New Delhi: A BJP probe committee, which visited Odisha to look into the communal violence on the eve of Hanuman Jayanti in Sambalpur last month, has blamed “lack” of security arrangements and alleged a religious procession was pelted with stones from mosques.
The four-member panel of MPs Brij Lal, Samir Oraon, Aditya Sahu and Jyotirmay Singh Mahato submitted its report to party president J P Nadda on Tuesday.
The committee alleged the Hanuman Jayanti procession on motorcycles was pelted with stones from mosques and rooftops on April 12, causing injuries to many people, party leaders said.
It further alleged adequate security arrangements were not made despite intelligence of likely violence.
TSBIE deploys committee to approve advertisements of junior colleges
Hyderabad: A five-membered committee has been announced by the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) to look over advertisements proposed by private junior colleges.
The board, on Monday, mandated that those looking forward to advertising their students and publishing any other advertisement must first take the approval of the committee, comprising senior officials from the Intermediate board.
The move has been initiated to rule out the allegations of corporate junior colleges giving out misleading advertisements over the top ranks by students in entrance tests such as the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) UG to lure parents and students into their institutions.
Secretary of the board, Navin Mittal has announced that the committee will monitor the culture of advertisements and will also set a code to be followed by the private junior college managements.
Senior officials from the board to join the committee will include the controller of examinations, joint secretaries for exams, administration, and academic and Public Relations Officer (PRO).
Mittal briefed that private college managements must first submit their applications to the committee along with the advertisements to the PRO for approval following which the committee will then scrutinize the content of submitted advertisements, make necessary suggestions (if required), and then approve it for publication.
Lane also appeared to have attended a meeting where 11 Arizona Republicans falsely declared themselves presidential electors. In a video of that meeting, which was posted by the Arizona Republican Party, a man wearing a Trump campaign jacket with the name “Lane” on it is seen passing out papers for people to sign “certifying themselves Arizona’s ‘duly elected and qualified electors.’”
POLITICO also obtained a video from September of 2021 — during which time Lane was working as an RNC “election integrity” official in Virginia — in which he fanned conspiracy theories about the election. Lane was speaking to a gathering of conservative grassroots organizers about the RNC’s statewide plan to deploy poll workers and watchers in the upcoming gubernatorial election.
It’s important that “we learn from mistakes, we learn from any fraud, stealing,” said Lane.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that last year was stolen. ‘Stolen’ means different things to different people. On one end, it can mean the Chinese, the Russians, uh, hacked machines, or there was an influx of ballots, or fake ballots, whatever,” Lane said in the video given to POLITICO from the group Documented, a non-partisan investigative watchdog that says it believes “democracy itself is under attack.”
“On the other end is, ‘Hey, Covid was a thing, Democrats took complete advantage of it, within the laws, and outside the laws.’ And there’s everything in between,” said Lane.
Lane was among a number of people from the 2020 Trump campaign who both received subpoenas from law enforcement and complied with those requests. The committee declined to comment about the incident or his work in the House. Lane, who does not appear to have faced any charges, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Lane was a young aide on the Trump campaign at the time, fresh out of graduating from law school. But his career path from there through the House Administration Committee underscores how individuals connected to Donald Trump’s unsuccessful scheme remain well within the corridors of power, including on matters of election conduct.
The House Administration Committee is often considered a sleepy backwater that runs the logistics of the House, including doling out parking and office spaces. But it also has broad jurisdiction over elections — from campaign finance law to voting rights and election administration. Its chair, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), did not vote to block certification of the 2020 election but it’s been holding numerous hearings recently about the 2022 election, some that include individuals who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
Last week, it held a hearing featuring a number of individuals who participated in a recent Washington conference hosted by conservative groups pushing for voting restrictions. Among those who testified were Hans Von Spakovsky, the Heritage Foundation’s elections lawyer who has a long history of advocating for voting restrictions and insists the U.S. system is rife with voter fraud.
Lane’s role would typically include helping to plan hearings, recommend witnesses and draft questions and helping to draft legislation, according to a person familiar with the committee’s operations.
In a potential sign of Lane’s influence over the committee’s work, last month Lynn Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy testified before the election subcommittee on the issue of “election observer access.” Taylor worked closely in 2021 with Lane, whom she introduced at the September event, and Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who advised Trump in the 2020 election. Mitchell spread false election claims and participated in the former president’s infamous call with Georgia election officials where Trump urged them to “find” votes. Mitchell resigned from her law firm following criticism of her involvement in the call.
