After settling tussle in Punjab, Sonia heads to Shimla
Darpan News Desk IANS, 20 Sep, 2021 11:02 AM
Shimla, Sep 20 (IANS) Just hours after settling the political tussle in its ruled state Punjab, Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi is in a holiday mood.
She reached Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, by air in the morning from where she headed straight to her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cottage located amid forests of pine and cedar on the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital.
Sonia Gandhi is expected to stay here for two-three days and there is no engagement to meet any party functionary during the stay, an official here told IANS.
Priyanka's five-room cottage -- with wooden frames and shingled exteriors and a sloping tiled roof -- is furnished with interiors at a height of more than 8,000 feet in Charabra, some 15 km uphill from here.
Priyanka along with her children and mother regularly visit the cottage, just close to Wildflower Hall, on a four-bigha plus agricultural plot that was purchased in 2007.
Amarinder Singh when asked said, "I do not know what has been removed, it looks very nice to me." The statement is contrary to Rahul Gandhi who on Tuesday joined the outrage on social media over the renovation.
In a hard-hitting response to his Haryana counterpart's tweets questioning him on farmer welfare, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday ripped into Manohal Lal Khattar's claims, terming them a "pathetic attempt" to cover up the "sustained and persistently shameful treatment meted out" to farmers by his government.
Rawat is scheduled to visit Punjab in a day or two and will talk to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and state president Navjot Singh Sidhu and sort out the issues arising out of the differences between the two leaders.
The government has decided to call a special session of the Vidhan Sabha for one day on September 3 to commemorate the historic 400th Prakash Purb of Guru Tegh Bahadur.
Sonia Gandhi on Monday approved several committees ahead of the Assembly polls in Goa. Girish Chodankar has been retained as the state president and former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat will continue as the Congress legislative party leader while Alexio Sequeira is the Working state President.
After Taliban took over Kabul on August 15, Afghanistan has plunged into a big humanitarian crisis. Pakistan is perceived as having played a major role in bringing the Taliban back to power. As evacuation of foreign nationals winds down, a US missile defence system intercepted rockets fired towards the Kabul international airport.
