The prime minister interacted with media persons on issues ranging from the Indo-US nuclear deal to the crisis in Sri Lanka.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Venkiah Naidu on Thursday charged the United Progressive Alliance government of adopting 'double standards' over the Jan Lokpal Bill. Naidu said the party would meet in Delhi on Friday to decide its stand on the Bill ahead of an all party meeting called by the Centre on July 3.
The statistics (compiled till May), presented and analysed by the Performance Review Committee of the ministry last week, show that states run by UPA governments have not made much advance in implementing its signature rural development schemes.
'The sense of Constitutional propriety and political morality seems to be vanishing fast.' 'There are many things in today's politics of governance which Manmohan Singh would have never dreamt of saying or doing.'
Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Monday declared that the United Progressive Alliance combination would return to power despite the Bharatiya Janata Party's claim that it was going to come to power. He blamed the media for creating differences between the Left parties and the UPA. He was addressing mediapersons on the eve of three day ministerial conference on rural development to be held in New Delhi beginning from Tuesday.
With the Supreme Court on Friday dismissing death row convict Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's plea that he should not be sent to the gallows, the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance government are hoping the verdict will stem the raging debate over the hanging of 2001 Parliament House attack accused Afzal Guru.
The meeting of UPA-Left Committee on nuclear issue, scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed, putting back further a decision on whether India should sign the safeguards agreement with IAEA. The meeting is now expected in the first half of next month.
The government on Wednesday rejected the Congress demand for resignation of Union ministers Sushma Swaraj and Smriti Irani over 'Lalitgate' and 'fake degree' controversies, saying "our ministers do not do all that their (the United Progress Alliance) ministers used to do".
Amidst threat by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee to bring no-confidence motion against the UPA government in the winter session of Parliament, Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma on Monday said that the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party would continue to support it.
Ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament, former Congress ally Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday indicated its support to the UPA's 'game-changer' Food Security Bill even though it has wanted a few changes in it.
BJP alleged that banks were 'pushed' into giving Rs 3,100 crore loan to him and unfreezing his bank accounts in 2012.
"We have strong reservations about the impact of Indo-US nuclear deal on foreign policy aspects but for us the top priority is to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party and L K Advani from coming to power. That is the why the MIM has decided to support the UPA government," Asad Owaisi told a press conference in Hyderabad.
Ending its suspense, the Shiromani Akali Dal has decided to vote against the UPA government on the nuclear deal. The decision was announced by party supremo Parkash Singh Badal.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday warned that Bihar's areas close to the borders (seemant) will become 'infested with infiltrators' if Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not voted back to power.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Rajnath Singh on Thursday accused the Congress of misusing Central Bureau of InvestigationI as a tool to remain in power and said the days of the United Progressive Alliance government were numbered.
Describing the nationwide bandh as an "unprecedented" success, the BJP today claimed the UPA government has been reduced to minority after the Samajwadi Party, an outside supporter of Congress-led coalition, joined the bandh with its chief Mulayam Singh Yadav courting arrest.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
While the Congress has not lost all hopes on ties with Trinamool Congress which announced the decision to withdraw from UPA, other parties like Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal-United blamed the government for putting itself in an embarrassing position.
Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, a key ally of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, on Tuesday announced its participation in the nation-wide bandh on September 20 called by several non-UPA parties to protest the Centre's decision to hike diesel price, allow FDI in multi-brand retail and limit subsidised cooking gas.
Senior Communist Party of India leader Gurudas Dasgupta on Monday said his party would not bail out the Congress-led UPA government if West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee brings a no-confidence motion against it during the Winter Session of Parliament that commences from November 22.
"I do not want to boast (about) anything. The court's judgment has to be respected. I am glad that the court has pronounced unambiguously. All the massive propaganda which was being done against the UPA was without any foundation. The judgment speaks for itself," the former PM said.
BJP president Rajnath Singh said if the NDA comes to power at the Centre in next general elections, it will cancel all the schemes being implemented by the United Progressive Alliance government to 'appease a particular community'. He said the welfare measures announced by the Centre to provide benefit to a particular community was 'dangerous' for the country and NDA will withdraw all those schemes straightaway.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati will boycott the United Progressive Alliance-II anniversary celebrations and the subsequent dinner in New Delhi on Saturday.
Top United Progressive Alliance leaders tonight dismissed as ' nreasonable' the BJP's stalling of Parliament on coal blocs allocation issue and its demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and stood by the government's offer to discuss the subject in the House.
The Congress seems to be ruing what it does not have in UPA II: The support of the left parties, not particularly because they let the government govern till they withdrew support over the issue of signing a nuclear treaty with the US, but because they didn't demand their pound of flesh in the allocation of ministries by not joining the government.
The Congress on Tuesday reiterated that the United Progressive Alliance government has taken firm steps to bring back black money stashed abroad in the last three years, and criticized leaders of the National Democratic Alliance for lending support to yoga guru Baba Ramdev's agitation.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said the United Progressive Alliance government will not last beyond the forthcoming winter session of Parliament, but the Congress ridiculed the claim. Addressing a BJP protest, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said, "The allies of the government are slowly leaving them and it is not going to last after the winter session of Parliament."
The government's frenetic pace of activity resulting in a series of economic policy initiatives in the last two months has taken the opposition political parties by surprise.
Admitting the "failure" of the UPA government in grounding several mega projects in a time-bound-manner, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Praful Patel blamed it on the environmental "activism within the government".
The UPA managers feel the remaining phase of the Winter Session of Parliament, which will be dominated by the Telangana issue, may actually end up as a repeat of previous sessions. Anita Katyal reports.
In an interview with CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, the West Bengal Chief Minister questioned the stability of the Centre saying Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati may bail out the government for now, but people won't bail them out in future.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Wednesday accused the UPA government of accepting the "diktats" of the Bush administration of which the nuclear agreement "was a part."
The United Progressive Alliance government has abandoned its statecraft. It does not mind if the country is hurt as long as the UPA can score points when faced with a certain electoral defeat, says Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley
As the adjournment of Parliament for an indefinite period with the Rajya Sabha also adjourning sine die kickstarts the final countdown for the general elections, Modi said the last five years were a period of "reform, perform and transform" with the country moving towards "big changes" at a fast pace.
By all accounts, India's poor, mostly in rural areas, can look back to a 10-year period when their lot clearly improved.
The government, he added, was aware of the problem and was dealing with it.
The United Progressive Alliance government has become a symbol of "heartless government" as it has failed to understand the pains of inflation borne by the common man, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley said on Friday.
After the presidential elections, it may still be advantage Congress-UPA but at some point the utter lack of governance is going to cost it dearly. Meanwhile the BJP has largely failed to take advantage of the disarray in the Congress, says Rohit Pradhan.
The NCP on Friday sought to push the Congress leadership into a corner with its two senior leaders Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel believed to have resigned from the Union cabinet aggrieved over a variety of issues including no 2 slot for Pawar and Congress' treatment of its allies.
Communist Party of India Marxist would support the candidature of United Progressive Alliance's nominee Hamid Ansari for the post of vice president and would make a formal announcement on Monday, senior party leader Sitaram Yechuri said on Saturday. Speaking to reporters, he recalled that it was the CPI-M, along with other Left parties, which had proposed the name of Ansari in 2007 for the vice president's post, which was accepted by the Congress-led UPA.
