By Tarak Sarkar
Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) [India], March 18 (ANI): Ahead of West Bengal assembly polls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters vandalised its party office in Jalpaiguri and set it on fire. According to sources, they were upset over ticket allocation to candidates in the upcoming polls.
Speaking to ANI, sources said: “As soon as his name was announced in the list of candidates, the BJP leaders and workers got angry. They vandalised the BJP office and set it on fire, demanding a change of candidate.”
Advocate Sujit Sinha has been elected as the BJP candidate for the Jalpaiguri’s Sadar assembly constituency.
The BJP supporters alleged that a previously appointed BJP leader has been nominated as a new candidate instead of new party workers. The Jalpaiguri city witnessed an uproar by the party workers near the DBC Road area that is near to the party’s office.
Minutes after this incident, a huge police force arrived at the spot to handle the situation. A fire engine too arrived at the spot to put down the fire.
Elections to the 294-member state assembly will be held in eight phases starting from March 27 with the final round of voting taking place on April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 2. (ANI)

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], March 18 (ANI): The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) on Thursday clarified that the report that the Odisha government planned to sell over 35,000 acres of land belonging to Lord Jagannath was completely false.
SJTA Chief Administrator Krishan Kumar said the report on the sale of Jagannath land on a massive scale was “false” and “motivated.”
He said, “the lands, which are occupied or are under the possession of various persons since long but belong to Shree Jagannatha Mahaprabhu are being settled by Temple Committee as per the ‘Unified Policy’ framed for the purpose in the year 2003 with an objective of protection of the land of Lord Jagannatha.”
“This policy also aimed to bring transparency and uniformity in the processes to be followed for settlement of land to eligible persons.”
“From 2001 to 2010, a total of 291 acres of land was settled and from 2011 to 2021, a total of 96 acres of land was settled. These have been settled for the benefit of the public mostly in the form of schools, medical college, roads, etc,” the SJTA chief stated.
He said decisions regarding the allotment of land for such public benefit infrastructure projects to the government and others are taken by the Jagannath Temple Committee.
“It is again reiterated that reports that 35,000 acres of land of Shree Jagannatha Mahaprabhu will be sold is totally false and motivated. We urge the people of Odisha and millions of devotees of Lord Jagannatha not to be misguided by such malicious lies and false reporting,” he said.
The clarification from SJTA came after the news, quoting Law Minister Pratap Jena in response to a question by BJP legislator Mohan Majhi in Assembly regarding the State government’s move to sell 35,272.235 acres of the temple land of Jagannath Temple. (ANI)

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], March 18 (ANI): Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday met Leader of Opposition (LoP) in state assembly Pradipta Kr Naik and other BJP leaders, who were sitting in protest in front of the CM residence, over ruckus in the assembly and pending paddy procurement.
Patnaik came out of his residence to meet the protesting BJP MLAs and invited them inside for a discussion to end the stalemate. He assured them of resolving the issues.
“We told him that he should come to the assembly because MLAs of ruling party are disrupting the proceedings, this should be stopped and pending paddy procurement should be looked into. He told us he will speak to the Speaker and will call an all-party meet to resolve the issue,” said Naik. (ANI)

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], March 18 (ANI): Telangana’s Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Raghunandan Rao on Thursday slammed the state budget that was recently rolled by Finance Minister T Harish Rao in the state assembly and claimed that this budget will put additional burden on the public in Telangana.
Speaking to ANI, Rao said: “Despite having a debt of crores of rupees, the state government would continue to mount the debt of the state government to implement this budget, thereby adding a monetary burden on the public,” said BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao.
Today, Minister of Finance for Telangana State, T Harish Rao, released the budget of the state for the year 2021-2022. Reacting to the budget, BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao said that the budget is limited to paper form only and nothing was implemented.
Speaking to ANI, BJP MLA said that even in the earlier budget sessions, crores of rupees had been declared for the development of the state that was just limited to papers. “The budget that the state government presented will only be limited to papers. Even in the last year’s, budget, lakhs of crores of rupees have been declared. But, how much of that budget has been used for the development of the state?”
Speaking about the unemployment allowance announced for the unemployed youth in the state, Raghunandan Rao questioned how the government can spend some Rs 5,000 crores for the unemployment allowance in the budget when the KCR government has claimed that they don’t have money to give salaries.
“Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has allotted some Rs 5,000 crores for the Unemployment Allowance in the State Budget. But KCR had also said that they don’t have money in the state to give salaries.” He further said that without having money, how can the state announce a budget of more than Rs 2 lakh crores.
Raghunandan further claimed that the state is already in a debt of Rs 4 lakh crores. He questioned how will the state government get money to implement the budget. “To implement this budget, KCR is likely to take more money in the form of debt and this would only increase the burden on the people of this state,” he said. (ANI)

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 18 (ANI): Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday said that his government is aiming to vaccinate 3 lakh people daily amidst a surge in coronavirus cases in the state.
While speaking to reporters, he informed that although numbers are increasing and the state is facing the second peak of infections.
“We are moving toward another peak in infections of COVID-19 but there is no need to panic. About 95 per cent of all patients are asymptomatic. We want to be aggressive in vaccination. Three lakh doses per day is our target. I will be monitoring this myself,” Tope said.
He further assured that there were enough beds available for patients, both in government and private hospitals.
“Putting cities and districts under lockdown, partial lockdown, or night curfews aims to put a pause on the spread of the virus. Our focus is on tracking, tracing and vaccination,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar on Thursday said that she is considering a night curfew in the city and shifting the crowded markets to new sites in light of the increasing cases.
A complete lockdown has been announced in Nagpur from March 15 to March 21 in view of the rising infections. The Latur district administration, meanwhile, imposed a night curfew between 8 pm and 5 am to contain the spread of the virus in the district till March 31.
Maharashtra continues to remain one of the worst affected states in the country, with 23,179 new COVID-19 cases, 9,138 discharges and 84 deaths being reported in the last 24 hours, the state health department informed on Thursday.
The total number of cases in the state now stands at 23,70,507, including 1,52,760 active cases and 53,080 deaths.
A total of 36,39,989 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the state till March 17, the Maharashtra government said in a statement on Thursday. 2,74,037 people (2,22,771 Covishield and 51,266 Covaxin) were vaccinated in 2908 sessions. (ANI)

Indore (Madhya Pradesh) [India], March 18 (ANI): Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMO) of Madhya Pradesh’s Indore Dr Praveen Jadia has said that there is a surge in COVID-19 cases in the district because people are not following COVID-19 protocols.
“Yesterday out of 2,536 tests conducted in Indore, 294 were tested positive. The cases had earlier reached to 15-20 per day,” Dr Jadia said.
“Since people are not wearing masks and not following social distancing, there is a surge in COVID cases. When police and administration show strictness, people carry their masks with them but do not wear them. Following the COVID-19 protocols can only save us from the virus,” the CMO said.
Dr Jadia further said, “The COVID-19 vaccination in Indore is underway at 149 centres, out of which 75 are government centres and 74 private centres. More than 1.75 lakh people have been vaccinated in the city.”
“There is no guarantee that vaccination can provide complete immunity against the coronavirus. The immunity develops only after taking both the doses of the COVID-19 vaccine,” he said.
“A person who was once infected with the virus can also be infected again,” he added.
According to the union health ministry, there are 5,616 active COVID-19 cases in Madhya Pradesh. (ANI)