After the 2020 election, Mitchell created a network of activist groups to recruit and coach poll watchers and workers in multiple battleground states. Mitchell’s broader “Election Integrity Network” is now collaborating directly with Taylor, according to Lindsey Zea, a research analyst for the VIPP who spoke during a Feb. 21 Zoom meeting of activists obtained by POLITICO.
Mitchell has also spoken openly about having a working relationship with the House Administration Committee. At a meeting last week for the Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that serves as a clearinghouse for election information and upon whose advisory board she serves, Mitchell praised the committee’s staff.
“They’ve been wonderful about working with and helping to educate volunteers and citizen activists on weekly calls,” Mitchell said of the staffers. Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment.
During those weekly meetings, which often occur over Zoom and include conservative activists, Mitchell has encouraged attendees to become familiar with local elections clerks as she pushes a menu of reforms that would reduce ballot access among certain groups, including university students.
In an April 13 call run by an allied group, Michigan Fair Elections, Mitchell said “we are at a turning point in our republic.” According to the call, which was obtained by POLITICO, Mitchell went on to say that U.S. “electoral systems” need to change or Republicans will “lose the presidential election” again in 2024. A lawyer on a separate April 6 call run by the same group spoke about plans to sue public universities in Michigan that help register students to vote.
Mitchell has served as a member of the EAC’s advisory board since late 2021, when she was appointed as one of the two representatives of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an independent federal commission created in the 1950s. Her position there has been the subject of controversy given the key role she played in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Though the board does not have a policy-making role and meets irregularly, it can make recommendations on voluntary guidelines to the EAC. The EAC certifies voting systems and advises local election offices on compliance with federal election regulations.
Earlier this month, the progressive think tank Center for American Progress issued a report highlighting the “failure” to hold Trump and his allies “fully accountable” for their “scheme to destabilize the democratic system for political purposes.”
As a RNC official, Lane collaborated with Mitchell in Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial election in 2021, which Mitchell considered a test pilot for nationwide “election integrity” coalitions. And in a January 2023 letter to RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, Mitchell and other members of her coalition complained that Lane and some other “election integrity” officials had not retained their positions after the 2022 midterms. The letter referred to Lane as an “outstanding leader.”
“We were distressed, to say the least, to learn that all the state (election integrity directors) and the entire field staff were to be terminated,” the letter read. “Preventing cheating in our nation’s elections is a priority to voters,” it continued.
Shortly thereafter, Lane took up the job with the House Administration Committee, according to his LinkedIn page.
“I have already had the opportunity to meet with Secretaries of State and county election officials from across the country,” Lane said on his LinkedIn in announcing his new role. He said he is “ecstatic” to be in the position.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Mumbai: A committee of the Nationalist Congress Party will meet at 11 am today to decide on who will head the NCP next, days after party chief Sharad Pawar announced that he would be stepping down from the top position.
The committee was set up by 82-year-old Pawar to pick his successor and it includes Ajit Pawar, Supriya Sule, former Union leader Parful Patel and Bhujbal.
Pawar on Thursday said his decision to step down from the post was taken for the future of the party and to create a new leadership amid continued demand from party workers that he reconsiders his decision.
NCP leaders, on condition of anonymity, said Baramati Lok Sabha MP and Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is likely to be the party’s national chief while Ajit Pawar will take charge of the Maharashtra unit.
As per party leaders, the mantle of NCP chief is likely to remain within the Pawar family as giving the reins to someone from outside may lead to rifts and power tussles in the outfit formed in 1999.
These leaders asserted Sule, a three-term LS MP, had established herself as an effective parliamentarian and has contacts with leaders of parties across the political spectrum, whereas Ajit Pawar has a good hold over the state unit and is widely acknowledged as an able administrator.
Moreover, these leaders added that Ajit Pawar had recently spoken about his chief ministerial dreams, while Sule has always said national politics interests her.
Incidentally, senior NCP leader and former state minister Chhagan Bhujbal had said Sule should take up the party’s national mantle and Ajit Pawar must head the state unit, though the MLA from Yeola in Nashik was quick to add that this was his personal opinion.
Speaking outside the Y B Chavan Centre in the city, where his supporters have been camping to demand his continuation as the party chief, Pawar said on Thursday he would take a final decision in the next couple of days and the sentiments of party workers will not be ignored.
“I respect your sentiments. I should have discussed my plans with all of you and taken you into confidence. But I know you wouldn’t have allowed me to take the decision (of stepping down as party chief),” the former Union minister told his supporters.
