Sonia Gandhi on 2 Day Karnataka Tour

The Congress chief and UPA chairperson Smt Sonia Gandhi is on a 2 day tour to Karnataka state to attend the birthday celebrations of the Tumkur Mutt Swami who turned 105, few days ago. Her visit is seen as an attempt by the Congress to galvanise party workers in the state for the polls coming up in 2013. The Siddaganga Mutt Swami is the most influential guru among the Lingayat community, which forms about 17 per cent of Karnataka's population.

The Lingayats had distanced themselves from Congress since 2004 as the BJP began generous donations to Lingayat mutts. Sonia will attend an hour long puja and seek the swami's blessings. After that she is slated to meet Congress delegates at Tumkur. All four union ministers representing Karnataka - SM Krishna, Mallikarjun Kharge, K H Muniyappa and M Veerappa Moily are travelling with Mrs Gandhi. She is slated to visit the drought-hit Nagasamudra village in Chitradurga district tomorrow.

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.