Baba Death Halts Election Campaign

With the news of Sri Sathya Baba's death, the ongoing election campaign came to a standstill in Kadapa district. Political leaders from various parties suspended their election campaign in Kadapa for a day due to the sudden death of Satya Sai Baba.

The Telugu Desam president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, who was scheduled to take a three-day campaign for the Kadapa elections had boarded the Venkatadri Express on Saturday night and reached Tadipatri in Anantapur district early on Sunday for a brief halt. When he was about to start his campaign from Jammalamadugu Assembly segment adjacent to Tadipatri, the news of Sai Baba's demise came in. Mr Naidu contacted the Satya Sai Trust members at Puttaparthi to confirm the news and cancelled his campaign and left for Puttaparthi.

The YSR Congress party president and former Kadapa Lok Sabha MP, Mr Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his mother, Ms Y.S. Vijayalakshmi, who is contesting from the Pulivendula Assembly seat, were attending the Easter celebrations in Pulivendula church. They cancelled their campaign for the day. Mr Jagan rushed to Puttaparthi to pay homage to the departed soul. The former chief minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, former minister, Mr J.C. Diwakar Reddy, who were also in Kadapa, cancelled their election meetings and left. Reports from Kadapa said that several Congress and TD leaders also suspended their electioneering for today.

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.