Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will contest all the fourteen Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, announced AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday.

Addressing the public, Kejriwal made an appeal to the people of Punjab to cast their vote in his favour and make him win all the Lok Sabha seats. He also thanked people for blessing him with 92 out of 117 seats in the Assembly elections two years back and made his party win the state election.

With folded hands, he requested people to make him win in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. For the Lok Sabha elections, Punjab has 13 seats while Chandigarh has one.

Kejriwal added saying his party will declare its candidate for all 14 seats in the next 10 to 15 days. He requested people to make AAP sweep all these seats with the majority.

Speaking to the reporters, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann informed that the party will declare all 13 candidates from Punjab and one from Chandigarh by the end of this month.

On Kejriwal’s announcement to contest all Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa in a scathing attack, questioned the INDIA alliance and said their only purpose was to pressurise the agencies and protect the money accumulated through corruption. He said the alliance had no ideology. He also said Kejriwal would never want to share power with the Congress party.   

Meanwhile, BJP National Spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla slammed the Opposition bloc INDIA alliance for failing to unite their members and called the alliance without a mission, and vision, and only have confusion. The structure of the INDIA Alliance has been crumbling. He also criticised Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and called his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra strange. He added saying Yatra is more of a “bye-bye Yatra” than a Nyay Yatra and suggested Gandhi take out the INDIA Jodo Yatra, instead of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

Congress leader on Saturday slammed Modi government over alleged differences in the Pragati Maidan tunnel project and said the Amrit Kaal of the corrupt is prevailing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 1.3km-long tunnel and five underpasses on June 19, 2022, as part of the Pragati Maidan Integrated Transit Corridor Project which aims to ease connectivity between Central Delhi with the eastern parts of the city and the towns of Noida and Ghaziabad.

The Delhi government’s Public Works Department (PWD) has issued a notice to Larsen and Toubro over the alleged differences in the project while demanding a token amount of Rs 500 crore from the firm. The Delhi government has directed Larsen and Toubro to immediately initiate repair work. Larsen and Toubro said they had made a counter claim of  Rs 500 crore against the PWD.

The Congress leader took to X and wrote the Amrit Kaal of the corrupt is prevailing in the country. The Pragati Maidan Tunnel which has been built at a cost of Rs 777 crore has become unusable in just one year. Gandhi said PM Modi is doing modelling instead of planning on every development project. He added IT,CBI and ED are not fighting corruption but democracy. He also shared a picture of PM Modi after the inauguration of the tunnel.

According to reports, authorities are evaluating the situation to resolve the water-logging problem in the tunnel. The shutdown serves as the reminder of the difficulties presented by torrential rains and the requirement of sturdy infrastructure to survive such conditions.

The closure of the tunnel is alarming as it could not even stand a single monsoon. The tunnel aims to provide hassle free and smooth access to the new world class exhibition and convention centre in Pragati Maidan. It was also aimed to facilitate easy participation of exhibitors and visitors in the programmes being held at Pragati Maidan.   

The Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Saturday passed the Lift and Escalator Bill, 2024 and Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta and Up-Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2024.

According to Bill, registration will be mandatory for the installation of lifts and escalators in the state.

In the Lokayukta and Up-Lokayukta Bill, a provision has been made to reduce the tenure of the anti-corruption ombudsman from eight years to five years.

Speaking on the Lift and Escalator Bill, Energy Minister Arvind Kumar Sharma cited an incident that took place in Noida, in which MLAs Dhirendra Singh and Pankaj Singh had demanded a law for lifts and escalators.

Sharma further informed that apart from a mandatory registration for installing lifts and escalators in public, the concerned person has to inform the authority immediately in case of an accident. A provision has also been made for insurance and compensation.

The Bill, which will be an Act now, seeks to get approval from the Energy Department for the installation of lifts and escalators. The Bill makes it mandatory for the agencies, that manufacture, install lifts and escalators, and maintain them, to register with the Director of Electrical Safety.

The Bill further directed that the approval must be renewed every five years and also have to be tested every year. A fee of Rs 1,500 needs to be deposited for the same.

A fine will be imposed on the concerned person If they disobey the orders and ignore to do so.

Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal and Haryana already have laws for installing lifts but there was no such law for it in UP, said Sharma while describing the Bill as the need of the hour.

The implementation of the Bill will not only curb the accident but also strengthen the system.

While speaking on the Bill, the BJP member Dhirender Singh thanked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the Energy Minister Sharma for making it possible. He said the Bill will prove to be a milestone.