The Congress unit in the state, the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee or JKPCC, voiced serious concern over the detention of its senior functionaries by the state administration and called for their immediate release, a party spokesperson said in Jammu on Friday. Leaders under detention In a statement, the JKPCC said several senior leaders had been under house arrest since midnight on August 4. Among them, it named: Saifuddin Soz Gulam Nabi Monga and Farooq Andrabi Peerzada Mohd Sayeed Mohd Amin Bhat and Gular Ahmad Wani Haji Abdul RashidRead More

Ahead of a key meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in New Delhi, outgoing party president Rahul Gandhi stepped into the process of choosing his successor, according to party sources, who said he did not want the decision left only to the party’s senior veterans. A wider selection process The CWC, the party’s top decision-making body, was to meet on Saturday to name a new president after Rahul Gandhi resigned following the Lok Sabha defeat. Sources said it might choose an interim president who would then call fresh electionsRead More

A column argued that the Congress had, within a single week, let slip two chances to regain some control of the national political debate. The Bharat Ratna ceremony The first, according to the column, was the absence of the Gandhi family from the Bharat Ratna ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday evening, where former President Pranab Mukherjee, a lifelong Congressman, received the country’s highest civilian honour. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and most of the Cabinet attended. Sources quoted in the piece said the absence was aRead More

Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi left a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in New Delhi on Saturday about two hours after it began, as the party’s top body started the search for a new president to succeed Rahul Gandhi. Why they left Outside the AICC headquarters, Sonia Gandhi said it would not be proper for the two of them to be present while the consultations went on. Inside the meeting, she told colleagues that remaining there would amount to a “conflict of interest”. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra stayed backRead More

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday arrested Sheikh Abdul Rashid, a former Independent MLA in Jammu and Kashmir better known as Rashid Engineer, in a case concerning the financing of terror activity in Kashmir, officials said. The arrest Rashid represented the Langate seat in north Kashmir in the assembly. Officials said he was the first mainstream politician the agency had arrested in this case. He had been questioned in 2017 and was summoned again earlier in the week. According to officials, his answers were not convincing, which made itRead More