Sonia or No Sonia: PRP-Cong to merge

Inspite of the Congress president Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, who had invited him, is away in the United States for an emergency medical treatment, the Praja Rajyam chief Mr K. Chiranjeevi is planning to go ahead with the programme to take Congress membership in New Delhi on 8 August as scheduled earlier.

Mrs Gandhi had invited Mr Chiranjeevi to New Delhi between August 7 and 10, to formalise the merger of the PR with the Congress. The PR leader had planned to call on her on August 8, but the unexpected development has unsettled the PR. "We don't want to postpone it further. We are planning to go ahead with the programme to take Congress membership in the presence of Congress Core Committee members. However, a final decision will be taken on Friday," Mr Chiranjeevi said. He added, "It's unfortunate that the Congress president is sick and unavailable. We wish her a speedy recovery."

Ever since the PRP-Congress merger has been announced, it is getting delay for one reason or the other. He decided to merge the PR with the Congress in February, and since then, first the Telangana agitation and then Mrs Gandhi’s busy schedule and the party’s preoccupation with various issues at the Centre have conspired to delay the formal merger. The frustration of Mr. Chiranjeevi is understandable and it would also be prudent of him not to postpone it further, paving way for dissent among the party's cadre.  While Mr Chiranjeevi will take membership in New Delhi, other party MLAs will do the same in Hyderabad.

Modi Is Not Our PM: Owaisi

MIM is a recognized state political party based in the Indian state of Telangana, with its head office in the old city of Hyderabad, which has its roots in the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen founded in 1927. Unlike most of the regional and national level parties, MIM party leaders ‘fight’ only for the well-being of Muslims, whereas no other party has such communal feelings. In their each and every speech, MIM leaders speak only about Muslims. If these leaders are here to fight for Muslims, then why there are no development works are happening in old city area for decades. Akbaruddin Owaisi faced criticism for making hate remarks on Narendra Modi and Hindus. Recently, his elder brother Asaduddin Owaisi made some notorious annotations. In a one-on-one debate between BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra and Asaduddin Owaisi on the topic of demonetization in a popular Hindi channel, the former left no stone unturned in exposing the latter’s communal designs. Owaisi claimed how most of the Muslim community still remains unbanked and that demonetization has caused severe inconvenience to Muslims. He even went on to say that ATM’s in Muslim-dominated areas weren’t fed enough money. He indirectly alleged that the Modi government hadn’t done anything for Muslims. Even after being pressurized Owaisi didn’t call Narendra Modi as his Prime Minister. He went on said, “Your Prime Minister…” On the other hand, Sambit spoke wisely and called Owaisi a leader of small stature because he talked only of Muslims. He said that no area was Muslim or Hindu and that all areas belonged to India. Owaisi was constantly quoting an RBI report, to which Sambit challenged him to show where the RBI had used the word ‘Muslim’. Sambit even said that if a Muslim leader speaks of Muslims it’s not an issue, but the moment a VHP leader speaks of Hindus people go crazy accusing them of imposing the Hindutva ideology. The most amazing of his counters was to Owaisi’s claims of Muslims not having been brought into the banking system. Sambit said that when banks or ATMs are to be opened in Muslim areas leaders like Owaisi shout that banking is un-Islamic and that Muslims should refrain from it! This video of debate between Sambit Patra and Asaduddin Owaisi is going viral in social media.