Budget 2023: Poll-bound Karnataka gets Rs 5,300 cr assistance promise for irrigation

Chennai, Mar 9: Defections from the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP continued on Wednesday as 13 party functionaries, including an IT wing office bearer quit the saffron organisation.

Orathi Anbarasu, IT wing chief of the party's Chennai west unit and 12 others quit the party but made it clear they would not join the ruling DMK. They would follow the political path of their "leader" and former State IT wing chief CTR Nirmal Kumar, who had also quit the BJP and joined the AIADMK.

A couple of other party functionaries had also left the BJP and joined the K Palaniswami-led AIADMK which has led to a war of words between the two allies. In a statement, Anbarasu said he had been in the BJP for long and said he did not want to fall prey to "conspiracies " in the party and was therefore quitting it.

Meanwhile, responding to a query raised by mediapersons in Coimbatore, BJP State president K Annamalai said that the issue of some second or third rung leaders leaving the party has taken a bigger dimension, as other parties were keenly watching the developments in BJP.

"There are possibilities of some big leaders leaving BJP and big leaders coming to the party after three months," he said. Annamalai said that he had not joined BJP to have a MP or MLA tag behind his name but for the growth of the party.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Managing Director and Chairman of LuLu Group International, M. A. Yusuff Ali for questioning in connection with its probe in the alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulations) Act in the Wadakkanchery LIFE Mission housing complex scam.

The LIFE Mission house plan is part of government housing schemes in Kerala to provide shelter to landless and homeless people in Kerala. It’s a joint venture with Kerala government and private firms from United Arab Emirates. The target is to build 4.3 lakh LIFE mission homes in five years. Under the LIFE mission project, housing complexes will be built with all modern amenities and provisions will be made for the beneficiaries, to pursue their livelihoods.

The UAE-based Yusuff Ali, who hails from Kerala, has been called for questioning on March 16 by the ED. According to ED sources, Ali was earlier called on March 1 but did not appear at the ED office.

Ali’s LuLu Group is known for establishing the LuLu Hypermarket chain worldwide and LuLu shopping malls.

On Saturday, the ED arrested M Sivasankar, the former principal secretary to Kerala chief minister, in connection with the Life Mission scam, and was later admitted at the Government Medical College Hospital in Kochi after he complained of uneasiness, sources said.

The Life Mission scam pertains to bribes that were allegedly taken from the builders of the government’s flagship housing project in Wadakkanchery town in Thrissur.

Houses were to be built for 140 families in the region at a cost of Rs 14.50 crore out of the Rs 20 crore granted by the Red Crescent via the UAE consulate.

The CBI had in 2020 filed an FIR in a Kochi court under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 35 of FCRA on a complaint by then Congress MLA Anil Akkara, listing Santosh Eappen, the Managing Director of Unitac Builder, as the first accused and Sane Ventures as second accused.

The two companies had undertaken the construction based on the agreement entered with them by Red Crescent, an international humanitarian movement, which had agreed to provide Rs 20 crore towards the Life Mission project.

The Congress has been alleging that there was corruption in the selection of the contractor by Red Crescent.

However, the Life Mission CEO had submitted before the court that Unitac and Sane Ventures had undertaken the construction based on the agreement entered into with them by Red Crescent and had directly accepted foreign contributions from Red Crescent, which is a foreign agency.

The CEO has also contended that the companies which signed an agreement with the Red Crescent do not come under the categories of persons prohibited from receiving any foreign contribution as per Section 3 of FCRA.

Damascus, Mar 22: An Israeli airstrike early Wednesday targeted the international airport of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, causing material damage in the second attack on the facility this month, state media report.

State news agency SANA, quoting an unnamed military official, did not mention if the strike caused any deaths or injuries. It said warplanes fired the missiles toward Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once commercial centre, while flying over the Mediterranean.

The airport has been one of the main channels for the flow of aid into the country after the February 6 earthquake hit Turkiye and Syria, killing over 50,000 people, including more than 6,000 in Syria.

On March 7, an Israeli airstrike put the airport out of service for several days and flights were rerouted to two other airports in the war-torn country until the damage was fixed.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.

Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.

Israel has targeted airports and seaports in the government-held parts of Syria in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Lebanon's Hezbollah.