It was Rahul Gandhi's day out in Mumbai as he hopped out on to a local train and mingled with the people of Mumbai. Rahul's little detour send turned out to be a nightmare for Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who set alarm bells ringing all the way to Delhi and forced Sonia Gandhi out of the Congress Working Committee meeting, being held at 24 Akbar Road.
The Congress Working Committee meeting witnessed Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar being targetted by senior Congress leaders on the issue of spiraling price rise. The three leaders who attacked Sharad Pawar but did not name him were former maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, All India Congress Committee general secretaries R K Dhawan and Satyavrat Chaturvedi.
Bachchan agreed to be a brand ambassador for Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat this week and blogged appreciatively about state Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress seems to have decisively shut its doors for Amar Singh, who was expelled by the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday along with Lok Sabha Member of Parliament Jaya Prada."The Congress is not a dustbin," shot back All India Congress Committee functionary Satyavrat Chaturvedi, when queried about the possibility of Singh joining Congress.Chaturvedi's hard-hitting comment isn't his first against Singh.
To combat the rising menace of Naxalism, Home Minister P Chidambaram has decided to hold a meeting of the chief ministers of the four states worst hit by Maoist violence, in Kolkata on February 9.The Centre, along with the governments of West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand, is planning a massive offensive against Maoists, the modalities of which will be finalised during the meeting. The home minister will discuss and fine-tune the action plan to tackle the Maoists.
All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi appears to be really needling the opposition.
Two senior Union Ministers talking in two very different languages and tones on the same issue, that of Pakistan. Is the government deliberately sending out contradictory signals or are there two lines of thinking within the government on whether to hold out the olive branch to Pakistan?
In Bihar, there is all kind of trouble for the party after its All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of Bihar, Jagdish Tytler, and Pradesh Congress Committee President Anil Sharma released a list of 569-member state committee. What is shocking is that the caste of each member has been written next to his or her names.
Its that time of the year again when the holiday season hits one and all. But more than others, it is the political class that needs 'a break'; having worked hard to first create problems -- and then to resolve them.
The Congress is working on stitching together a coalition government in Jharkhand minus Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Shibu Soren, who is not interested in discussing any deal which does not make him the chief minister of the state.
With the Congress and its allies winning 25 seats and emerging as the single largest alliance in Jharkhand, the party has begun exploring options of forming the next government in the state realising that they have to do business with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Shibu Soren who now controls the levers of power in the state having won 18 seats in the assembly elections.
Highly-placed sources in the government say that Congress President Sonia Gandhi had asked Pranab to make the second statement, rolling back the Telangana announcement. However, Mukherjee is learnt to have the told her that the second statement should come from the person who made the first statement, for better credibility. He also advised the Congress president that the prime minister should be kept out of the picture.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram is expected to issue a statement on Wednesday on Telangana, which the party hopes would undo some of the damage of the December 9 midnight statement by Chidambaram, without in any way going back on the statement made by the home minister.
The MPs are learnt to have blamed Union Home Minister P Chidambaram for the wording and timing of his announcement on Telangana, which they said has sent the message that the Centre is agreeable to the splitting of Andhra Pradesh and that now it is just a matter of time before the new state is born.
Has Sonia Gandhi's midnight decision to give the go-ahead to Telangana torpedoed Rahul Gandhi's UP Mission 2012? Some Congress leaders in Uttar Pradesh think after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister stole the thunder by seeking Uttar Pradesh's bifurcation.
With key UPA allies -- the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamul Congress and Nationalist Congress Party members -- clearly expressing their resentment to a new state, sources say the Congress is now looking to find a way out of the situation.
It is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. The Telangana episode has triggered many other leaders to restart their chant for separate states
A huge drama has unfolded within the Congress party after the dramatic midnight announcement by Home Minister P Chidambaram to initiate the process of creation of a separate state of Telangana on Thursday.
During the meeting, Home Minister P Chidambaram would bring in the Action Taken Report for approval before it is laid on the table of the House along with the Liberhan commission report. Pranab Mukherjee will chair the Cabinet meet in Dr Singh's absence.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to articulate his concerns on the terrorism emanating from Pakistan during his meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on November 24. Dr Singh is also expected to tell Obama that India wants Pakistan to dismantle the terrorism infrastructure operating on its soil and ensure that its land is not used to launch acts of terror against India.