Get 50 members enrolled at the block level and Congress president Rahul Gandhi would personally call you and recognise your contribution to party. As Congress begins its spadework for 2019 parliamentary elections, it has rolled out a new initiative to connect with grassroots workers, train and then encourage them to enrol new members through a creditbased mobile app. If you enrol 50 new members at the block level, or over 200 new members at district level or 500 members at the state level you get to meet Gandhi in Delhi.

Human Resource Development minister Prakash Javadekar is quite a health freak and hits the gym almost on a daily basis. He will be celebrating International Yoga Day in Mumbai at the invitation of BJP Maharashtra spokesperson Shaina NC. The yoga session will be held at the sea shore – Yoga by the bay is the tagline – and will also have some celebrities taking part in the event.

Unable to repay loans taken for their medical treatment, a couple allegedly committed suicide by consuming insecticide at Malkapet village in Rajanna Sircilla district today. Police said Y Srinivas (52) and his wife Padma (42) were suffering from some health problems and had taken bank loans to avail of treatment. However they could not repay the amounts and so took the extreme step, they said. On a complaint by their son, police registered a case of suspicious death.

In the party’s mouthpiece Saamana, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday wrote, “The political accident of 2014 won’t happen again in 2019.” Adding that people are asking whether these are “pre-emergency days”, Thackeray said, “The dust storm isn’t happening just in Delhi but in the entire country. But the PM doesn’t know this as he is constantly travelling abroad.”

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal has denied permission to West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan to meet Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. Reacting to this, Kejriwal tweeted, “PMO has directed him (L-G) to refuse permission.” Kejriwal is on a sit-in protest at the L-G’s office.

A plot auctioned by Telangana Housing Board fetched ₹1.06 lakh per square yard at Gachibowli on Thursday. The board conducted an open auction at Gachibowli of a 348.33 square yards plot. While the upset price was ₹55,000 per sq yard, five bidders participated in the open auction. The housing board got highest bid of ₹1,06,000 per sq yard which amounts to ₹3,69,22,980 towards the plot’s total cost.

BJP office-bearers and functionaries are quite excited about completing their target of meeting 25 eminent people by June 30, the deadline set for the ‘Sampark for Samarthan’ exercise. Party chief Amit Shah has met 11 opinion makers till now. In this race, some BJP leaders realised that when they mentioned the name of eminent persons, colleagues took the cue and pipped them in meeting the celebrities. The leaders are now keeping their list a secret and ensuring that they meet the person before anybody else.

PM Narendra Modi has shared a video of him doing a series of morning exercises, days after he accepted Indian captain Virat Kohli’s fitness challenge. In the video, PM Modi can be seen performing various yoga asanas, walking on tracks “inspired by 5 elements of nature” and doing breathing exercises. He further nominated Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy for the challenge.

Minister KTR swiftly responded to a tweet by TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy’s tweet about a poor aged couple living in a hut in Asifabad Komarambheem district asked to cough up ₹500 towards property tax. Uttam tweeted that local officials apathy is sickening and appealed to the Chief Ministers Office and KTR to look into it. KTR responded and directed the district collector to rectify it, provide them with a twobedroom house and Aasara pension. He also thanked Uttam for bringing the issue to his notice.

Chandrababu who won as CM last time when EVMs were used has now raised doubts about the machines again. He said that EVMs were susceptible to be tampered with and asked his cadre to be alert. Speaking at the TDP Co-ordination Committee meeting in response to the speech of Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Naidu said that EVMs could be tampered with like any other electronic device and the TDP cadre should be alert. He also stressed on the need to come up with an alternative solution to this possibility.

In an apparent reference to PM Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi today said, “Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi ran away with ₹35,000 crore… and even Lalit Modi decamped… But he (PM Modi) says nothing… He will also run away.” He added, “There is fear in his voice… But I am not scared as I am a soldier of truth.”

Ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Singapore, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un brought his own portable toilet to “deny determined sewer-divers insights into the supreme leader’s stools”, according to reports. “The leader’s excretions contain information about his health status, so they can’t be left behind,” a North Korean defector had said earlier.

Posani Krishna Murali has created Controversy time and again by bad mouthing not only film personalities but also politicians. He took on Chandra Babu on Nandi awards issue, took on ministars over reservations. Today, he is holding a press conference at Somajiguda Press Club and speculation is that he will speak or rather apologise for his past comments. But it remains to be seen if he kickstarts another Controversy.

In a bizarre incident, Indira Bhavan, the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) office in Thiruvananthapuram, was put up for ‘sale’ on online rental website OLX on Saturday night. The advertisement was put up by a user named Aniesh. The dealer pegged the property at a price of Rs 10,000. The advertisement is seen as a dig at Congress’ gesture of “gifting” a Rajya Sabha seat to Kerala Congress (M). Reports had stated that the ‘gift’ move had upset the party workers in the state.

Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan was trolled on social media for his comments on Franklin Templeton, in which he referred to the company as a person during his public address in Visakhapatnam district on Friday. “Government denied land to a person from Srikakulam district but allotted to a person called Franklin Templeton at a throw away price of 30 lakh,” Pawan had said in his speech.