efforts to strengthen its representation and influence in the upper house across diverse states.

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Chapter on Kashmiri Sufi saint won’t be deleted from school syllabus: CM Omar Abdullah

Srinagar, Dec 19 (IANS) Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah assured on Thursday that a chapter on Kashmiri patron Sufi saint, Sheikh Noor-Ud-Din Wali, also called Sheikh-ul-Alam, will not be deleted from class 9 syllabus.

Omar posted on X on Thursday: “I assure @tarigami Sb that there will be no deletion of the chapter. The matter has already been taken up by @sakinaitoo sahiba as soon as this was brought to the attention of the government.”

M. Y. Tarigami, CPI-M leader and MLA had invited Omar’s attention to the reported deletion of a chapter on the saint’s life from class 9 syllabus.

Tarigami earlier said on X, “It is deeply troubling that an entire chapter on the revered Sufi saint Sheikh-ul-Alam has been dropped from the Class 9 textbook. This blue-pencilling, carried out prior to the Assembly polls, is unacceptable to a society rooted in rich Sufi traditions.”

“I urge Chief Minister @OmarAbdullah to intervene and ensure that this crucial chapter is reinstated, thereby preserving and honouring our rich cultural and Sufi heritage.”

After the assurance by the Chief Minister that the chapter on the life of Sheikh Noor-Ud-Din Wali will not be deleted from class 9 syllabus, Ruling National Conference said on its official X post, “JKNC Chief Spokesperson & MLA Zadibal @tanvirsadiq assured that the chapter on Sheikh-ul-Alam will not be removed from textbooks. The Education Minister has directed the Principal Secretary to address and rectify the issue found in the PDF version.”

The reported deletion of the chapter on the life of Kashmir’s patron saint from school syllabus was also strongly criticised by Peoples Conference (PC) chief and MLA, Sajad Gani Lone. He rebuked the Board of School Education (BOSE) for the reported deletion.

Taking to X, Sajad said, “BOSE has removed a chapter based on the saintly life of the greatly revered saint of Kashmir Sheikh Noor-Ud-Din Wali, from text books of class 9.”

“We have all revered him and people irrespective of religion hold him in highest esteem. This is pure cultural terrorism. It is an assault on our culture and ethos. I as a Kashmiri, strongly condemn it.”

“More than any time in the past, the current times are smudged with violence, greed and hatred. In these times our great Saint is a beacon of hope and role model for emulation. And for the BOSE removers — Our great Saint and his Saintly ways were etched in our hearts and minds much before BOSE came into existence.”

–IANS

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Bengal school job case: ED gets clues on how scam proceeds were diverted as donations to trusts

Kolkata, Dec 20 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has identified a new angle of money laundering in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal where a major part of the proceeds was diverted and shown as donations to certain charitable trusts.

Sources aware of the development said that the ED has mentioned this new style of money laundering in its last and fifth supplementary charge sheet filed at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata recently.

One such trust named in the fifth supplementary charge sheet is the Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, named after the deceased wife of former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, who has been behind bars since his arrest by the ED in the school-job case way back in July 2022.

In the previous charge sheet, Chatterjee’s son-in-law Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya had also been shown as a co-accused of the former Education Minister in this game of fund diversion under the masquerade of donations.

Bhattacharya, who has settled abroad with his wife and Chatterjee’s daughter Sohini Chatterjee Bhattacharya, was also questioned by the ED as well as the officials of the Income Tax department in the matter.

However, his wife had not been shown as an accused in the case though she was the Chairperson of the trust. Besides the trusts, the ED in their subsequent charge sheets had named a number of shell corporate entities linked to Chatterjee and his close associate Arpita Mukherjee.

Chatterjee and Mukherjee were arrested in July 2022, after the ED officials seized huge amounts of cash and gold from her twin residences then. Mukherjee is currently out on bail.

In the last and fifth charge sheet, the ED had also named a corporate entity linked to another prime accused Sujay Krishna Bhadra and claimed that his entity also acted as a major channel of fund diversion.

In the charge sheet, the ED has included 29 new names of individuals and corporate entities

–IANS

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