The Congress is now gearing up to take on the BJP over alleged corruption, jobs and issues tied to tribals, farmers and women.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
Rahul Gandhi said that instead of getting involved in the Sanatan dharma row, the leaders should focus on the poor and their issues as they have been the party's traditional vote bank, the sources said.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should avoid visiting the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardeva at Batadrava on January 22, as there can be no competition between Lord Ram and the medieval age Vaishnav saint revered as an icon in the state.
The one-year-old Himachal Pradesh Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was expanded on Tuesday with the induction of Rajesh Dharmani and Yadvinder Goma as cabinet ministers.
Supporters of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot on Thursday got into a scuffle with each other ahead of a feedback meeting with the party workers in Ajmer, the police said.
Kharge, however, unfurled the national flag at his residence and later at the Congress headquarters where the Independence Day function was also attended by Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders.
Senior leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh are learnt to be the front-runners to take on the mantle of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.
Congress observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken on Monday briefed party president Sonia Gandhi about the developments in Rajasthan and are expected to submit a written report about the crisis in the party's state unit latest by Tuesday.
A day after Congress leader Gourav Vallabh taunted Shashi Tharoor over his probable All India Congress Committee president poll bid, the party on Friday urged all its spokespersons and communication department office bearers to refrain from commenting on any colleague contesting the elections.
BJP derided Gandhi saying he "always talks trash" and claimed that unemployment was at its lowest in the last six years.
Announcing the fifth poll 'guarantee' of the Congress ahead of the May 10 assembly polls in Karnataka, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised free travel for women in public transport buses, if it's voted to power in the state.
The Congress seems to be heading for the Karnataka polls so far on the strength of its local leadership and focusing on issues concerning the state, making corruption a central theme of its campaigning.
A police complaint has been lodged at Barakhamba police station in Delhi, against 26 Opposition parties "for improper use of the name of INDIA and use of the said name for the undue influence and personation at elections."
Senior Congress leader M Mallikarjun Kharge is not averse to running for the AICC president's election if party chief Sonia Gandhi asks him to contest, sources close to the veteran leader said on Wednesday.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday launched the party's crowdfunding campaign in New Delhi, asking people to join the fight against unemployment and rising costs.
The move by Pilot to open a new front against Gehlot amid the factional fighting is seen as an attempt to pressure the party high command to resolve the leadership issue ahead of the year-end polls.
No one from the Gandhi family was present at the All India Congress Committee headquarters when the leaders filed their nominations for the election.
Both the eight-time MLA Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have made no secret of their ambition to become CM and had been involved in a game of political one upmanship in the past.
As Congress president Sonia Gandhi appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED), party MPs and Congress Working Committee (CWC) members 'courted mass arrest' outside the All India Congress Committee headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday in a show of collective solidarity with her.
Mistry said the poll body satisfied the candidate on every complaint but despite that he raised all those points in the media before bringing them to "our notice".
Inaugurating the solidarity rally, Venugopal, a Rajya Sabha MP, strongly condemned the war unleashed by Israel in Gaza and their attacks against hospitals and refugee camps there.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will embark on a fresh padayatra (foot march) from Gujarat to Meghalaya and during that period leaders and workers of the party's Maharashtra unit would criss-cross the state, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole said on Tuesday.
Consensus emerged on the appointment of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the chairperson of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), while Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar's name was proposed for the convener's post, pending approval of parties absent at the alliance meeting on Saturday, according to sources.
The clarification came in the wake of speculation within a section of the ruling Congress about a change in leadership after two-and-half years of this government's tenure.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
'You (Modi) come here and don't even take the name of your Chief Minister (Basavaraj Bommai) and (B S) Yediyurappa (former CM). Your speeches are all about Narendra Modi'
'If Rahul couldn't persuade his colleagues without resorting to theatrics, then maybe politics wasn't his calling
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi seems to be winning friends during his party's Bharat Jodo Yatra in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
"We have built this party (Congress), we have built this house. I am a part of it...A mother will give everything to her child," he said.
The opposition INDIA bloc has written to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai over their social media platforms' alleged role in "aiding communal hatred" in the country and demanded that the platforms maintain neutrality in the upcoming elections.
The satyagraha will begin at 10 AM and end at 5 PM on Sunday.
Congress' good show was a "Janata Janardhana Victory", he said, crediting the people for the party's apparent return to power as it established a clear lead ahead of its rival BJP.
He wrote a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi who immediately accepted his resignation and relieved him of his charge as party General Secretary.
What some of our leaders were up to on the weekend.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the arrest of Kurulkar is a "very serious matter" and alleged that it exposes the "anti-national face" of the RSS.
The election process of the Congress president that was to end by September 20 is likely to be delayed by a few weeks with the party focused on the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' and some state units not completing the formalities, sources said on Thursday.
Tharoor reached the AICC headquarters in New Delhi and spoke to Mistry at his office, a day before the Congress' central election authority is to issue the notification for the polls to elect the next Congress president.
In a jolt to the Congress ahead of Himachal Pradesh polls, senior leader Anand Sharma on Sunday resigned from the chairmanship of the party's steering committee for the state, saying he was left with no choice after the 'continuing exclusion and insults'.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday met Sonia Gandhi and expressed his intention to contest the upcoming AICC chief polls, while the Congress president conveyed that she would stay "neutral" in the elections, sources said.
