Chandigarh, Feb 3 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is likely to announce the chief minister's face in his virtual address from Ludhiana city in Punjab on February 6, sources said on Thursday.
This will be his second visit to the state in less than a week.
In his previous visit, Rahul Gandhi had assured workers that the party will decide CM candidate well ahead of the February 20 polling.
With his assurance a power struggle is on between party state President Navjot Sidhu and Charanjit Singh Channi, the first Dalit Chief Minister of a state that is home to 32 per cent Scheduled Caste population, the country's largest, to be the chief ministerial candidate.
Currently, voters have been getting tele-calls to give their opinion as to who should nominate the Congress as its chief ministerial candidate.
In the fray for 117 seats in Punjab are three prominent parties -- the ruling Congress, the opposition Aam Aadmi Party and the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, and two alliances -- the SAD-BSP and the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress.
Punjab will go to polls in a single phase on February 20 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10.
The men accused of killing three men in Palghar have been arrested and are in jail. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said on he has spoken to Union home minister Amit Shah and assured him that he would look into the case. More than 100 people are in custody. The attack took place at a spot close to Mumbai.
Covid-19 death toll has reached 507 deaths in India while confirmed cases surpassed 15,000. On Sunday 44 new cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in Rajasthan, while in Agra 45 more cases were confirmed. In Lucknow, 43 more people tested positive for the virus.
Tablighi Jamaat, the global organisation of Islamic missionaries, which may be the biggest carrier of Covid-19 infection in India, has had a long history of ties with Pakistan-based banned terror outfits like Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday ordered withdrawal of 1,300 policemen from the VIP duties, including from his own security, and their deployment in the battle against the coronavirus.
A religious congregation of 2000 people at a mosque in Delhi's Nizamuddin area which has thrown up several corona positive cases is a ticking time bomb as six of the persons who returned to Telangana have died from the virus and positive cases
