Morning briefing: BJP's plan to counter concerns over SC/ST quota; Congress Nanded MP Vasantrao Chavan dies, and more

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will focus on the alacrity shown by the Union government in announcing the rollback of the lateral entry scheme for filling positions in the bureaucracy and the unambiguous stand against the “creamy layer” within the quotas for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to outweigh concerns over the issue of sub-categorisation within these groups. Ahead of the upcoming elections in a clutch of states, the party is also banking on the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) announced for central government employees to blunt the anger against inflation and no tax relief for the middle class in the budget. Dig Deeper

BJP plans its strategy ahead of crucial assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkahnd

Senior Congress leader and party MP from Nanded Lok Sabha constituency, Vasantrao Chavan (69), passed away in Hyderabad due to prolonged illness, the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) announced. As his health worsened over the past few days, he was rushed to Kims Hospital in Hyderabad. However, he lost his life due to the severity of the disease. His last rites will be performed in Naigaon at 11 am, the party sources said. Chavan won the Nanded constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections by defeating his rival candidate Chikhalikar Prataprao Govindrao from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by a margin of over 50,000 votes. Dig Deeper

India news

IMD alerts of heavy rain in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa

Kiara Advani stepped out in Mumbai last night for dinner with her actor-husband Sidharth Malhotra and her parents. The paparazzi clicked the couple hand-in-hand as they exited a restaurant. Kiara wore a mini blazer dress for the occasion, serving a from-work-to-party look. Dig Deeper

It's trending

Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu and social media-famous doctor Cyriac Abby Philips, aka The Liver Doc, traded insults on social media over the issue of grounding. Dr Philips has been targeting several high-profile names for spreading healthcare-related misinformation. His latest target was Sridhar Vembu, who advocated the benefits of “grounding” via walking barefoot in a divisive post shared on the social media platform X. Dig Deeper

That’s all we have at this hour in our morning briefing. Catch you by afternoon.