‘No assurance to Kumar over Modi’
Fanning the controversial issue of BJP prime ministerial candidate further, former BJP president Nitin Gadkari has denied reports that he had promised Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi would not be the BJP’s chosen candidate.
In a statement, Mr Gadkari admitted that he had met the Bihar CM in Delhi “sometime in July 2012”. However, he said that no such assurance was made to Mr Kumar. “The meeting had taken place at the residence of the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley. Mr Kumar raised the issue of the prospective NDA leader for the Lok Sabha polls, so both Mr Gadkari and Mr Jaitley told Mr Kumar that the BJP had not taken any decision on projecting anyone as its prime ministerial candidate,” said the statement.
It further added that Mr Kumar was told by the two leaders that the “BJP leadership would discuss the issue at the appropriate time and certainly take all the NDA partners into confidence”. On whether the BJP would project someone before the elections or elect the NDA leader after the polls, too, would be “taken up by the party leadership at the appropriate time and a decision would be taken in consultation with the NDA allies”.
The statement added that both, “Mr Gadkari and Mr Jaitley had not given any assurance to Mr Kumar that Mr Modi would not be projected as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections.”
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Over 800 minors missing since ’10
Jayprakash S. Naidu
Mumbai, April 18
Since 2010 till February this year, as many as 451 minor girls and 384 minor boys who had gone missing, have not yet been found. Additionally, it remains unclear whether these minors have been pushed into trafficking, child labour or begging by the child mafia.
Sources said that the Mumbai police would soon be registering an FIR in cases where missing minors are aged below 14 years. However, city police commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh is yet to issue a circular to this effect.
As per a state GR, following a Supreme Court directive earlier this year, the police, like before, will not just make a note of it in the missing children’s list, but would promptly register an FIR and investigate the case.
Presently, the Mumbai police, on receiving the report of a missing minor, publishes the description in a police notice and flashes a wireless message alongside coordinating with the railway police.
There are small teams at every police station who search for the missing person with the help of photographs at public places. The police also has a juvenile cell under the crime branch’s social service branch that sends unattended children to correction homes.
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