New Delhi:

Actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut intended to target an opposition leader but mistakenly ended up attacking her BJP colleague instead. A similarity in names – Tejashwi and Tejasvi – was behind Ms Ranaut’s fumble. “There’s a party of spoilt princes… whether it’s Rahul Gandhi who wants to grow potatoes on the Moon, or Tejasvi Surya who does hooliganism and eats fish,” she had said.

RJD leader and former Bihar deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav was supposed to be the original target of her diatribe as one of his videos where he was seen eating fish became a major flashpoint between the BJP and the opposition recently.

Tejasvi Surya, incorrectly referred to by Ms Ranaut during an election rally yesterday, is BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Bengaluru South constituency in Karnataka.

Meanwhile, Mr Yadav has responded to a clip of Kangana Ranaut’s statement. “Ye mohtarma kaun hai?” (Who is this lady?), he posted on X.

ये मोहतरमा कौन है? https://t.co/RvTfHjm26I

— Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) May 4, 2024

Kangana Ranaut has been verbally bashing the Congress party since the BJP fielded her as their Lok Sabha candidate from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi. Congress leaders Vikramaditya Singh – her opponent in Mandi – and Rahul Gandhi have been the main targets on her dartboard.

While addressing a public rally in the Sundernagar area of Mandi Parliamentary Constituency yesterday, Ms Ranaut took a jibe at Mr Singh and Mr Gandhi over dynasty politics and said that both of them have a magic stick for development and talk only about non-practical things.

The Congress hit back saying the 37-year-old actor should first check the facts about her party leaders and speak about dynastic politics. National Media Coordinator for the Congress, Amrit Kaur, also questioned her qualifications on which she got a BJP ticket from Mandi.

The Mandi Lok Sabha constituency will go to polls on June 1, in the seventh phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Bengaluru:

A case has been filed against BJP’s Bengaluru South candidate and MP Tejasvi Surya for seeking votes on religious grounds.

The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer in a statement posted on the microblogging website X said Mr Surya had posted a video on social media “soliciting votes on the ground of religion”.

The case has been filed with Jayanagar police station in Bengaluru.

After voting, Mr Surya told reporters the Congress party may not win more than 30 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.

“Congress party has become absolutely frustrated. Survey after survey shows that it may not win more than 30 seats… The more personal attacks and baseless allegations they make against the PM (Narendra Modi), history has shown that the Prime Minister has only got stronger and the BJP has only got more popular,” Mr Surya told news agency ANI.

The Congress has fielded Sowmya Reddy in the Bengaluru South constituency.

Mr Surya said more senior citizens are voting this year and urged young people to come out and vote in large numbers.

“Today is a celebration day in Karnataka. It is a festival of democracy. Millions of people will go out and vote… This is not just a right, but also a duty, because if we don’t vote, we are not registering our voice, and contributing meaningfully to a democracy,” he told ANI.

Karnataka voting on 14 seats today in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections. This phase had 88 Lok Sabha constituencies across 13 states and Union Territories.

According to the Election Commission, over 15.88 crore people cast their votes in the second phase.

New Delhi:

The second of seven phases of the Lok Sabha polls will take place on Friday and the stage is set for exciting contests in some of the 88 constituencies across 13 states and Union Territories where votes will be cast.

Here’s A Look At Five Gripping Fixtures:

Rahul Gandhi Vs Annie Raja 

Polling will be carried out in all 20 seats in Kerala and the state will see some of the most-watched face-offs. In Wayanad, sitting MP and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will contest for the second time and his primary opponent in the largely bipolar state is the CPI’s Annie Raja. While it is unclear whether Mr Gandhi will also contest from Amethi, the Gandhi family bastion where he suffered a shock defeat in 2019 to the BJP’s Smriti Irani, winning this seat will be crucial for the Congress leader either way.

In 2019, Mr Gandhi had defeated the CPI candidate from Wayanad, PP Suneer, by a margin of over 4 lakh votes.

Ms Raja, a member of the national executive of the CPI and the wife of party general secretary D Raja, has criticised Rahul Gandhi and promised more consistent representation. The CPM-led LDF government in the state has also been critical of Mr Gandhi and the attacks against him have been led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, drawing counter-attacks from the Congress. 

The sharp exchanges are all the more significant given that the Congress and the Left Front are partners in the INDIA bloc at the Centre but are giving no quarter to each other in their battle in the state. The Congress had won 15 of the 20 seats in 2019.

Giving the contest another interesting dimension is that the BJP has fielded its state president K Surendran from Wayanad as part of a concerted effort to open its Lok Sabha account in the state and do better in the south in general. In an earlier interview with NDTV, Mr Surendran said he stood a good chance of winning the seat because people are disappointed with the work done by Rahul Gandhi. 

Shashi Tharoor Vs Rajeev Chandrasekhar

About 400 km south of Wayanad lies Kerala’s capital of Thiruvananthapuram, which is going to see a battle of heavyweights. The Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, a three-time MP from the constituency, will face off against Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. 

