This remark by the Kerala minister comes as India’s IT hub, Bengaluru faces massive water scarcity. Amidst the city’s woes, other cities are attempting to strengthen their game in the IT industry
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she declined the BJP’s offer to contest elections pleading that she did not have the ‘kind of fund’ required to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
BJP President JP Nadda gave her the option to contest either from Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu, she said.
“After thinking for a week or ten days, I went back to say, ‘Maybe not’. I do not have that kind of money to contest. I also have a problem whether it is Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu. It’s also going to be a question of various other winnability criteria that they use… Are you from this community or are you from that religion? Are you from this? I said no, I do not think I am going to able to do it,” she said at the TIMES NOW Summit 2024.
“I am very grateful they accepted my argument… So I am not contesting,” she added.
When asked why the country’s finance minister does not have enough funds to fight elections, she said that the Consolidated Fund of India does not belong to her.
She said, “My salary, my earnings, and my savings are mine and not the Consolidated Fund of India”.
The ruling BJP fielded several existing Rajya Sabha members in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, beginning April 19. These include Piyush Goyal, Bhupender Yadav, Rajiv Chandrasekhar, Mansukh Mandaviya, and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Ms Sitharaman is a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka.
The minister said that she will be campaigning for other candidates.
“I will attend a lot of media events and go with the candidates – like tomorrow I will be going for Rajiv Chandrasekhar’s campaign. I’ll be on the campaign trail,” she added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
A gut-wrenching video of a man and his wife mercilessly assaulting his paternal grandmother with a stick in Bhopal went viral on Wednesday, leading to the arrest of the couple as they were trying to flee the city. The trigger for the inhumane treatment was the woman – who appears to be at least in her 70s – not cooking food to the couple’s liking, said police officials.
The man and his wife are residents of Bhopal’s Jahangirabad area and, neighbours said, it was common to hear them beating up the woman, who was a widow. The video of the latest assault was shot secretly by a neighbour from the window of the couple’s house and it went viral on Wednesday morning.
The video shows the woman sitting on the floor of the house as she is confronted by her grandson, who is sitting in front of her, and her granddaughter-in-law, who is on the edge of a bed. After berating her, the younger woman twists the older woman’s arm. As she begins to scream, her grandson holds her down in his lap and covers her mouth.
His wife then begins hitting her repeatedly with a stick. After an agonisingly long time, the man lets his grandmother go, only to elbow her in the back as his wife hits her on the head with the stick, before pinning her down again.
After the video was widely circulated, the Jahangirabad police began looking for the couple and caught them as they were attempting to leave the city.