Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said in Korba in Chhattisgarh on Friday that chief ministers of Congress ruled states refrain from going among the people fearing that people may throw stones at them.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi could only manage 244 votes.
'Whether she will remain CPP chairperson or not, that she will decide.'
Giant effigies of 10-headed demon king Ravana, his son Meghnad and brother Kumbhakaran went up in flames marking the triumph of good over evil as fervour marked Dussehra festivities across the country on Thursday.
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
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Bonti, a woman who had kissed Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi during a recent event in Assam, has been allegedly burnt to death by her husband, according to a report in the India Today.
Sandhya Ravishankar describes the thorny relationship between the two political titans of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, both now part of the ages.
In bad news for Congress, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has opined that the party has no case for claiming the Leader of Opposition post, saying there is no precedent since the days of the first Lok Sabha when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister.
When Congress delegates gathered at Burari in 2011 for a two-day All India Congress Committee session, the political resolution adopted at the meeting was unusually harsh on the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, even going as far as to liken the right wing group to Nazis for its hatred of Muslims.
Sparks flew in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy dragged Sonia Gandhi's name in the AgustaWestland helicopter bribery case
A bandh called by the YSR Congress, Telugu Desam Party and other anti-Telangana political parties is being observed in Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday to protest against the passage of the AP Reorganisation Bill-2013 in the Lok Sabha.
The party has tried to downplay its vice-president's sudden move, saying he is the leader and will come back soon to play a pro-active role in party affairs
The Delhi high court on issued notice to BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on a batch of petitions filed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and others in the case of alleged cheating and misappropriation of funds in acquiring ownership of the now-defunct daily National Herald.
'If the RSS should be saluted for choosing such a scholarly statesman to address its highly trained cadre, one must also praise Pranab Da's sagacity for having gracefully accepting the invitation, thus disapproving any ideological apartheid,' says former BJP MP Tarun Vijay.
'There is no difference morally between politicians scoring points amid the rubble and non-politicians who assume that politics and corruption necessarily had something to do with it,' says Mihir S Sharma. 'Both are twisting a tragedy to their own ends.'
Candle light vigils, prayer meetings, street plays and a series of other events on Tuesday marked two years of the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus in the city that had triggered widespread nation-wide outrage forcing the government to enact stricter laws against sexual assault.
'All the hoardings showed only Rahulji. No pictures of Indiraji and Rajivji. What is the Congress's worth without its history? It is unthinkable that none of our hoardings shows Indira and Rajiv. It was a total fiasco to see that many advertisements were in black and white. In such competitive politics, how can you experiment?' fumes a Congress leader.
Former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, former defence minister AK Antony, senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma also took part in the protest sporting black bands.
Stung by Jayanthi Natarajan's attack on Rahul Gandhi, Congress leaders on Friday rallied behind him and slammed their outgoing "opportunist" colleague, saying she had been removed as environment minister because of 'Jayanthi tax' barb by Bharatiya Janata Party in the run up to Lok Sabha polls.
As Bihar decides its fate on Sunday, political leaders from across the spectrum weighed in.
Ramesh says that since the attitude of the Narendra Modi government is deliberately provocative and confrontational, it should not expect cooperation from the Congress.
Five years ago, Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani spoke to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com on the Emergency. On the 40th anniversary of Indian democracy's darkest hour, we reproduce the interview.
'Feeling claustrophobic and humiliated by the manner in which the Congress vice-president was treating him, he started toying with the idea of floating his own party.'
'One big problem for the RSS is, while they spread their ideology of hard, Hindu-ised Indian nationalism, the absence of their own pantheon of modern nationalist giants. They missed out on the freedom movement quite comprehensively, in some ways comparable to the Muslim League and latter-day Communists. They have to find heroes elsewhere.' 'They borrow who they can from the Congress, like Madan Mohan Malviya and Sardar Patel, and then steal the entire lot of revolutionaries, from Bhagat Singh to Netaji, never mind that many of them were extreme leftists.'
'This is a new phenomenon,' says Shekhar Gupta. 'Does it point to the rise of egomania, and could it also be a reason our politics is broken and Parliament non-functional? Where our biggest leaders talk not to, but at each other.'
With only one day left, the Winter session of Parliament is on the verge of a washout as it failed to transact any business again on Thursday.
While believing that the senior leadership does not have what it takes to resurrect the party, members at the same time are often heard repeating, "It's the Gandhi family that holds the party together". Kavita Chowdhury explains
Narendra Modi represents a change that embraces efficient delivery mechanisms, integrity, innovative solutions to governance and a welcome discourse away from Hindutva and Pakistan, says Jaya Jaitly.
Government's reforms are too half-hearted. But Rahul Gandhi's Congress is too amateurish and inept to hold it to account.
'While the government must be relentless in its efforts to curb unruly elements to ensure secular harmony and protect its goal of national development,it must not lose the moral high ground by giving in to the antics of the anti-nationalist lobby.' 'They must be countered and relegated to the dustbin of history,' says Vivek Gumaste.
'I do not think Rajiv Gandhi at that stage had any influence on his mother. Indira Gandhi relied totally on Sanjay and she looked upon him as a dependable son.' 'What really affected people and eventually Indira Gandhi was the sterilisation drive. She lost so badly in north India because of these drives.' 'She is the one who has given this aura of 'the family' to the Gandhis.' The second and final part of veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book The Emergency: A Personal Account was published recently, to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
Kerala is one state where the Congress may do well in the general election and it where Rahul Gandhi has demonstrated why he is serious about rebuilding his party, says T V R Shenoy.
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