Sedition case against filmmaker: Local BJP leaders quit in protest

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lakshadweep unit have quit the party in protest over the sedition case filed against filmmaker Aisha Sultana for her comments against the island’s administrator Praful Khoda Patel.

The leaders have called the charges filed against her “false, unjustified and against the spirit of the island”.

“…Sultana who pointed out undemocratic actions of the administrator. This will ruin her family and future and this is not in the right spirit of the island,” said Abdul Hameed Mullipuzha, general secretary of the party’s Kavaratti unit, while resigning from the party.

Sulatana, during a TV debate on the new rules proposed by Patel last week, called him a “bio-weapon” launched by the Centre. The president of the BJP’S unit in the Union territory later filed a complaint against her, saying that the comments were in “bad taste and intended to create hatred and aversion”.

The BJP, however, played down the resignations, saying the “party in the island is intact”.

NEW DELHI: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said the chances of a third wave of Covid-19 (the fifth for Delhi) are “quite real” and assured that the Delhi government is preparing to combat it on a “war footing”, as he inaugurated 22 oxygen PSA plants in nine state government-run hospitals.

“We are now at the risk of the third wave of Covid-19…however, initial indications suggest that the intensity is lower this time. So, we also have to be fully prepared for the same,” Kejriwal said. The Delhi government plans to set up 57 oxygen generation plants, data seen by HT showed.