BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from the Gandhinagar constituencies; it was announced by the Gujarat unit of the party on Tuesday.

Addressing a press briefing, Gujarat BJP unit spokesman Vijay Rupani said, “The state unit has approved LK Advani’s name from the Gandhinagar constituency and will send its recommendation to the party office in Delhi.”

Rupani further said that the state unit wants Narendra Modi to contest Lok Sabha polls from Gujarat although he is also contesting from Varanasi.

The announcement from the Gujarat BJP unit has finally ended suspense over party veteran Advani, who was keen to contest from the Gandhinagar constituency which he presently represents. There were speculations that Advani might be asked to contest from Bhopal this time.

After careful deliberations, the party had recently declared Modi and Rajnath Singh’s name for the Varanasi and Lucknow constituencies respectively.

BJP’s next list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections is also likely to lift the veil on party’s prime ministerial candidate Modi’s second seat.

According to Gujarat BJP sources, Modi is most likely to contest from the Ahmedabad (East), though Baroda and Surat are also being discussed.

The fifth list of BJP candidates will be declared on March 19 in which Gujarat, Rajasthan will be taken up along with the 22 remaining seats of UP and five seats of Madhya Pradesh. Other pending seats from various states are also likely to be announced after this meeting.

An upbeat Gujarat unit of the BJP has been claiming that the party could win 20-22 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state as Narendra Modi is the party’s prime ministerial candidate. BJP won 17 seats in 2009.

Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav will contest from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, besides Mainpuri which he presently represents in Parliament.

“Due to demand of party leaders and workers, SP supremo will contest from both Azamgarh and Mainpuri seats,” party’s national general secretary Ramgopal Yadav said.

The Samajwadi Party had earlier declared Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Balram Yadav as the party’s candidate from Azamgarh, which has a sizable number of Muslim and Yadav population.

Speculations were rife regarding Mulayam’s candidature from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency, but senior party leader Shivpal Yadav had earlier denied it saying that there was no such proposal.

In the 2009 elections, Mulayam won the Mainpuri seat by a margin of over 1.6 lakh votes. And BJP’s Ramakant Yadav won the Azamgarh constituency by nearly 50,000 votes. SP candidate Durga Prasad Yadav came third in the constituency behind BSP’s Akbar Ahmad Dampi.

An Italian court has barred India from encashing bank guarantees worth over Rs. 2,360 crore of AgustaWestland as part of the penalties imposed on it after scrapping of the Rs. 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal.

India has decided to file an appeal against the decision of the Italian court, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said.

India has already encashed bank guarantees of around Rs. 240 crore deposited in banks in India but it is yet to recover the bank guarantees deposited in banks of Italy. An Italian court in Milan yesterday accepted a plea by AgustaWestland’s parent company Finmecannica to stop India from encashing over Rs. 2,360 crore (Euro 278 million).

“With this measure, the Court granted the requests made by the companies of the Finmeccanica Group, recognising the manifestly abusive enforcement of the guarantees made by the Indian Defense Ministry, given the vagueness of the complaints made in relation to alleged breaches of contract,” Finmeccanica said in a statement.

“The Milan court has confirmed the ruling made last January, prohibiting…The payment of collateral of more than EUR 278 million deposited in relation to the contract,” it said.

India terminated the Rs. 3,600 crore deal on January 1 for procuring 12 VVIP AW-101 choppers for the IAF on allegations of payment of kickbacks and involvement of middlemen in the acquisition process by the Anglo-Italian firm.

The Italian court had put a stay on India’s effort to encash the bank guarantees in an earlier hearing on January 8.

After the cancellation of the contract, India had also decided to go in for arbitration with the Anglo-Italian firm and the two sides have nominated their members in this regard.

The Anglo-Italian firm has already supplied three choppers to India and the delivery of the remaining nine was put on hold after Defence Minister AK Antony ordered a CBI probe into the corruption allegations after the arrest of Finmecannica’s former CEO Guiseppe Orsi and AgustaWestland’s former head Bruno Spagnolini in Italy in connection with the probe going on there.

Notorious poacher Sansar Chand, who was accused of killing tigers and other animals in Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, died on Tuesday in Jaipur.

The wildlife smuggler was suffering from lung cancer and other ailments and was admitted to the SMS Hospital here on March 14, hospital sources said.

Sansar Chand, who was around 60, was facing trial in cases related to wildlife and was brought to Alwar from Tihar jail hospital for a hearing in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate on March 14.

After hearing in the case of a tiger’s killing in 2005, he was admitted to Alwar district hospital from there was referred to SMS on the same day.

