Shots were fired at two Jewish schools overnight in Montreal, Canada but no one was injured, police said Thursday as tension over the Israel-Hamas war rose.

Earlier this week in Montreal a synagogue was firebombed and clashes erupted between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel student groups at Concordia university, officials said.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s close aide and former Jodhpur mayor Rameshwar Dadhich, who had filed his nomination for the upcoming state Assembly polls from the Soorsagar constituency as an independent candidate, withdrew his papers and joined the BJP on Thursday.

Former Dausa district president of the Congress Vinod Sharma also joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday. In Jaipur, former minister Rajpal Singh Shekhawat, who had filed his papers from Jhotwara against the BJP’s Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, withdrew his nomination following talks with the party high-command.

“I have joined the BJP due to the decision-making capacity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I have been impressed with his work for long. If Modi was not the prime minister, the construction of the Ram temple (in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh) could not have happened,” Mr Dadhich said after joining the saffron party.

He joined the BJP in the presence of Union minister and the party’s Rajasthan election in-charge Pralhad Joshi, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and MP Rajendra Gehlot.

Mr Shekhawat said leaders of the Congress and other parties are joining the BJP as they are fed up with the policies and fake promises of such parties.

He said the time has come for the departure of the Congress government from the desert state.

Other BJP rebels, including Chandrabhan Singh Akya from Chittorgarh, Yoonus Khan from Deedwana, Ravindra Bhati from Sheo, Banshidhar Bajiya from Khandela, Bhawani Singh Shekhawat from Kota’s Ladpura, Kailash Meghwal from Shahpura in Bhilwara and Priyanka Choudhary from Barmer, have not withdrawn their nominations as independents, making the electoral contests on these seats triangular.

On the other hand, former Congress MLA from Badi Sadari Prakash Choudhary, Mahendra Barjod from Dungarpur’s Chorasi, Rajkaran Choudhary from Sardarshahr and Brahamdev Kumawat from Masuda have not withdrawn from the poll race and have decided to contest as independents.

Thursday was the last day for withdrawing nominations. The 200-member Rajasthan Assembly will go to polls on November 25 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 3

Banker and billionaire Uday Kotak’s son Jay got married to his fiancee Aditi Arya, the winner of 2015 Miss India. The wedding took place at Jio Convention Centre in Mumbai on Tuesday. Earlier this year, Jay Kotak confirmed that he is engaged to Ms Arya when he congratulated Ms Arya on X (formerly Twitter) on completing her MBA from Yale University. “Aditi, my fiancee, completed her MBA from Yale University today. Immensely proud of you,” he had written along with two pictures of Ms Arya in her graduation robe and hat.

Jay Kotak shared a photo from the ceremony on X (formerly Twitter). Pics are also going viral on social media platforms like Reddit and Instagram showing them standing at a platform surrounded by guests. While Mr Kotak is wearing sherwani, a traditional wedding ethnic wear, Ms Arya is dressed in a red-coloured lehenga.

07.11.2023
Aditi & Jay pic.twitter.com/S6hCkb0fqS

— Jay Kotak (@jay_kotakone) November 9, 2023

Clips on Instagram show industrialist Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita were among the guests who attended the wedding functions.

Jay Kotak is a graduate of Columbia University. He did his bachelors in history and economics. Later, he completed his MBA from the Harvard Business School. Currently, he is the Vice President of Kotak811, a digital-first mobile bank incubated by Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Aditi Arya graduated from Delhi University’s Shaheed Sukhdev College and worked briefly as a research analyst at Ernst & Young. She was crowned Miss India in 2015 and went on to represent the country at the Miss World pageant.

Ms Arya has appeared in a few Hindi and Telugu films, including Ranveer Singh starrer ’83’. She then moved to the US to pursue MBA. Ms Arya got her MBA degree in May this year.