Rahul's elevation as Congress President likely in October

News Network

September 5, 2017

New Delhi, Sept 5: Rahul Gandhi is likely to be elevated as the Congress President next month after the culmination of the organisational elections currently under way across the country.

Though there is no opposition from within the party to the much-anticipated change of guard at the helm, Rahul is expected to take the election route to the post instead of being appointed by the Congress Working Committee.

“Rahul will take over as Congress President after the culmination of the election process next month,” a Congress leader said.

The elevation comes ahead of the year end Gujarat assembly elections, where Rahul has challenged the supremacy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah in their home state.

Rahu's leadership skills will also be put to test in Himachal Pradesh where Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has raised a banner of revolt against the state unit chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and declared that he will not contest the November assembly elections.

However, Rahul's team is expected to be a mix of the old guard and new faces as senior leaders such as Ashok Gehlot, Sushilkumar Shinde, Kamal Nath have been given key responsibilities in the organisation.

It has almost 10 months now since the Congress Working Committee urged Rahul, who was appointed as vice president in 2013, to take over the reins of the party.

The November 7 meeting last year was attended by top leaders including former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former Defence Minister A K Antony among others. Congress President had skipped the CWC meeting on account of ill-health.

Organisational elections in the Congress have begun last month and according to the schedule approved by the CWC are expected to conclude by October 15.

Sonia Gandhi, who has been keeping indifferent health off late, has already withdrawn from day to day running of the organisational work and delegated most of the responsibilities to Rahul.

Sonia Gandhi has created a record by being the Congress President for nearly two decades since she assumed the post in 1998 after the ouster of Sitaram Kesari. Her term had ended in December 2015, but the CWC had been delaying internal elections which prompted the Election Commission to set a deadline of December this year to complete the process.

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Trump’s associates told to avoid racist language making them ‘look like Nazis’

News Network

November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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