He said some party colleagues from outside Maharashtra will meet him on Friday to discuss the issue. “I will take a final decision in one or two days,” Pawar said.
As emotions ran high among his supporters, Pawar tried to pacify them outside the YB Chavan Centre.
The party cadres gathered at the place urged Pawar to appoint a working president of the party, while he himself should continue in the post.
Some of them said Pawar should helm the party at least till 2024 as the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are due, while others said if he did not reconsider his decision, they would resort to a hunger strike.
Pawar on Tuesday sprang a surprise by announcing his decision to quit as president of the party he founded and headed since 1999 when he left the Congress to chart his own political course.
The announcement, made at an event, stumped leaders and workers of the 24-year-old party. Pawar, a Rajya Sabha MP and one of the stalwarts of the Opposition, had said he was stepping down as NCP chief but was not retiring from public life.
The announcement came amid speculation that Ajit Pawar and some MLAs may join hands with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, though the former deputy chief minister has refuted such talk by claiming he will be with the NCP till he is alive.
According to party sources, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin of the DMK spoke to Sule over phone to enquire about developments in the NCP following Tuesday’s announcement.
While Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Congress have maintained the developments in the NCP will not affect the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which comprises the three parties, political observers said a lot would depend on what Ajit Pawar does after the Supreme Court verdict, likely in a couple of days, on petitions related to the toppling of the Thackeray government in June last year.
These observers also added Ajit Pawar was unlikely to switch sides as developments since Tuesday have shown the NCP was firmly with Sharad Pawar and the former was unlikely to get the numbers to effectively split the party.
Speaking on the future of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, Maharashtra Congress vice president Ratnakar Mahajan said the current situation was “complex and unpredictable”.
“But, all the three constituents of the MVA would stay together in the light of results of recent polls,” Mahajan said.
Brimm last managed North Carolina Democrat Cheri Beasley’s 2022 Senate run, and also worked for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden as North Carolina state director for the 2020 primaries. He has also previously managed other congressional races in and outside the Tar Heel State, and worked at the DCCC.
Secretary of state races received an unprecedented amount of attention last year when candidates across the country allied with former President Donald Trump ran to be states’ chief election officials. Many of those candidates ran as part of a coalition, with promises to remake the elections system under the false pretense that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
In the five core battleground states that elected secretaries, those election deniers all lost — one in a Republican primary to an incumbent secretary, and four in a general election to Democrats. DASS raised over $30 million for the 2022 cycle — roughly 7.5 times what the committee raised for the 2018 and 2022 cycles — and other liberal outside groups poured in millions more to win races in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada. A lone disappointment for the party was in Georgia, where Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cruised to reelection after defeating a Trump-aligned candidate in a primary. Raffensperger famously denied efforts to overturn election results in Georgia.
If election deniers had won, they would have been in a position of overseeing the 2024 election in key battleground states. And despite their losses, many of those candidates did not fade away: Kristina Karamo is now the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, while Nevada’s Jim Marchant announced a Senate campaign earlier this week.
The 2022 elections were one of dramatic expansion for DASS, which had only one full-time staffer at the start of the cycle. Brimm declined to share a specific fundraising or staffing target going forward, but he said: “early benchmarks are making sure that we’re carrying it forward.”
Brimm said a goal of his this cycle is to make sure the committee isn’t “writing off any candidates … making sure that we’re challenging every available race on the board.”
Compared to the midterms — where 25 states elected a chief election official — the next two years will be comparatively sparse. Three red-leaning states are electing chief election officials this year — Republican incumbents Michael Adams of Kentucky and Michael Watson of Mississippi are seeking reelection, and there is an open race in Louisiana.
There are just seven secretaries on the ballot next year, including Washington and Oregon — which despite their overall blue tilt, only saw their secretaries’ office flip to Democrats in 2021. And Shemia Fagan, Oregon’s secretary of state, is resigning from office effective next week after Willamette Week broke the news that she had a consulting contract with a cannabis company while her office was auditing the state’s marijuana program.
But 2026 will be another big year for the committee. Democratic incumbents Adrian Fontes of Arizona, Cisco Aguilar of Nevada and Steve Simon of Minnesota will be eligible to run again, as will Georgia’s Raffensperger. Michigan will be an open-seat race, with Democratic incumbent Jocelyn Benson term-limited. Brimm said he would serve through the 2026 midterms.
