Ashok Tanwar, senior BJP leader, rejoined the Congress at party leader Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Haryana’s Mahendragarh on Thursday.

“Joined the Indian National Congress family at Mahendragarh rally in the presence of Former Congress president and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi Ji,” Tanwar said after rejoining the grand old party in a post on X.

As Lok Sabha LoP was about to finish his speech, an announcement was made from the stage asking the audience to wait for a few minutes. To everyone’s surprise, Tanwar walked onto the stage, and it was then declared that he had rejoined the congress.

Just an hour before, Tanwar was campaigning for the saffron party candidate ahead of the Haryana Assembly election, which is scheduled for October 5.

Before his departure from the party, Tanwar served as the Haryana Congress chief from 2014 to 2019. In 2021, he joined the Trinamool Congress and then switched to AAP the following year.

However, Tanwar left AAP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls due to his opposition to AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to ally with Congress. After leaving AAP, he joined the BJP and contested in the general election from Sirsa but lost to Congress’s Kumari Selja.

The former Congress chief was addressing an election rally in Mahendragarh with other senior leaders including former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Addressing the rally, Gandhi said: “The fight that is going on is the fight of ideology. There was a big LS election, now there is this Haryana election. On one side, there is a Congress party and on the other, there is BJP and RSS. We say that the country should be run by Constitution, it is for all, and everybody benefits from it. When we think about the country, development, progress, army, bureaucracy, we start from the Constitution. On the other hand, the BJP and the RSS don’t believe in it and want to finish it. They won’t say it in public meetings. They know that there is a deep relation of the country with the Constitution. But whatever they do, they do it to weaken the Constitution.”

Tanwar, an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, started his political journey with Congress’s student wing National Students Union of India. He served as the president of the student organisation and also led the Indian Youth Congress, the youth wing of the Congress, before assuming higher positions in the grand old party.

Former Indian cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin failed to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday in a money laundering case linked to alleged financial irregularities in the Hyderabad Cricket Association.

According to PTI, the 61-year-old was asked to depose before the central agency at its office here on October 3 and get his statement recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The former Congress MP, however, sought more time from the agency. He has been issued a fresh summons for October 8, according to reports.

In November last year, the ED had conducted searches related to alleged financial irregularities in the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA).

The ED had then raided the premises of former office bearers of the HCA, including former HCA vice president and Indian cricketer Shivlal Yadav, Congress MLA and ex-HCA president Gaddam Vinod, former HCA secretary Arshad Ayub apart from the office of a company called S S Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and the residential premise of its managing director (MD), Satyanarayana.

The agency is investigating Azharuddin’s actions during his time as the HCA president. The former Indian skipper, who ran for Assembly polls last year, has not yet responded.

The money laundering case is based on three FIRs and charge sheets filed by the Telangana anti-corruption bureau (ACB), alleging misappropriation of HCA funds amounting to Rs 20 crore.

The charge sheets allege serious irregularities in the procurement of DG sets, firefighting systems, and canopies for the Rajiv Gandhi Cricket Stadium in Uppal, Hyderabad. The ED previously stated that despite deadlines, several works were delayed, resulting in increased costs, budget enhancements, and corresponding losses to the HCA.

The office bearers of the HCA, including the then secretary, president, vice-president, and others, allegedly colluded with private parties to secure tenders and works at higher than market rates without proper tender processes. The agency also alleged that advance payments were made to many contractors without any work being done.

The ED’s raids last year led to the seizure of digital devices, incriminating documents, and unaccounted cash of Rs 10.39 lakh.

Azharuddin, a former cricketer, started his political career by winning the Moradabad Lok Sabha seat in 2009 and currently serves as the working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC).

The Israeli military on Thursday claimed the death of Rawhi Mushtaha, head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that besides Mushtaha, Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio on Hamas’ political bureau and Hamas’ Labor Committee, and Sami Oudeh, Commander of Hamas’ General Security Mechanism were also eliminated in a joint IDF and ISA strike in Gaza, approximately three months ago.

IDF further said that Israel Air Force (IAF) fighter jets struck and eliminated the terrorists while they were hiding in a fortified and equipped underground compound in northern Gaza.

“The compound served as a Hamas command and control center and enabled senior operatives to remain inside of it for extended periods of time. The IDF will continue to pursue all of the terrorists responsible for the October 7 massacre and will operate against anyone who threatens the State of Israel,” the Israeli Army said in a post on X.

The IDF stated that Mushtaha, alongside Yahya Sinwar, established Hamas’s General Security Mechanism. According to reports, both served a prison sentence together in an Israeli jail and Mushtaha was considered to be the most senior figure in the Hamas political bureau in the Gaza Strip and, during the war, maintained civil control of the Hamas regime while simultaneously engaging in terrorist activity against Israel.

The reports further stated that Mushtaha was Sinwar’s right-hand man and one of his closest associates.

Mushtaha had been one of Hamas’s most senior operatives and was a key decision-maker in how the terror organisation deployed its fighters and assets, the Israeli military noted.

The Gazan terror organisation, according to the IDF, refrained from making an announcement of the killing of its three senior Hamas operatives in an airstrike by the Israeli Army around three months ago to prevent morale loss among its fighters.

According to Israel, the Hamas leader was involved in military decisions while also acting as the Head of Hamas Civil Governance in the Gaza Strip and holding the Prisoners Affairs Portfolio. It added that he also formerly held the finance portfolio.