HT Daily Summary: Farmers step up, AAP-Cong agreement, Shah goes after Congress, and more

HT provides you with a summary of the most noteworthy and engaging items so you never miss your daily news fix.

1) More unions get involved and raise the stakes in the farmer’s death

Disparate farm unions seemed to be roused by the death of a 21-year-old protestor at the Punjab-Haryana border on Thursday. Cultivator groups escalated their two-week-long protests, calling for the police, the chief minister, and the home minister of Haryana to be charged with murder and announcing a number of new joint initiatives. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), which has refrained from stirring up any controversy until Thursday, issued a call for more intense demonstrations, including a “Jan Aakrosh” march on Friday, a statewide tractor rally on roads on February 26, and a mahapanchayat in Delhi’s Ramlila Ground on March 14. Continue reading.

2) What is the AAP-Congress seat-sharing agreement for Delhi?
As part of a seat-sharing arrangement between the two Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc partners, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is expected to run for four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and hand over the remaining three to its ally, the Congress, people with knowledge of the situation said on Thursday. The agreement, which is anticipated to be officially announced on Friday, would be the first alliance of this kind between the two former enemies and the second significant deal reached in the troubled Indian nation, after the Congress and Samajwadi Party’s agreement in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Continue reading.

3) Manipur HC strikes down a portion of the previous ruling on Meiteis’s inclusion in the ST list.
On Wednesday, the Manipur High Court struck down a section of a previous ruling it had made in March of last year, instructing the state administration to take into account adding the Meitei group to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list. The ethnic strife that broke out in May between the Meitei and tribal Kuki communities—of whom at least 215 have died and over 50,000 have been displaced—is said to have been primarily caused by the edict made on March 27, 2023. Continue reading.

4) In Chhattisgarh, Amit Shah claims that the Congress government was useless and had engaged in scandals.
Amit Shah, the union minister of interior, attacked the previous Congress administration in Chhattisgarh, which was headed by Bhupesh Baghel, on Thursday, branding it a “worthless government.” “The Congress government was a worthless government that never worked to end Naxalism and never worked to give justice to the people of Chhattisgarh but got involved in scams worth rupees lakhs of crores and inflicted injustice upon them,” Shah said, addressing the “Vijay Sankalp Shankhnad” rally in Janjgir, Chhattisgarh. He expressed gratitude to the state’s citizens for choosing the BJP to rule, and he made a plea for them to choose candidates from the saffron party to win the Lok Sabha elections. Continue reading.

5) In the Delhi excise policy investigation, ED sends CM Arvind Kejriwal a seventh summons.

In its excise policy money laundering investigation, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal once again, requesting that he appear before it on February 26, according to sources acquainted with the matter who spoke with the ED on Thursday. Following the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener’s repeated refusal to appear for questioning by the financial crimes investigation agency since November 2 of last year, the most recent (seventh) summons was sent out.