The BJP is not taking the AAP challenge lightly. Amit Shah has cautioned party insiders to ensure that AAP does not cross a vote share of 24%. He has always seen AAP as a much more significant challenge than the Congress, observes Ramesh Menon, author, Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The AAP has made inroads into Gujarat's politics by winning 27 seats of Surat Municipal Corporation, one of the six cities where voting was held on Sunday.
There were many others who came to the swearing-in ceremony dressing like the AAP supremo.
The AAP has no money; no big business houses to provide unlimited funds. Its posters and slogans will not find space on television and in newspapers; it will also have to face the prejudice in a sections of press too. But it has thousands of volunteers and their will to rewrite Indian politics, say Ashutosh.
While the BJP faces rebellion in some pockets and an undercurrent of anger palpable among the dominant OBC Chaudhary community due to the arrest of dairy cooperative leader and former home minister Vipul Chahduary, local caste dynamics and selection of candidates are likely to play a major role in the final outcome, political analysts said.
Transport Minister Gopal Rai said that the government will make the announcement on Thursday after reviewing over 11 lakh responses received from the public through multiple channels.
It was crucial for the BJP to bag the two seats as it does not enjoy a majority on its own in the 40-member assembly.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on Wednesday decided to invite political parties to explore the possibility of government formation in Delhi, a day after Supreme Court's rap over delay in taking a decision on the issue.
Aam Aadmi Party's internal Lokpal, Admiral (retd) L Ramdas, on Saturday said he will not quit the post even though he was asked not to attend the crucial National Council meeting for which he had travelled all the way from Maharashtra.
Basic salary of legislators will rise from current Rs 12,000 to Rs 50,000 and overall monthly package will be around Rs 2.1 lakh as against Rs 88,000 at present.
Not only chemists, but several known private hospitals are selling medicines at higher prices than MRP, said Singh, adding that the matter was not peculiar to Punjab, but afflicts the whole country.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
Patel will be administered the oath as the 18th chief minister by Governor Acharya Devvrat at a function to be held at the Helipad Ground near the new Secretariat in Gandhinagar at 2 pm.
The AAP has adopted policies in an ad hoc manner, without thinking them through or deriving them from a broader framework. This must change if the AAP is to become a credible alternative, says Praful Bidwai.
Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung has directed Aam Aadmi Party leader and chief minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal to prove majority of his government on the floor of Delhi assembly by January 3.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday alleged that Congress and Aam Admi Party were collaborating to form government in a "self- serving" exercise with "dishonourable" motive, as the Congress wanted a breather and feared another electoral humiliation while the AAP was keen to prevent its members of Legislative Assembly from being "scattered".
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which emerged as the single largest party in Delhi assembly polls but fell short of a majority, on Thursday declined to form a government, strengthening the likelihood of fresh election in the national capital.
The Capital appears to be heading for assembly elections within next six months with all three major parties -- the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress -- contending that there was no option but to seek people's mandate afresh for formation of a new government.
Alleging that Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress have joined hands to stall Jan Lokpal bill, Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday said its government would ensure passage of the proposed legislation in the assembly's special session without prior approval of the Centre.
Later, Kejriwal says there is tremendous pressure on police to register fake cases against AAP leaders.
Slamming the anti-encroachment drive being carried out in various parts of the city, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said if bulldozers raze shops and houses of 63 lakh people in Delhi, which are considered illegal, it will be the "biggest destruction" in independent India.
'Kejriwal has read the Constitution, still he misused office to benefit his MLAs.' 'If the BJP and Congress are wrong, does that mean even you will do wrong things?' 'So how is Kejriwal different from the others?'
Perhaps Arvind Kejriwal got it right when he described the party as Shivji ki baraat. In other words, without the pejorative sense associated with it, a ragtag. New, and new to the business of government, it is faltering, notes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday released its first list of 22 candidates fielding former ministers Somnath Bharti, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Satyendra Jain and Girish Soni in the Delhi Assembly elections, the dates of which are yet to be announced.
The BJP has done extremely well in the Patidar-dominated constituencies of the state, winning almost every seat that has significant Patel population.
Aam Aadmi Party candidate and journalist Ashish Khetan on Wednesday filed his nomination papers from New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.
'If you put your own party into the witness box, like what Sidhu did, and treat them as wrongdoers, then how will the people of Punjab trust the party?'
For Sikhs, they say, honour is the bottom line; and whatever the state of the SAD's political fortunes today, arrogance will not be helpful in the negotiation.
With the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party all set to form the next government in Delhi, Congress cadres are furious with former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for forcing the party to prop up the new dispensation. Anita Katyal reports.
'I defended them -- Amit Shah and Narendra Modi -- in over 10,000 national debates, but I never asked for any favour.'
Youth Congress and BJP workers staged protests in Delhi a day after a farmer committed suicide at an AAP rally.
The police can now name them in their supplementary charge sheet, an official said. In a late evening statement, the government said that this is a purely procedural matter, adding that the elected government has no role to play in this.
From 26-year-old Rakhi Birla to 41-year-old Manish Sisodia, the soon-to-be Delhi Cabinet is not just going to be the youngest ever but also probably the first in which all members, including the chief minister, are debutant members of Legislative Assembly.
As many as 833 candidates are in the fray across 93 constituencies which will go to polls on December 5. Votes will be counted on December 8.
Former AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan said the Bill was completely different from the one envisaged originally.
The party refuted Mishra's charges and said he was 'parroting' the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Claiming non-payment of salaries to anganwadi volunteers for three months in his three-page letter in Hindi, Sisodia continued to fire a salvo at Baijal, saying: "You are the Lt Governor of Delhi. You have also been an IAS officer, but I request you to stop seeing things through spectacles of an IAS officer."
In further escalation of infighting, Aam Aadmi Party dissident leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav on Friday mounted a no-holds-barred attack on party chief Arvind Kejriwal, accusing him of stifling internal democracy and adopting unfair means to capture power.
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