Are you thinking of Afghanistan? Chidambaram on Punjab/C'garh queries
Darpan News Desk IANS, 26 Aug, 2021 10:57 AM
Panaji, Aug 26 (IANS) Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday asked media persons if they were confusing Punjab with Afghanistan, when asked to comment on the reports of rebellion in the party's ranks in the northern Indian state.
"There is no rebellion in Chhattisgarh, there is no rebellion in Punjab. You are mixing up Afghanistan. There is no rebellion," Chidambaram told reporters at the state Congress headquarters in Panaji.
Chidambaram was addressing a press conference at the fag-end of his two-day visit to the state in the capacity as the All India Congress Committee's senior observer in charge of Goa ahead of the 2022 state assembly polls.
Chidambaram said that "internal matters" within the Congress party should not be construed as rebellion, citing the example of the change of leadership in BJP-led Karnataka, where a sitting chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai.
"These are internal matters which are discussed within the party. Did you describe the Karnataka change of guard as a rebellion?" Chidambaram said.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal on Thursday demanded a high court monitored probe into the manner in which the Congress government in Punjab was playing with the people's lives by creating an artificial shortage of vaccines by selling vaccine doses at a hefty profit to private hospitals.
The electronic conversation took place as US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that India will receive Covid vaccines directly from the US stockpile, the White House said.
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General M.M. Naravane, reached Kashmir on Wednesday on a two-day visit to review the prevailing security situation in the Union Territory (UT), the army said in a statement.
"There have been several unfounded media reports that have peddled misinformation among the masses regarding this exercise of national importance," a ministry statement said, adding that the total number of Covid vaccine doses administered in the country so far stand at 21,85,46,667.
The Congress said that it was "appropriate for our initial statement to note that the intrusion by Israeli forces into the Holy Al Aqsa mosque during Ramzan prayers had ruptured the delicate peace in the region".
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday suggested the young patients should be prioritised in the distribution of Liposomal Amphotericin B drug, used for treating black fungus, "as they hold promise of future over the older ones who have lived their lives".
