Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju slammed Congress General Secretary and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in the Parliament boring. The Union Minister said that Priyanka Gandhi made such remarks as she is new to the Parliament, and she did not understand the Prime Minister’s vision. 

Reacting to the PM’s 100 minute speech, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra compared it to a double period of Mathematics in school, mentioning it to be unengaging and lacked novelty. She further remarked that the Prime Minister has not spoken anything new. She claimed that the Prime Minister has bored the Parliamentarians. 

Responding to Gandhi’s remarks, Kiren Rijiju defended PM Narendra Modi’s address, stressing its significance. He added that maybe Priyanka Gandhi did not understand what the Prime Minister was saying, but everything Narendra Modi said was correct. 

He emphasized that PM Narendra Modi outlined 11 mantras for making India a developed nation. The Union Minister further underlined that the mantra is not for any single party but a collective mission, which all have to follow. Kiren Rijiju stated that they must work together to achieve the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2027. He added that whatever PM Modi said, they need to unite and make India a developed nation.   

Speaking during the Lok Sabha debate on the 75-year journey of India’s Constitution on Saturday, Kiren Rijiju accused the Congress of failing to honour Dr BR Ambedkar appropriately. He also demanded an apology from the party to lessen its sins, alleging that the Congress initially excluded Ambedkar from the cabinet and later made him lose the 1952 parliamentary election. He further questioned why the Bharat Ratna was conferred on Ambedkar only in 1990, decades after his contributions. 

The Union Minister dismissed claims that minorities lack safety and rights in India. Mentioning Article 15 of the Constitution, he stated that India has always ensured equal rights and opportunities for all, including minorities. He added that India is one of the first countries to grant universal suffrage. He also highlighted that the Constitution protects the freedom of religion and minority interests.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has released its fourth and final list for the 2025 Delhi Assembly Elections. The party has fielded national convenor and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from New Delhi and Chief Minister Atishi from Kalkaji.

The final list of 38 candidates features other key leaders of the party as well, including Saurabh Bharadwaj, Gopal Rai, Satyendra Kumar Jain and Durgesh Pathak. The elections to the 70-member assembly of the national capital are due to be held in February 2025.

Ahead of the elections, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has ruled out any possibility of a pre-election alliance with the Congress. Kejriwal said that his party will fight the election on its own strength.

According to the list, Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj will contest the elections from Greater Kailash, while Gopal Rai has been fielded from Babarpur. AAP’s final list shows Satyendra Kumar Jain to be fighting the battlefield from Shakur Basti and Durgesh Pathak from Rajinder Nagar.

Additionally, other candidates include Ramesh Pehalwan from Kasturba Naga, Raghuvinder Shokeen from Nangloi, Imran Hussain from Ballimaran, Jarnail Singh from Tilak Nagar, and Sanjeev Jha from Burari.

Previously, speculations were rife over a possible alliance between the AAP and the Congress, the two INDIA bloc partners. These rumours caught heat after Kejriwal attended an opposition group meeting over the alleged EVM and VVPAT machines tampering in the recently held Maharashtra assembly elections.

Earlier in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal’s party and the Congress had contested in an alliance in the national capital as well as other parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Congress has already fielded former CM Sheila Dikshit’s son Sandeep Dikshit for the Delhi polls, and the BJP is likely to field Parvesh Sahib Singh, son of ex-CM Sahib Singh Verma.

Ahead of the elections, Arvind Kejriwal announced five guarantees for auto drivers in Delhi. Among the key guarantees are Rs 1 lakh for marriage of daughters and life insurance worth Rs 10 lakh. He has also promised to provide ₹2,500 on Diwali and Holi as allowance to purchase school uniforms.

Additionally, while vouching for his party’s government, Arvind Kejriwal last month also issued a warning against the BJP. He mentioned that if the saffron is voted to power then Delhiites would once again face power cut problems.

Estranged Wife of 34-year-old techie Atul Subhash, Nikita Singhania, her mother Nisha and brother Anurag have been arrested in an abetment to suicide case, days after Atul died by suicide after accusing Nikita and her family of harassment and extortion.

While Nikita Singhania was arrested from Gurugram, her mother and brother were arrested in Prayagraj. Also, her uncle Sushil, also an accused, is on the run. The police said that the three accused were arrested yesterday and brought to Bengaluru late at night. The accused were produced in court today and remanded in custody for 14 days. Earlier, Bengaluru police had asked them to appear within three days.

Notably, Nikita Singhania and her family members are at the centre of massive outrage over Atul Subhash’s death by suicide and the allegations he made against them in a 24-page suicide note and an 80-minute video. Atul Subhash, originally from Bihar’s Samastipur, was found dead at his Bengaluru flat on Monday. The police found a detailed note at his home, with every page starting with justice is due.

In the suicide note and video, the 34-year-old techie alleged that he married Nikita in 2019 after finding her on a matchmaking website. They had a son the next year. He further alleged that Nikita and her family would ask him for huge amounts of money to set up businesses, which led to arguments when he refused and she eventually left home in 2021 with their son.

The following year, Atul Subhash alleged that she filed a litany of cases against him and his family members under serious charges of cruelty against a woman, dowry harassment and even murder. His estranged wife and in-laws accused him and his family members of harassing Nikita’s late father for dowry, leading to his death. However, this case was later withdrawn.

Atul Subhash claimed that before his death Nikita and her family members had filed multiple cases to harass him and extort a huge sum as alimony and maintenance. He added that Nikita had demanded Rs 3 crore to settle the case. He further said that the court had asked him to pay Rs 80,000 monthly as maintenance to Nikita and his son, but she wanted more.

Furthermore, accusing the judicial system of favouring women in such cases, Atul Subhash wrote in the note that the more he works hard and becomes better at his work, the more he and his family will be harassed and extorted and the whole legal system will encourage and help his harassers. He continued that with him gone, there won’t be any money and there won’t be any reason to harass his old parents and brother. He mentioned that he might have destroyed his body but it has saved everything he believes in.

Additionally, he also accused Nikita and her mother Nisha of instigating him to die on two occasions.

After his death, his brother Bikas Kumar filed an abetment to suicide case against Nikita, her mother Nisha, brother Anurag and uncle Sushil Singhania. His family alleged that he was under severe stress because of the legal fight and that he had to travel between Bengaluru and Jaunpur 40 times. They asserted that Nikita refused to let him meet their son and demanded money for that too. Meanwhile, Nikita’s uncle Sushil Singhania earlier told the media that Atul’s allegations are baseless and that they are innocent.