The next hearing in the case was scheduled, his counsel Ashok Sharma said.

Sansar Chand, his associates and relatives were considered responsible for the killing of all tigers in Sariska. He was also accused of smuggling body parts of the wild animals.

BJP will field former Army chief VK Singh from the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha constituency, party sources said on Tuesday.

A formal announcement on General (Retd) Singh’s candidature is likely to come in the next two to three days, the sources said.

BJP had two days ago offered the former Army chief, who has recently joined the saffron outfit, to contest the upcoming elections from Ghaziabad, after the sitting MP and party president Rajnath Singh was nominated from Lucknow.

“On this offer, Singh had asked for two days to reach any conclusion. Singh accepted the party’s offer and he would now contest from the Ghaziabad seat,” a senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.

The sources said Muzaffarnagar riots-accused BJP leader Sangeet Som’s name was also considered for the seat, but it was later dropped.

General (Retd) Singh will now have a face-off with Aam Aadmi Party nominee Shazia Ilmi and Raj Babbar of Congress.

Yesterday, the former Army chief had to face the heat from a section of BJP workers when he visited Ghaziabad.

Around half-an-hour after he reached the party’s office in Ghaziabad yesterday evening, some workers started raising slogans against him. There was also heated arguments between supporters of the former Army chief and his “rivals”.

Asked about his candidature, General (Retd) Singh had said, “I will contest elections from wherever the party would ask me to.”

As actor Kirron Kher arrived in Chandigarh to begin campaigning as the BJP’s candidate, protesters waved black flags and shouted slogans to signal their disapproval. Her husband Anupam Kher had to dodge eggs.

The protests were not sponsored by her rivals, model and actor Gul Panag of the Aam Aadmi Party or Congressman and sitting MP, Pawan Kumar Bansal. These were members of the BJP, who are disgruntled that the party chose to field Ms. Kher, who arrived at the party headquarters to slogans of, “Kirron Kher go back”.
Local leaders like Chandigarh BJP president Sanjay Tandon, former MP Satya Pal Jain and former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan were keen on being fielded and they are cut up at Ms. Kher’s nomination. The protesters were mostly supporters of Mr. Dhawan.
Ms Kher, 58, immediately sought to dispel notions that she is an “outsider” parachuting in days before the elections. “I am the daughter of Chandigarh, it’s my hometown. I will persuade all those who are protesting,” and added, “If Bansal says I am an outsider, ask him why didn’t he take good care of Chandigarh.”

Anupam Kher said his wife, who makes her electoral debut, “will give a good fight. She is a Punjabi kudi (lass) and has done a lot of work for the party.” Four BJP workers have been rounded up by cops for allegedly throwing eggs at the actor.

Ms Kher was named by the BJP to contest from Chandigarh only a couple of days after the AAP announced it was fielding the 35-year-old Gul Panag, who, like Ms Kher, possesses a deeply dimpled smile. Social media is replete with quips on how the lack of that attribute puts the Congress candidate Mr Bansal, who has won this seat four times, at a disadvantage.

What has the sitting MP on the back foot, is the shadow of controversy. He had to resign as Railways Minister last year after his nephew Vijay Singla was accused in the Rs. 10 crore cash-for-post bribery scam in his ministry.

Mr Bansal was not named in the CBI’s chargesheet, but eyebrows have been raised at the Congress’ decision to renominate him.

A 23-year-old police constable Priyanka Kumari was found dead at a guest house in Delhi on Monday morning. Her fiance, former Navy officer Mohit Sharma, has been arrested in connection with the case.

Mohit was on the run since Priyanka’s death, but was arrested from his village in Haryana.

According to the police, Mohit had booked a room at the Neel Gagan Guest House in Sagar Pur area of South West Delhi on Sunday and had told the manager that Priyanka is his wife. Later that evening, Mohit was seen leaving the guest house.

Next morning, when the guest house manager called the room, no one answered. He then broke open the door with the help of the staff, the police said. Priyanka’s body was found lying on the bed, they added.

The police said that Mohit and Priyanka got engaged last year, but it was called off after her family found out that Mohit was allegedly an alcoholic and had behavioural issues.

He was reportedly discharged from the Navy because of the same reason. Mohit remained in touch with Priyanka but soon realised that marriage was off the cards.

According to police, he started hatching the plot to kill her when he reached Delhi three months back from Goa where he was posted while serving in the Navy. “There was some marriage related dispute between them,” said Suman Goel, DCP, Delhi South West.