In a development that is likely to come as a relief for the INDIA alliance, two key members, the Congress and the AAP, have met for the second time in less than a week and said that seat-sharing talks for the Lok Sabha polls are progressing well. Discussions on the allocation of seats in Punjab and Delhi – where the AAP is in power – were seen as possible stumbling blocks for the alliance, along with West Bengal. 

Sources have said seat-sharing in Gujarat, Goa and Haryana is also being discussed by the two parties.

Speaking after a two-hour meeting at Congress leader Mukul Wasnik’s residence in Delhi on Friday, senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha said in Hindi, “The discussion on an alliance is going very well but it’s not like a cricket match where we can give you ball-by-ball commentary. Congress leader Salman Khurshid has spoken to you in detail.”

Mr Khurshid said discussions are progressing well and that they would continue until everything is decided upon. 

“We are moving forward very well and we are all satisfied. We are hopeful that we will arrive at a decision and place it before you after discussing it with our leaders. We are together and we talk about every state, but when we talk about a place where two or four of us (parties) have a strong presence, we think about it from the perspective of the INDIA alliance,” the senior Congress leader said.

Asked about Punjab, where some leaders from both parties have opposed an alliance with the other, Mr Khurshid said, “Whatever we do, we will do it together. We are holding discussions keeping the people and our party workers in mind. We will take a decision on whatever seats we can and place it before our leaders, and then decide on the next batch of seats.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by both parties after the first seat-sharing meeting on Monday. The Congress had said that it had decided to contest elections together with the AAP. The next day, senior AAP leader from Delhi, Gopal Rai, said that his party had stated its stand to contest the polls in five states – Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Goa, and Delhi – in alliance with the Congress, according to news agency PTI.

Punjab has 13 Lok Sabha seats and Delhi has seven. The BJP had swept all seven seats in Delhi in 2019 while the Congress had won eight in Punjab. 

India’s much-derided potholes – which have caused everything from annoyance and exasperation to injuries and even deaths – turned out to be a literal lifesaver for an 80-year-old man from Haryana on Thursday, his family has claimed. 

Declared dead by doctors, the “body” of Darshan Singh Brar was being taken from Patiala to his home near Karnal, where mourning relatives had gathered, food had been laid out and wood had been collected for his funeral, when the ambulance hit a pothole. 

Brar’s family said his grandson, who was with him in the ambulance, noticed him moving his hand and, on sensing a heartbeat, asked the ambulance driver to head to the nearest hospital. The doctors there declared him alive.

The 80-year-old heart patient is now undergoing treatment at a hospital in Karnal, where his condition is said to be critical. The family has hailed the incident as a miracle and are now hoping for a speedy recovery.

Despair To Hope

One of Brar’s grandsons, Balwan Singh, said the 80-year-old lived in Nising near Karnal, where an entire colony has been named after him. Brar had not been keeping well for a few days and Balwan Singh’s brother took him to a hospital near his house in Patiala for treatment. 

Balwan said his grandfather was on a ventilator for four days and, on Thursday morning, doctors said that his heartbeat had stopped. He was taken off the ventilator and declared dead.

“My brother in Patiala informed us around 9 am on Thursday about our grandfather’s death, and he was getting him to Nising (roughly 100 km away) in an ambulance for his last rites. We had informed our relatives and other local residents who knew him and they had already gathered to mourn his passing. A tent had been set up and food had also been arranged for the mourners. We had also got wood for the cremation,” Balwan said on Friday. 

When the ambulance was near Dhand village in Haryana’s Kaithal, it hit a pothole hard and Balwan’s brother noticed that Brar had moved his hand. Amazed, he checked for a heartbeat and, on sensing one, took the 80-year-old to a hospital nearby.

The family said doctors at the hospital confirmed that Brar was alive and breathing and then referred him to a hospital in Nising, from where he was taken to the NP Rawal Hospital in Karnal. 

“It is a miracle. Now we are hoping that my grandfather recovers soon. Everyone who had gathered to mourn his death congratulated us, and we requested them to have the food we had arranged. It is God’s grace that he is now breathing and we are hoping he will get better,” he said.

‘Critical, But Breathing’

Dr Netrapal from Rawal Hospital said, “We cannot say that the patient had died. When he was brought to us, he was breathing and had blood pressure as well as a pulse. We don’t know what happened at the other hospital, whether it was a technical error or something else.”

“The family said he was on a ventilator in Patiala for four days but he is now breathing on his own. He is still critical and in the ICU. The breathing is laborious because he has an infection in his chest,” the doctor added.

Amid speculation about what he and the BJP are planning for his future, Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said he is addressed as a former chief minister but is not a rejected one, and that people’s love for him has remained strong despite stepping down from the top post in Madhya Pradesh.

“I’m now addressed as the former chief minister, but I’m not a rejected chief minister. Many times, chief ministers quit the post when people start abusing them for being in power for too long. But, even after quitting the chief minister’s post, people shout for me and call out ‘Mama’ wherever I go. The love of the people is my real treasure,” Mr Chouhan, whose popular nickname means uncle, said while addressing an event at the MIT School of Government in Pune on Friday.

“Stepping down from the chief minister post doesn’t mean that I will leave active politics. I am not in politics for any post, but for serving the people,” the BJP’s longest-serving chief minister said.

Speaking about his long electoral career, starting with his maiden assembly polls triumph from his home seat of Budhni in 1990, Mr Chouhan attributed his victories to contesting elections honestly.

“I don’t speak the language of arrogance. I have won 11 elections but I don’t campaign for myself in the elections. I go to the constituency just a day before filing the nomination, when the people of the village come to me with money and a list of contributors. If you contest elections honestly, people will side with you,” he asserted.

The remarks come a month after Mohan Yadav was named the chief minister in Madhya Pradesh and not Mr Chouhan, who was looking for a fifth term. The BJP had swept the elections in the state, winning 163 out of 230 seats despite being in power there for nearly 20 years.

Soon after the results were declared on December 3 and there was a buzz about a new face becoming the next Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Mr Chouhan had said, “While other BJP leaders are going to Delhi, I won’t go to Delhi. I would prefer dying rather than going to Delhi to ask something for myself.”

Cryptic Remarks

The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister has also hit the headlines for a few cryptic comments made over the past few weeks.

Just a few days after Dr Mohan Yadav replaced him, Mr Chouhan had said “Sometimes one gets ‘vanvas’ (exile) while a ‘raj tilak’ (coronation) is imminent, but whatever happens actually takes place for a bigger purpose.”

A few days later, while addressing a spiritual organisation’s event in Bhopal, he had said, “There are also people who change their colour if one isn’t the chief minister anymore. They treat his feet like a lotus, but once he isn’t in power, then his pictures disappear from hoardings like horns from the head of a donkey.”