The Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet is underway to conduct a post-mortem of the party’s worst-ever performance in the Lok Sabha polls on Monday.
The meeting is being attended by outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi among other tall leaders of the party.

Sources say Sonia may be asked by the CWC to lead the party in Lok Sabha whereas Kamal Nath may be second-in-command.

Instead of Manmohan Singh, AK Antony is being touted as the party’s next leader in the Upper House.

Though directly no one is pointing fingers at Rahul Gandhi, the role of his key advisers including Jairam Ramesh, Mohan Gopal, Madhusudan Mistri and Mohan Prakash is likely to be under the scanner.

As the party searched for answers for its disastrous performance, senior minister Kamal Nath has sounded a word of caution against “patronage politics” and said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should have been more forthright and that the communication was a problem.

A number of Union Ministers may face the ire of party leaders at the meet for their “total lack of communication” with party workers, sources say.

As several Union Cabinet ministers lost in their respective seats miserably, a senior party leader has said that there was a total disconnect of the ministers with party workers and their “arrogance” is to be blamed for the backlash against the party.

While party sources have ruled out reports of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi offering to resign in the wake of debacle, some leaders are raising uncomfortable questions about the party’s campaign and alliance strategy.

Questions have been raised about the style of working of Rahul Gandhi but doubts are being expressed whether any one would make bold to raise them in the meeting to be presided over by Sonia.

An exercise has already begun in the party to insulate him from any blame game. Sonia and Rahul appeared before the media on Friday and took personal responsibility for the drubbing that left the party with just 44 seats in a House of 543, a huge climbdown from 206 seats it had in the outgoing Lok Sabha.

Nitish Kumar, who quit as Bihar’s Chief Minister after his Janata Dal United lost the national election, has chosen his close aide Jitan Ram Majhi as his successor.

Mr. Majhi, who belongs to one of the most underprivileged castes in the state, was among the JD (U) candidates who were defeated in the polls.

Mr. Kumar told the party that his decision to quit was not an ordinary one; it took a lot of courage.

“For whatever reasons, the mandate was not in my favour,” Mr. Kumar said, a day after JD (U) legislators insisted that he should take back his resignation and refused to choose another leader.

He said he would travel across Bihar to work for the party, which said he would stay in charge even if he didn’t remain Chief Minister.

The JD (U) has said it will stake claim to form a government again, and authorized Mr. Kumar to choose his own successor.

“Nitish Kumar may not remain Chief Minister but the party will work under his direction,” said party leader Vashisht Narayan Singh.

Mr. Kumar, 63, resigned on Saturday taking moral responsibility for the party’s drubbing in the national election.

The JD (U) won only two of Bihar’s 40 seats in the polls that have seen a massive mandate for its former ally, the BJP, with which it parted ways last year when it decided to project Narendra Modi.

The JD (U)’s refusal to let Mr. Kumar take a back seat may set him at odds with party Chief Sharad Yadav, who is seen as his rival within.

This morning, Mr. Yadav said, “The decision is in the nation’s favour, the party’s favour and Nitish Kumar’s favour. It is a tough decision but final and right.”

Sources say Nitish Kumar has told party legislators not to “heckle” Mr. Yadav.

State BJP leaders have stepped up their attacks on Mr. Kumar. Describing him as “drama king”, the party’s Ram Kirpal Yadav said, “The entire thing resignation drama was scripted. Nitish uses people and dumps them. Without power he is like a fish out of water.”

An army jawan was killed and two of his colleagues were injured in an attack by suspected Pakistan’s Border Action Team (BAT) which set off a mine blast and open fired on a patrol party along LoC.

“In an incident near Akhnoor a patrol of the Army was targeted by mines and small arms fire by a group of unidentified armed personnel (possibly a BAT team of Pak) yesterday”, Public Relation officer (PRO), Defence, Jammu said.

BAT, which is a mix of Pakistani special forces personnel and terrorists, carried out the brutal killing of two Indian soldiers in January last year, one of whom was beheaded, and killed five personnel along Line of Control in Poonch sector seven months later.

