Congress defeated BJP's negative politics, says Sonia Gandhi

New Delhi: AAP leader Atishi on Tuesday made some strong allegations against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming that the party approached her to join through a close associate.

"I have been told that either I save my political career by joining BJP or else I will be arrested by ED in the coming month," Atishi said.

She further accused that the BJP intends to arrest four more AAP leaders as the Modi government wants to crush all members of AAP.

"Now BJP's intention is to arrest four more leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party in the coming two months. They will arrest me, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Durgesh Pathak, and Raghav Chadha. They thought that after the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party would fall apart," she further said.

"But after Sunday's rally at Ramleela Maidan, now BJP thinks that arresting the top four leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party was not enough. In the coming time, the next four big leaders will be put in jail."

Nagpur: As part of his ambition to make India a green economy, Union minister Nitin Gadkari wants to slash GST on hybrid vehicles and has vowed to rid the country entirely of the over 36 crore petrol and diesel vehicles.

"One hundred per cent," Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, said when asked whether it is possible for India to get rid of petrol and diesel cars altogether.

"It is difficult but not impossible. This is my vision," Gadkari said in an interview to PTI.

He said that India spends Rs 16 lakh crore on fuel imports. This money will be used for improving the life of farmers, villages will be prosperous, and the youth will get employment, the minister said.

Gadkari did not give any timeline to meet this ambitious target which even proponents of green energy believe is mind bogglingly difficult.

The proposal to reduce GST on hybrid vehicles to five per cent and to 12 per cent for flex engines has been sent to the Finance Ministry, which is considering the requisition, Gadkari said.

The minister said that he firmly believes the country can end fuel import by promoting the use of biofuels.

Environmental activists welcomed Gadkari's vision for increasing green mobility, but also struck a word of caution by flagging the use of fossil fuels in the production of electricity.

"In India, we are still heavily dependent on a fossil fuel-based energy system to power electric cars, and this needs to be changed. There is urgent need to ensure 100 per cent renewable energy alongside electric vehicles to tackle the climate crisis," Avinash Chanchal, a campaigner for Greenpeace India, told PTI.

Gadkari said he has been pitching for alternative fuels since 2004 and is confident things will change in the coming five to seven years.

"I cannot give you a date and year for this transformation to take place as it is very difficult. This is difficult but not impossible," Gadkari asserted.

He said he firmly believes that given the speed with which electric vehicles are being introduced, the coming era will be of alternative, and biofuels and this dream will come true.

Gadkari said auto companies such as Bajaj, TVS and Hero are also planning to manufacture motorcycles using flex engines and auto rickshaws using similar technology too were on the way.

"I roam around in a car that runs on hydrogen. You can see electric cars in every other household. People who used to say this was impossible, have changed their views now and started believing in what I have been saying for the last 20 years," the minister said.

"Tatas and Ashok Leyland have introduced trucks that run on hydrogen. There are trucks that run on LNG/CNG. There are 350 factories across the country of bio-CNG," he said.

"Definitely, a revolution is taking place. The fuel imports will end, and this country will become self-reliant – Atmanirbhar Bharat. I strongly believe in this," Gadkari said.

Palestinian officials say around 80 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, as the Israeli regime continues its nearly six-month-old genocidal campaign against the besieged territory.

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Sunday that nearly 32,800 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, including 77 whose bodies were brought to hospitals over the last 24 hours.

It added that most of them were killed in fresh Israeli attacks on aid seekers near Gaza City.

An Israeli airstrike also hit a tent camp in the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in Central Gaza, killing two Palestinians and wounding another 15.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians have been sheltering in several tents in the yards of the medical complex for months, as the Israeli regime has escalated its deadly aggression on the blockaded territory.  

The ministry further underlined that during three weeks of siege on the al-Shifa hospital, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of civilians in and around the medical facility.

It also noted that some 100 Palestinians are still trapped inside the hospital under inhumane conditions while the occupying regime has destroyed over 1,000 nearby homes.

On March 18, heavily armed Israeli forces stormed the al-Shifa hospital using tanks and drones, firing at people inside the complex.

The deadly raid has been going on for three weeks now, with the occupation troops laying siege on the hospital and targeting those trying to flee.

Israel has been targeting hospitals in the strip since the beginning of its war on Gaza in early October last year, claiming Hamas uses them as command centers. Hamas officials have rejected such claims on several occasions.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, after Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli aggression has so far killed some 32,782 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and wounded more than 75,092 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.