Daily Bulletin: 'Kingmaker' Dushyant Chautala to meet JJP MLAs over formation of Haryana govt; Sonia Gandhi to hold meeting with senior party leaders over NRC today; day's top stories

‘Kingmaker’ Dushyant Chautala to meet JJP MLAs over formation of Haryana govt today Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader Dushyant Chautala, who has emerged as ‘kingmaker’ in Haryana, will be meeting his 10 legislators on Friday to decide which party to support in order to form the next government in the state, sources said on Thursday. The Haryana Assembly poll verdict threw up a fractured mandate with the Congress winning 31 of the 90 seats at stake and the BJP bagged 40 seats. The half-way mark is 46. Though Chautala has remained non-committal on whether his party would support the BJP or the Congress, party sources said that he is likely to meet Union Home Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah soon. [caption id=“attachment_5700161” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Dushyant Chautala. News18[/caption] Sources also said that the BJP too would like to have him on board and make him an equal stakeholder in the state government as it would help reduce dependence on Independents, even though many of them are BJP rebels. The BJP was weighing its options, sources in the saffron party said. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which formed its first-ever government in the state on its own in 2014, needs support this time to come to retain power. Interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi to hold meeting with senior party leaders over NRC today Interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi will deliberate upon the issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) with senior party leaders on 25 October, party sources had said. Congress party has been at loggerheads with the Centre over the implementation of NRC from the day one. The party has accused the BJP led Central government of politicising the issue. The move comes after the RSS recently demanded that the NRC exercise should be implemented all across India to weed out illegal immigrants from the country. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the Centre will bring the NRC after the Citizenship Amendment Bill is passed in Parliament. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on 8 January, aims at granting citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, who came to India before 31 December 2014. In the final NRC list published on 31 August for Assam, a total of 3,11,21,004 persons are found eligible for inclusion in the list leaving out 19,06,657 persons, including those who did not submit their claims. The list is aimed at segregating Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the state from Bangladesh. Haryana BJP leaders including working president JP Nadda met at Amit Shah’s residence early Friday Haryana leaders, BJP working president JP Nadda met the party’s president Amit Shah at his residence in Delhi during the early hours on Friday. BJP’s Haryana in-charge and party general secretary Anil Jain and party’s new organising secretary BL Santosh were also present in the meeting. The meeting comes in view of Haryana polls where BJP has fallen short of seats to form the government. The leaders, along with Nadda, reached Shah’s residence at 1 am and left at 2:10 am. Few hours before this, Lokhit Party leader Gopal Kanda, the winning candidate from Sirsa Assembly constituency in Haryana, was seen leaving Nadda’s residence.

Delhi: BJP Working President JP Nadda, Party Haryana In-charge Anil Jain, & B L Santhosh leave from the residence of Party President Amit Shah, after holding a meeting. pic.twitter.com/jSblpKafp0

— ANI (@ANI) October 24, 2019

Kanda’s brother Gobind Kanda had said that Haryana Lokhit Party is in touch with five more MLAs, who will extend their “unconditional support” to the ruling party. It is to be noted that Kanda’s party has secured one seat in the Haryana polls and the BJP has won 40 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly and needs the support of six MLAs to cross the half-way mark to retain power in the state. After Nadda and Kanda’s meeting, BJP MP Sunita Duggal said that she has informed the party leadership about the willingness of other leaders to join BJP. “I informed our senior leaders about the independent candidates and leaders from other parties, who are willing to extend their unconditional support to us. They are in contact with them,” she told ANI. IMD predicts ’extremely heavy rainfall’ over coastal Konkan and Goa, issues red alert for today  The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday put out a red alert, forecasting ’extremely heavy rainfall’ over the coastal Konkan and Goa as well as coastal Karnataka for Friday. Precipitation of 204.5 mm or more within 24 hours is considered as extremely heavy rainfall. The Met department’s Mumbai Centre issued the advisory for Konkan, Goa and coastal Karnataka after the signs of intensification of cyclonic circulation in the Arabian Sea. The IMD Goa, meanwhile, has issued a red alert for Thursday. “A cyclonic circulation has already brought rains into central parts of Maharashtra including Marathwada region as well as in western Maharashtra and Konkan in last some days. The situation is escalating further as it would concentrate into a `depression’ during next 24 hours in the Arabian Sea,” said an official of IMD, Mumbai. Twitter admits to showing fewer ads to popular users Twitter has confessed that it used to customise the frequency of ads its users saw on their timeline. A company spokesperson said that users with high follower counts were shown fewer ads for a better experience so that they stay on the platform. Twitter now says that it will be changing its approach which could mean users could see more ads appearing on their timelines. With inputs from agencies