Despite having held the seat for three terms, Mr Tharoor is seen as a popular MP and has previously said that the only way the BJP’s claim of winning seats in the double digits in Kerala can be true is if both digits are zero. “The issue with the BJP is that they don’t understand Kerala’s history and culture… Communalism cannot go beyond a small limit here,” he had said. 

Mr Chandrasekhar, who is making his electoral debut, has said Mr Tharoor has failed to get any work done in the constituency and that the contest would be between the “politics of performance” – a reference to the BJP-led central government’s work – and “15 years of non-performance”

The third most-watched candidate from the seat is the CPI’s Pannyan Raveendran, a veteran leader who was the MP from Thiruvananthapuram – winning a bypoll in 2005 – before Mr Tharoor began his winning streak. The CPI leader had also contested the Kerala Assembly polls in 2011, but lost to a Congress leader. 

KC Venugopal Vs AM Ariff

Alappuzha is the only seat in Kerala that the CPM had won in 2019 and what makes the constituency even more interesting is that it will see a contest between senior Congress leader KC Venugopal, who was elected from there in 2009 and 2014, and the sitting MP, the CPM’s AM Ariff.

Mr Venugopal, who is a Rajya Sabha MP and the General Secretary (Organisation) of the Congress, had decided not to contest the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 because he had larger responsibilities and said he is doing so this time because Congress workers want him to. 

The sitting MP, Mr Ariff, has released a 12-page booklet listing out his achievements, many of which have been claimed by the Congress and the BJP as their own. He has also dismissed the Congress’ claim of winning all 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state and alleged that the party does this during every election.

The third key candidate in the seat is the BJP’s Sobha Surendran, who has said the people will vote for her to make her part of PM Narendra Modi’s team. “During the UPA tenure, India’s economy was down like those of Pakistan and Sri Lanka in recent times. But ten years under Narendra Modi’s rule and India has become the fifth largest economy,” she was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Arun Govil vs Sunita Verma 

Over in Uttar Pradesh, eight of whose 80 constituencies are going to the polls in the second phase, Meerut is seeing a fight in which one of the contestants is being worshipped, literally, by some supporters. The BJP’s Arun Govil played the role of Lord Ram in the popular TV series Ramayan and, despite the godlike status accorded to him by some, he faces a tough contest in the seat from the Samajwadi Party’s Sunita Verma and the BSP’s Devvrat Tyagi. 

Mr Govil, who is making his electoral debut and lives in Mumbai, has been criticised for being an outsider and has admitted that he does not have a very strong understanding of local issues, but has promised to move to Meerut and speak to people to understand their problems after he is elected. The BJP, which had won 62 of UP’s 80 constituencies in 2019, will be fancying its chances in Meerut where it has been on a winning streak since 2009 and has won a total of six times. 

The main contender against Mr Govil is the Samajwadi Party’s Sunita Verma, who is a former mayor of the city. The finalisation of the face by the party, however, was a long-drawn-out affair and involved two declared candidates – Bhanu Pratap Singh and Atul Pradhan – being dropped. Ms Verma was earlier with the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Tejasvi Surya Vs Sowmya Reddy

The Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency, which has elected only BJP candidates since 1991, will see a battle between Tejasvi Surya and the Congress’ Sowmya Reddy. Mr Surya was elected with a margin of over 3 lakh votes in 2019, but the Congress is hoping that Ms Reddy’s pedigree – she is the daughter of state transport minister Ramalinga Reddy – and the party’s winning performance in the Assembly polls last year will swing things in its favour.

Mr Surya, 33, who is the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP,  has expressed confidence that his work towards improving Bengaluru’s infrastructure will win him another term. Another thing that is working in the BJP’s favour is that the Congress has emerged victorious in the constituency only once since 1977, when former chief minister R Gundu Rao was elected in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls. 

Ms Reddy, 41, is banking on the Congress’ guarantees, which had helped it win last year’s Assembly elections, to help it buck the trend. The Congress leader is a former MLA from Jayanagar and lost the constituency by just 16 votes was heart-broken when she lost by a mere 16 votes in her re-election bid in this city constituency in the Assembly elections last year.

Claiming that people are disappointed with Mr Surya because he has not been accessible and did not speak up for Karnataka in Parliament, Ms Reddy told PTI, “All he (Mr Surya) has been doing is spreading hate and doing divisive politics.” 

Bengaluru:

Congress leader Soumya Reddy, who is set to take on BJP’s Tejasvi Surya in the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha contest, has sought the Election Commission’s intervention amid allegations that students are being pressured to attend the BJP leader’s nomination rally.

In a post on X, Ms Reddy has shared screenshots of WhatsApp messages that the Congress claims were posted on groups of college students, asking them to join Mr Surya’s nomination rally today. One of the messages says “no excuses will be entertained” and that those attending the rally will get t-shirts. The message also assures the students that they will get attendance for this.

