Cracking the whip against the dissidents, Maharashtra unit of Congress has issued show-cause notices to two legislators for indulging in anti-party activities.

State unit chief Manikrao Thakre said a notice was issued to MLC Vijay Sawant for criticising the senior Congress leader and Industries Minister Narayan Rane and his son Nitesh at a press conference. Nitesh, a sitting Congress MP, is seeking re-election from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency.

Another notice was issued to Ramprasad Bordikar, the Jintu MLA, after the ally NCP complained that he was not helping latter’s candidate Vijay Bhamble in Parbhani constituency.

Bhamble had contested the 2009 Assembly election against Bordikar as an independent and the two reportedly do not see eye to eye.

Thakre said that every party leader and worker must work for the official candidates and dissidence would not brooked.

The state Congress chief expressed confidence that the high turnout in Vidarbha would help Congress. “We expect out seat tally in Vidarbha would go up,” he said. Of the ten Lok Sabha seats where polling was held, Congress had won four last time and NCP one.

Thakre claimed that Congress could wrest the Akola seat as well, which the party had thought to be difficult to win before the start of the campaign.

“Don’t be surprised if Congress-NCP bag all the ten seats,” he said, adding that Congress was also confident that BJP leader NItin Gadkari would lose to the party veteran Vilas Muttemwar in Nagpur.

Meanwhile, Thakre informed that Congress candidate Sanjay Deotale from Chandrapur had complained against former MP Naresh Pugalia for working against him. The complaint was forwarded to the central leadership, he added.

With police and other agencies seizing cash totalling crores of rupees during poll campaign from different parts of the country, a chopper pilots’ body has told DGCA that illegal carriage of cash and arms cannot be prevented till security is vastly improved at the helipads.

The Rotary Wing Society of India (RWSI) said lax security at most helipads, particularly the hurriedly-prepared makeshift ones in remote areas, could potentially lead to illegal transport of cash and arms during the election season.

Days after BJP workers allegedly thrashed a helicopter pilot for refusing to fly senior leader Gopinath Munde from Beed to another place in Maharashtra, RWSI in a letter to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) sought urgent steps to prevent recurrence of such incidents.

The pilot had reportedly refused to fly Munde citing fuel shortage and not having flight clearance for the new destination.

The letter came after DGCA issued a circular directing the crew of aircraft or helicopters flying VIPs for campaigning to ensure that no unauthorised cash, narcotics or arms are carried in the flight, among other things.

“The recent circular asks pilots to verify passengers’ baggage for cash or any other objectionable items carried by them. The VIPs are not generally used to them being frisked for carrying weapons etc personally by Captains as this verification is done by security agencies and not by pilots,” RWSI President Air Vice Marshal (Retd) K Sridharan said in the letter.

He pointed out that security personnel were not posted at helipads to subject VIPs and politicians and their luggage to checks, though DGCA has made the pilots responsible for carrying out the frisking.

Administrative and security tasks currently carried out by pilots should be handled by helipad operators and security agencies to help reduce pilots’ workload, he suggested.

Not just from across the country, Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi is facing opposition at home for making bizarre and shocking statement over punishment to women who were raped.

On microblogging website Twitter, Bollywood actress Ayesha Takia, the daughter-in-law of Azmi, said: if wot im reading about my father in laws statements r true then me and Farhan are deeply embarrassed n ashamed…(Sic)
We surely do nottt share this mindset…its disrespectful to women. if these statements r true then its sad.(Sic)

Farhan Azmi, the son of Azmi and husband of Takia, in the meantime, defended his father but stated that rapists should be hanged.

“Guys as far as I am concerned I have made myself more than clear.hang a rapist a 100 times & give me the duty to do so.I will do it for free.”
Spoke 2 my father about his comments.In my opinion on the topic of RAPE only 1 statement must b given without any explanation-hang da rapist (Sic)
My seniors including my father share the same opinion but when they start explaining themselves, they fall in the trap of the Journalists.

Earlier, Azmi got himself embroiled in a controversy while defending Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had on Thursday shocked everyone by defending rapists, saying they should not be hanged for committing a ‘mistake’.

“Ladkon se aisi galtiyan ho jati hain, to iska matlab yeh to nahi ki unhe phaansi de di jaaye (Boys make mistakes, but this doesn’t mean you hang them),” Mulayam had said at a rally in his home state Uttar Pradesh.

On Friday, his party representative in Maharashtra, Abu Azmi, went a step further and said victims in rape cases should also be punished.

Speaking to a leading Mumbai tabloid, Azmi said, “Rape is punishable by hanging in Islam. But here, nothing happens to women, only to men. Even the woman is guilty.”

“In India, if you have sex with a person with consent, it’s fine. But if that same person complains, it’s a problem. Nowadays, we see a lot of such cases. Girls complain when someone touches them, and even when someone doesn’t touch them. It becomes a problem then, and the man’s honour is ruined in this. If rape happens with or without consent, it should be punished as prescribed in Islam,” the SP Maharashtra chief said further.