After Sunday’s attack, own alert troops returned effective fire and the group fled back across the LoC towards Pakistan Army post, PRO said.

In the ensuing fire fight two soldiers suffered splinter injuries (due to mine blast) and gunshot wound, while Sepoy Bhikale Uttam Balu was martyred, PRO said adding the injured jawans are under treatment and out of danger.

The injured jawans were airlifted for treatment to Military Hospital at Udhampur Northern Command.

“Injury to this effect on the fleeing personnel was not immediately known”, PRO said, adding “Search of the area yielded Pakistan made mines, and other equipment which clearly suggests involvement of Pakistan and terrorists from across the line of control”.

Soon after the attack, there was also firing from Pakistan side on forward belt in area triggering panic among the villagers and it concluded late in the evening yesterday, police officials said.

General Officer Commanding, White Knight Corps expressed his deepest condolences to the family of Sepoy Bhikale, who is survived by his wife and a daughter.

Search operations are in progress till the last report came in. “It was possibly an attack by a BAT of Pak. We are investigating into it”, a senior Army officer said.

The incident took place in Nathu Tibba forward post in Jugwan border belt of Akhnoor tehsil of Jammu district, police said.

The deceased Sepoy Bhikale, belonged to 2nd Maratha Light Infantry (MLI) and injured Havaldar Vinood Kumar is of 4-Engineers belonging to Karnataka and Amul Kumar of 2nd Engineers belonging to Kerala.

On May 18 early morning, a group of three infiltrators had entered into this side of LoC and?planted an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) near a forward post in Bhimbher Gali belt of Rajouri but alert troops foiled their attack by destroying the IED without any casualty or damage to the property.

On May 10, two militants were killed when they tried to attack a patrol party in a bid to infiltrate into Indian Territory along Line of Control (LoC) in Kalsia belt of Poonch district of J&K in which one jawan suffered injuries.

The Supreme Court on Monday granted three-week interim bail to Tehalka’s founder-editor Tarun Tejpal, who is presently behind the bar on charges of sexual harassment, to attend his mother’s funeral and subsequent rituals.

Earlier in the day, Tejpal’s lawyer Sandeep Kapur had filed a plea before the bench of justices B S Chauhan and AK Sikri of the Supreme Court, seeking his release on grounds of his mother’s funeral.

The bench had said the file of the case was not before it and it would consider the matter after going through the file.

Tejpal’s mother Shakuntala Tejpal passed away after being ill for sometime, his lawyer said.

She was 87.

Shakuntala was suffering from brain tumour and was living in Tejpal’s house at Moira in North Goa.

“She expired last evening at Tejpal’s Goa residence. The decision is yet to be taken whether the final rites would be conducted in Goa or Delhi,” said Tejpal’s lawyer Sandip Kapoor, adding that the family members will take a call on it.

She had been admitted to a hospital in Mapusa but was later discharged.

50-year-old Tejpal has been chargesheeted for allegedly raping, sexually harassing and outraging the modesty of a junior colleague during an event held at a hotel in Goa in November last year. Tejpal was arrested on November 30, 2013.

He has been accused of sexually assaulting the victim on November 7 and repeating the offence the next day.

Police arrested eleven DMK activists in connection with the attack on journalists in front of the party Treasurer M K Stalin’s house on Sunday.

Police said the arrested were produced at a local court which remanded them to 14 days judicial custody.

All the arrested were sent to Vellore prison, police said.

A section of DMK activists protesting against the media coverage on the ongoings in the party allegedly assaulted some media persons yesterday in which three were injured.

The DMK camp witnessed high drama with Stalin offering to quit party posts owning moral responsibility for the party’s disastrous performance in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls in which it drew a blank.

However, he did a somersault by withdrawing resignation at the directive of his father and party chief M Karunanidhi.

