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.
The police said that during the intervening night of July 1/2, acting on a specific input regarding the presence of terrorists in the Hanjin Rajpora area, a joint cordon and search operation was launched by the police, the army and the CRPF.
Atul Keshap, the newly appointed Charge d' Affaires at the US Embassy in India, shares very old connections with India. Across his 27-year career as an American diplomat, Keshap has served at postings in India, Morocco, and Guinea, and as United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives.
Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, who has raised the banner of revolt against Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, met former party chief Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday evening soon after meeting party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
After attending the recent all-party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, two former chief ministers of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti stood miles apart.
A delegation of Sikh leaders on Tuesday met Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G. Kishan Reddy over the recent incident of forcible religious conversion of two Sikh girls in the Kashmir valley and submitted a memorandum in this regard.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday favoured the need to start breeding crocodiles in the state's rivers, especially the Beas and the Sutlej, as they were found in abundance six decades ago.