“If any woman, whether married or unmarried, goes along with a man, with or without her consent, she should be hanged. Both should be hanged. It shouldn’t be allowed even if a woman goes by consent.”

Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s daughter and sitting MLA Praniti Shinde on Friday said the “overall development” carried out by her father in Solapur constituency has put him in a better position than his rivals from BJP and AAP.

“Shinde saheb has done a lot of development in the constituency and also provided employment to many…These are the reasons he is getting support from different quarters. He has an edge over others,” said Praniti, who is actively involved in campaigning for her father, told a news agency.

Shinde recently took the command of campaigning from Praniti and his wife Ujwala. BJP has fielded Sharad Bansode (50), who fought and lost against Shinde in the last 2009 Lok Sabha poll, while AAP has given ticket to Lalit Babar.

Solapur constituency, comprising urban and rural segments, goes to polls on April 17.

A special court in Mumbai sentenced a man to 15 months’ imprisonment for making a hoax call to an airline’s office, threatening to hijack a plane to get Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab released.

According to the Mumbai police’s crime branch, the accused Vikas Yadav (19) had called the office of Jet Airways here last year and threatened that he will be hijacking a Bangalore-bound plane to get Kasab — arrested during 26/11 terror attack and executed last year — released from the jail.

Yadav was arrested from Vapi in Gujarat in January 2013. The police seized five mobiles and five sim cards from him. A case under the Indian Penal Code and Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act was registered against him.

The prosecution relied on the call data records of the accused to prove the case.

Judge S G Dige convicted Yadav and sentenced him to 15 months’ imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs. 1,000 on him.

Bus drivers and conductors of BEST today assured the Bombay High Court that they would not strike work remain absent from duty to protest against implementation of a new computerised scheduling system at the suburban Malad bus depot on an experimental basis.

President of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) Workers’ Union Uday Amonkar gave this assurance to Justice N M Jamdar, who was hearing a petition filed by the Union challenging the BEST management’s decision to implement the new scheduling system at the Malad depot.

Appearing for the Union, advocate Neeta Karnik argued that under the garb of trying out the new system at the Malad depot as a pilot project, the management has changed the schedule of drivers and conductors even at surrounding Goregaon and Malwani depots.

BEST counsel Kevic Setalvad said the new system cannot be implemented at one depot on a stand-alone basis and adjustments would have to be made on schedules of nearby depots.

“BEST has altered only six routes from Goregaon and Malwani depots, while 182 conductors and 176 drivers from these two depots have been transferred to Malad depot due to which some change in the schedule of other employees is bound to happen,” he said.

The court accepted this contention and said, “Union members have to try out the new schedule and participate in the experiment. You (workers) are apprehending problems even before giving the experiment a try. Ultimately, they (BEST) are the employers. If they are trying something new, employees have to co-operate. You (workers) cannot make high demands and make it an issue of ego.”

“There appears to be substance in BEST’s submission that the experiment cannot be on a stand-alone basis. It is not possible to ascertain the exact impact of the schedule even before trying it out,” the court said.

A couple, including a runaway girl student from Mumbai, who began their career in crime after meeting on a social networking site were yesterday arrested for allegedly snatching bags of foreign tourists in Goa, police said.

John Rodrigues (20) and his girlfriend Divya Chawan (21) were apprehended in Pernem, 40 kms away from here, after they targetted a foreigner who identified their motorcycle, SP (North) Priyanka Kashyap told reporters here.

“The couple has admitted to committing three similar robberies in the past,” she said, adding they were operating as a part of gang. While Rodrigues hailed from Karnataka’s Karwar area, Chawan, as per police records, is “missing” from suburban Vikhroli of Mumbai since last two months.

The duo told police they had met on Facebook and began dating, before taking to crime.

“The accused had allegedly snatched bags of two Ukrainian and a Britisher who were holidaying in Goa. They used to target foreigners in the beach belt of Anjuna and Pernem,” the SP said.

Interestingly, Chawan used to ride the bike used in the crime.

“The duo would go back to Karnataka after committing the crime and resurface in Goa after some time on their motorcycle,” Kashyap said.

With the arrest of the duo, police is expecting to solve more cases of bag snatching in the coastal state.

A BJP worker has filed a private complaint of defamation against NCP legislator Dhananjay Munde for allegedly making accusations of bogus voting against his estranged uncle and BJP leader Gopinath Munde.

“The complaint seeking action for defamation was filed today in the Esplanade Court (magistrate’s court) in which we have sought issuing of process (summons) against Dhananjay Munde,” said advocate Ashish Giri, the lawyer of complainant Narayan Nambiar.

According to Namibar, on March 22 this year, Dhanjay said that his uncle had assigned him the job of arranging bogus voting in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

The statement was reported in several newspapers, he had said.

Dhananjay, currently a member of the state legislative council, was with BJP until he fell out with his uncle last year and left the party.

Advocate Giri said Dhananjay’s statement was politically motivated and made with the sole malafide intention of defaming BJP and Gopinath Munde.

“The voters have started looking at the party and its workers with suspicion and hence the party functionaries and workers have to face humiliation,” Nambiar alleges.

The case is likely come up for hearing later this month.