All four AAP MPs, who were elected from Punjab in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, met party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Monday to discuss the party’s strategy in the state, said a party leader.

The newly-elected MPs — actor-comedian Bhagwant Mann (Sangrur), Sadhu Singh (Faridkot), Harinder Singh Khalsa (Fatehgarh Sahib) and Dharam Vira Gandhi (Patiala) — met Kejriwal at his residence here to take his wishes and discuss the party’s next course of action in Punjab, said the leader.

They also discussed the Aam Aadmi Party’s strategy for Punjab’s assembly election scheduled for 2017 and also the upcoming local body election, said the leader.

A man has been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for raping and sodomising his 20-year-old daughter, by a Delhi court which noted that he violated all limits of humanity and showed no repentance over his offence.

Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Jain, while taking a stern view, handed down the jail term to the man for raping his daughter and criminally intimidating her and also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him.

The judge held the man guilty under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including rape, unnatural sex, criminal intimidation, assault and voluntarily causing hurt to the victim.

“It is proved beyond all reasonable doubts that accused had not only committed rape upon the victim but he also committed unnatural sex with her…” the court said.

While sentencing the man, the court noted that he was a perpetual offender as he had been jailed several times before for other crimes and rejected his prayer for leniency.

It held that the man does not deserve minimum punishment as “he chose his own daughter to satisfy his lust.”

“Being the father of victim, it was his duty to protect her from any such assault but he himself violated all limits of humanity and committed rape upon her,” the court said.

While noting that the man had accused his wife and daughter of being involved in prostitution, the court said that “this further indicates that convict has no repentance over his act.”

According to the prosecution, the victim lodged a complaint with the police that she was raped by her father on the night of July 6, 2012 and he also committed unnatural sex with her.

The police said that on the next day, the victim informed her maternal aunt, with whom her father got married after her biological mother deserted them. The girl was living with her father, second mother and three brothers.

She had told the police that her father had raped her several times before also.

A state minister and two of his staff were killed after the car they were travelling in was hit by a train at an unmanned crossing in Linebazar area, police sources said.

SP leader Satai Ram Yadav (61), a minister of state was in his car, when it was hit by Jaunpur-Aurihar passenger train at Khalsaha crossing this morning. Yadav’s gunner Bhikhram Verma (27) and driver Rohit Dixit (35) were the other two victims. All three died on the spot they said.

As soon as the news of minister’s death spread, his supporters from nearby villages gathered on the spot and started pelting stones on the train, which had stopped after the accident.

Government Railway Police (GRP) and local police somehow controlled the situation after which the train could move ahead.

The dead bodies of victims have reached district hospital, from where it would be handed over to their family members after postmortem.

Senior officers, political leaders have reached the hospital, where a large number of people have gathered.

A small poster mounted in Allahabad asks for Rahul Gandhi to be fired as the no 2 leader of the Congress. The poster suggests Mr. Gandhi be replaced by his younger sister, Priyanka.

The giant missive is the work of Haseeb Ahmed, a Congress leader in Uttar Pradesh who says that Priyanka, 42, deserves a larger role in the party after her brother fronted the Congress national campaign with disastrous results – the party is groaning under the weight of its worst performance ever, landing just 44 Parliamentary seats.

In Uttar Pradesh, which elects the most law-makers, the Congress won just two seats – Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Sonia, who is Congress president.

Priyanka did not run for election; she managed the campaigns of her brother and mother, and constructed an aggressive attack on Narendra Modi, who led the BJP to a landslide win.

Mr. Ahmed is her unabashed fan. He has in the past owned up to pro-Priyanka posters, and was temporarily removed from the Congress for his indiscipline.

Priyanka says that though her brother encourages her to play a larger role, she does not want to formally join politics.

A meeting of the Congress’ top leaders in Delhi will inquest the party’s crushing defeat. Despite severe criticism, several heavy-hitters have said that Mr. Gandhi cannot be held responsible for the disaster, fuelling the perception of the Congress as a party mired by its sycophancy for its First Family.