“With a four year approach, there are a variety of different pieces that I think are going to be compelling for people to continue to pay attention and continue to support not just DASS as an organization, but also our candidates and incumbents,” he said. “The work of secretaries of states in administering elections is pretty damn important in presidential years.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Government has formed a committee to evaluate bids for the development of a ‘world-class’ amusement park at Tattoo Ground in Srinagar, officials said on Tuesday, The Tribune reported
“Sanction is hereby accorded to the constitution of a committee for evaluating bids of the project development of world-class amusement park at Tattoo Ground, Srinagar,” reads the order
The nine-member committee will be headed by Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar Bidhuri.
Earlier in November 2015, former Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, laid the foundation stone of a citizens’ park in the middle of a 200-acre military garrison at Tattoo Ground.
New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that a committee headed by the cabinet secretary would be constituted to explore administrative steps for addressing some concerns of same-sex couples without going into the issue of legalising their marriage.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, which is hearing a batch of pleas seeking legal validation of same-sex marriage, that the government is positive about the suggestion for exploring administrative steps in this regard.
He told the bench, which also comprised justices S K Kaul, S R Bhat, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha, that this will need coordination between more than one ministries.
On the seventh day of hearing in the matter, Mehta said the petitioners can give their suggestions on the issue of exploring what administrative steps can be taken in this regard.
While hearing the matter on April 27, the apex court had asked the Centre whether social welfare benefits can be granted to same-sex couples without going into legalising their marriage.
The court had posed the question after observing that the Centre’s acceptance of right to cohabitation of same sex partners as a fundamental right cast a “corresponding duty” on it to recognise its social consequences.
New Delhi: Delhi Haj Committee chairperson Kausar Jahan on Monday met the ambassador of Saudi Arabia and requested him for better facilities for pilgrims going for Haj from the city.
A total of 2,540 people from Delhi will go for Haj this year, she said in a statement.
Jahan, a BJP leader, met Saudi Arabia’s ambassador Saleh Eid Al Husseini and discussed with him issues related to pilgrims visiting the country for Haj this year, according to the statement.
The committee has approved 2,540 Hajis from Delhi that include a group of 39 women who will be going on the pilgrimage without any male accomplice, she said.
“Never before has such a big group of women Hajis have been to Haj from Delhi without a male accomplice,” Jahan said.
She said daily training sessions, including yoga exercise, for pilgrims are being held that will continue till May 9. A special training session for women Hajis will be held at the Haj House at Turkman Gate from Tuesday, she added.
SRINAGAR: The Government has ordered constitution of Union territory Level Inter Departmental Coordination Committee and District Level Inter Departmental Coordination Committees on registration of Births and Deaths in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to an order, the UT-level committee is headed by Administrative Secretary, Planning, Development & Monitoring Department, the members of the committee include Administrative Secretary or Representative not below the rank of Additional Secretary, Housing & Urban Development Department, Administrative Secretary/ Representative not below the rank of Additional Secretary, Department of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Department, Administrative Secretary/Representative not below the rank of Additional Secretary, Health & Medical Education Department, Director Census Operations, J&K/Representative, Director General, Economics & Statistics, J&K (Chief Registrar, (Births & Deaths), Commissioner Municipal Corporation, Jammu/Srinagar, Regional Director (E&S), (Additional Chief Registrar, Births & Deaths), Jammu Kashmir, Director Rural Development Jammu/Kashmir, Director, Health Services, Jammu/ Kashmir and Director, Urban Local Bodies, Jammu/Kashmir.
The 12-member committee has been tasked to ensure smooth implementation of Civil Registration System; to bring interdepartmental co-ordination of departments engaged in civil registration to resolve the operational problems affecting the registration work; to discuss and resolve the issues which requires intervention at the top level; to co-ordinate, unify and supervise the work of registration for securing an efficient system of registration; any other issues for smooth implementation in the UT of Jammu & Kashmir; and to convene meeting(s) at UT Level at least once in a year.
The District level Inter Departmental Coordination Committee(s) comprises Deputy Commissioner (Concerned) as chairman and its members include Additional Deputy Commissioner (Concerned),
The terms of reference include to ensure smooth implementation of Civil Registration System; to bring interdepartmental co-ordination of departments engaged in civil registration to resolve the operational problems affecting the registration work; to discuss and resolve the issues which requires intervention at the top level; iv. to co-ordinate, unify and supervise the work of registration for securing an efficient system of registration; any other issues for smooth implementation in the districts; and to convene quarterly meeting(s) at District Level. (GNS)
