On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Emergency, BJP’s preparations for the day were in full swing at the party headquarters on Tuesday. With the party planning to spread out its leaders across the TV channels for attacking the Congress over what it called the ‘dark chapter in Indian history’, former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who as a student leader was put in jail during the Emergency, has been assigned the task to share his first-hand experiences with the talking heads. The BJP has also planned around 700 seminars and other programmes across the country to make the younger generation know about the Emergency.

Request, Relief

Story continues below this ad

Food Minister Pralhad Joshi Tuesday thanked Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for extending relief to mango farmers in Karnataka, Joshi’s home state. After the prices of mangoes — particularly the Totapuri variety — saw a decline in recent days, the Agriculture Ministry decided to support the Karnataka farmers under the Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) after Joshi wrote to Chouhan on June 9, urging his intervention. Following the letter, Chouhan held a video conference with Karnataka Agriculture Minister N Chaluvaraya Swamy and announced the relief measures on June 21.

ONOE Consultations

Having visited Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh earlier this month to hold consultations with stakeholders, the Joint Committee of Parliament on the ‘One Nation One Election’ Bills is planning its next meeting in Delhi on July 11, it is learnt. The panel, chaired by BJP MP P P Chaudhary, is likely to invite two former Chief Justices of India — Jagdish Singh Khehar and D Y Chandrachud — as well as former Law minister Veerappa Moily, to hear their views on the proposed simultaneous elections.