Ms Reddy has also tagged a social media post by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) on the issue. The IYC post shares a screenshot of a tweet in which a student has claimed that the president of his institution’s student council is threatening them against skipping the rally.

One of the screenshot shows a member of the WhatsApp group asking why attendance is mandatory. Another user replies that Mr Surya had accepted the student council’s request to attend the college’s fest and “now it’s our turn to do the same”.

The IYC has questioned why students are being told to compulsorily attend a political programme. “Isn’t this a violation of the code of conduct?” it asked. Sharing IYC’s post, Ms Reddy has tagged the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka and said, “Request action to be taken.”

Mr Surya, who will be filing his nomination papers, today has not responded to the allegations. His office has, however, posted clips of youngsters saying they were excited to join the BJP MP’s nomination rally.

Mr Surya is sitting MP from Bangalore South, a BJP stronghold earlier held by veteran leader and Union Minister, the late Ananth Kumar, for two decades. In the 2019 election, Mr Surya defeated the Congress’s BK Hariprasad by a margin of over 3 lakh votes. 

Ms Reddy is the daughter of Karnataka minister Ramalinga Reddy and a former MLA from Jayanagar, one of the eight Assembly segments under the Bangalore South parliamentary constituency.

Narmadapuram:

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Tejasvi Surya has described the Opposition alliance as a “snake and mongoose coming together.”

“The alliance is like snake and mongoose coming together. Before the formation of INDI Alliance, these people used to secretly do anti-Hindu politics. They used to do anti-Hindu and anti-India politics by wearing the burqa of secularism. But today they are openly speaking against Sanatan culture and Sanatan Dharma,” the BJP Yuva Morcha National President told reporters in Narmadapuram on Monday.

The Bengaluru South MP further said that DMK says the INDIA alliance was created to eradicate Sanatan Dharma. Elsewhere, another ally tries to break the Hindu community on caste lines.

On September 2, Udhayanidhi, who is also Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s son, while, addressing a ‘Santana Abolition Conference’ said, “Uprooting Sanatan Dharma is upholding humanity and human equality.”

He compared Sanatan Dharma to diseases like dengue, malaria, or the Coronavirus and said, “Few things cannot be opposed; those should be abhorred only. We cannot oppose dengue, mosquitoes, malaria, or corona; we have to eradicate them. That’s how we eradicate Sanatan. Rather than opposing Sanatan, it should be eradicated.”

DMK leader remarks created a political slugfest in the country with leaders of political rivals NDA and INDIA alliance taking potshots at each other.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bengaluru:

BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Wednesday slammed the ruling Karanataka Congress over its mismanagement of the Cauvery water dispute.

“Politics is being done by Congress party which is trying to favour their INDIA alliance partner in Tamil Nadu. Yesterday, the Cauvery Water Management Authority directed Karnataka to release 3000 cusecs of water, it was an adverse order against the state govt of Karnataka but the Dy CM (DK Shivakumar) went on record welcoming the judgement and said we are happy. The CM (Siddaramaiah) then said we are unhappy with the order and we will appeal in the Supreme Court. The intention of Dy CM to protect its INDIA alliance partner in DMK is precariously pushing the farmers of Karnataka and the drinking water needs of Karnataka to a perilous point,” stated Tejasvi Surya.

He alleged Congress’ political benefits in helping its INDIA partner DMK in Tamil Nadu. The BJP leader pinned blame on Siddaramaiah government and its failure in dealing with the Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

“The Cauvery issue is beyond politics for us, the state has repeatedly failed to impress upon the Cauvery water management authority, the grim water situation in Karnataka,” he said.

The BJP MP highlighted the ‘grim’ realities of the state and said “Karnataka primarily gets rain from the South West monsoon which has already exhausted, Tamil Nadu still has the potential of recieving bounty rainfall from the North east monsoons which is yet to arrive”.

Training guns at Karnataka Congress he said that the ruling party has severely failed to present the reality of the state to the Cauvery water management authority.

On Congress’ demand of centre’s intervention in the Cauvery water dispute, he said that the party is trying to change the goal post and asserted that centre can only present the reality of the state in front of the authority, which they certainly have.

BJP MP Tejasvi Surya along with other BJP leaders on wednesday led massive protest in Bengaluru’s Vidhana Soudha against the Siddaramaiah government over the on going Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the farmers in Karnataka’s Mandya are protesting to stop water from being released from Karnataka dams to Tamil Nadu. Farmers across Karnataka have been protesting since the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) ordered the state to release 5000 cusecs of water to its neighbouring state Tamil Nadu, for 15 days, effective from September 13.

A Supreme Court bench of Justices BR Gavai, PS Narasimha and Prashant Kumar Mishra refused to interfere in the Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and said that both CWMA and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) are regularly meeting and monitoring the water requirements every 15 days.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)