Setting the mood for the assembly elections in Karnataka due next year, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday exhorted party leaders in the state to work together, as he set an ambitious target to win a minimum of 150 seats.
After a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, which was stormy at times, the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest policy making body, authorised incumbent chief Sonia Gandhi to schedule the internal elections after the conclusion of assembly polls in five states due to be held in April-May.
Gandhi also hailed as 'an important idea' the party's decisions to give more representation to the youth and empower them, and added that there should be a 'healthy mix of youngsters and seniors'.
The Congress has accused the BJP of carrying out "one of the most heinous" horse-trading the country has ever seen and said it will hold nationwide protests against the "immoral political destabilisation".
The ICHR, an autonomous body under the ministry of education, has been running a series of lectures and seminars on the theme of the Independence struggle under the 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav' celebration.
Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the 'Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir' is also aimed at deliberating on challenges facing the country such as "freefall of the economy", increasing inequality of wealth, price rise of essential commodities, "deep-rooted conspiracy" to hand over farming sector to a select group of private corporates, "attack on India's territorial integrity by China, "attack" on rights of Dalits, SCs/STs, minorities and attempts to divide by using Hindu-Muslim rhetoric.
According to information received from sources, there will be a meeting at 5 pm through video conferencing but its agenda is not clear.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was questioned for over eight hours by the Enforcement Directorate for the second consecutive day in the National Herald money-laundering probe and was again summoned on Wednesday, even as the opposition party continued its protests and sparred with the BJP, accusing it of conspiring to defame the Gandhi family through the ''false'' case.
The proceedings of the House were adjourned till 2 pm as slogan-shouting TMC and other opposition MPs trooped into the well of the House, some holding placards, to demand a discussion on the issue of Israeli-made, military-grade Pegasus spyware being used to snoop on opposition leaders, government critics and journalists.
While the Congress has cited alleged poaching attempt as a reason for keeping their MLAs in the hotel, the BJP said they moved theirs to train them on the Rajya Sabha poll process.
Scindia, earlier met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.
Speaking with reporters, Gandhi said, "This (school) is India's future. Hate and violence has destroyed it. Nobody has benefited from this. Violence and hate are enemies of development."
'Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year old-daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted & murdered,' Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted.
Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday said the state must concentrate on real issues that concern every Punjabi even as MP Manish Tewari said he never saw "such chaos and anarchy" being played out in the party's state unit.
According to party sources, the Congress Legislature Party meeting lasted for about an hour and a half.
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra left for Lakhimpur Kheri Wednesday evening from a PAC guest house in Sitapur where she was kept in detention since Monday morning.
The Congress accused Facebook of interfering in India's democratic process and social harmony and being soft on members of the ruling BJP on applying its hate-speech rules.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Hitting out at Congress leaders for the party's performance in the Lok Sabha polls, Baig, a MLA from Shivajinagar, had recently held Siddaramaiah's "arrogance" and KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao's "immaturity" responsible for the "flop show."
Glimpses of the CWC meeting, which was meant to formulate a plan to revive the party from the death throes of electoral irrelevance, but...
While Pilot, who declared a week ago that he was placing no conditions for returning to the government, reportedly doesn't want a berth for himself, he has sought places for his followers.
Born on 19 November, 1917, Indira Gandhi served as prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984.
"I have seen Pilot's statement in the media that he will not join the BJP. If you do not want to go to the BJP, stop accepting the hospitality of the BJP immediately," Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala said.
Other Congress leaders who are learnt to have spoken with Pilot are Ahmed Patel, P Chidambaram and K C Venugopal.
On Monday, when Rahul Gandhi missed the party's 136th Foundation Day celebration event as he is travelling abroad to see his grandmother, and Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi couldn't attend the event due Covid-19 pandemic, Priyanka Gandhi took charge.
Gehlot was made the chief minister of Rajasthan after the party formed government in the state.
Rahul is contesting from the seat in Kerala in addition to his traditional stronghold of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
Forty six pilots were found to have violated aviation safety norms last year and 41 tested positive for alcohol during pre-flight medical examination.
The letter to Sonia Gandhi reminded her of the party's 18-point agenda "given to the last chief minister" of Punjab and said that those were "equally relevant today".
Ahmed Patel also is learnt to have held telephonic conversation with Pawar over working out modalities with the NCP on government formation.
A fresh political war of words erupted on Tuesday over the Rafale issue as the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Congress leadership of corruption citing claims of a French media report on 'commissions' being paid during the United Progressive Alliance rule and said the Indian National Congress should be renamed 'I Need Commission' party.
The opposition party also demanded an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the alleged "links of Facebook employees and the ruling establishment".
Ahmed Patel, K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh will be part of the Rajya Sabha Committee, which will also include Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and party's deputy leader Anand Sharma. Azad and Sharma are signatories to the letter that demanded an overhaul of the Congress party and a new 'full-time and visible' party president.
Thorat, 66, has been a farmers' leader and has been involved in the cooperative movement in Maharashtra. He is also a former revenue minister
Many non-NDA parties have extended support to the nationwide 10-hour strike on Monday called by farmers protesting against the three agri laws under the aegis of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM).
Kumaraswamy's meeting with the Congress chief comes in the backdrop of voices of dissent gaining ground in the ruling coalition in the southern state after two Congress MLAs met former chief minister S M Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.
'Fixing accountability in the Congress must be addressed on a war footing.' 'It is impossible for Sonia Gandhi to know each and every party worker, so she has to rely on advisors.' 'If they guide or misguide, the blame should go to them.'
The Congress Working Committee, the highest decision making body of the grand old party, passed a resolution to this effect. The CWC, chaired by Sonia Gandhi earlier discussed the issue along with that of the farmers' agitation and the COVID-19 vaccination drive and passed three resolutions on each of them.
The airline initiated an internal probe after Venugopal, who was on board a Delhi-Kochi-Thiruvananthapuram flight on January 4, saw 23 vacant seats inside while a Kerala minister was denied a seat on grounds of 'non-availability'.
Air India and its inefficiencies were among the top topics of discussion on Day One of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas being held in Kochi.
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