Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
The Congress also fielded Madhusudan Tiwari from Gorakhpur against BJP's actor-turned politician Ravi Kishan.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
Only vegetarian dishes were served at the official dinner held at a state-run five-star hotel.
Noting that the Bahujan Samaj Party had held a dialogue with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the past, Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said no decision on the Mayawati-led party's inclusion in Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc can be taken until there is clarity on whose side she is on.
According to the 'Mood of the Nation Poll' conducted by television news channel India Today, Modi's personal popularity remains intact half-way into his term as prime minister of the world's largest democracy.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
In his letter to the Congress National President, Mallikarjun Kharge, Lovely said that all unanimous decisions taken by the senior Delhi Congress leaders have been unilaterally vetoed by the AICC general secretary (Delhi in-charge).
The monsoon session of Parliament which saw many disruptions since it began on July 20 over the Manipur violence issue, is set to become more turbulent with the government likely to introduce a bill in the Lok Sabha to replace the Delhi services ordinance.
Top leaders of the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) held talks in an informal setting in Mumbai on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"Our decision to form an alliance with the Congress was to stop the Modi-Shah duo," Sisodia said.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
Both the BJP and Congress understand that coalitions and alliances are not just about numbers, but have symbolic value.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday attacked the National Democratic Alliance government for making a "hue and cry" over drafting five of Bihar policemen in Delhi's Anti-Corruption Branch
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
He is learnt to have discussed the formulation of a joint opposition strategy on the issue of Lakhimpur Kheri violence and the detention of prominent leaders including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday took the Congress to the cleaners over making the 2024 general elections about the protection of the Constitution, saying Indians voted on the plank only once when they threw out the Indira Gandhi government in 1977 after the Emergency.
At the meeting, many parties urged the Congress to publicly denounce the ordinance but the Congress refused to do so, claimed AAP, adding that the grand old party's "silence raises suspicions about its real intentions".
The situation in Manipur and the Delhi services ordinance are set to dominate the Monsoon session of Parliament beginning Thursday with the Opposition gearing up to raise these issues to corner the government.
Some of the Congress's new-found enthusiasm for hitting the streets will show its result in the Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka elections. That is when we will know if the Congress will go to the regional parties or the parties will come to the Congress.
The statements the separatists make, the abominable tableaux at their parades, the slogans, posters, and selfies with assault rifles are not India's problem. If they are a nuisance, it should bother their host countries, because they are armed and have their own underworld with deadly gang rivalries. Significantly, none of this happens in the US -- only in snowflaky Canada, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
As opposition leaders like the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Janata Dal-United supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed solidarity with Kejriwal on Saturday and renewed calls to speed up opposition unity efforts to take on the BJP, officials said the CBI may ask the AAP chief about the policy formulation process, especially of the "untraceable" file which was earlier slated to be put before the Delhi Council of Ministers.
As part of the efforts to bring several opposition parties together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Pawar met Kharge on Thursday evening.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
With this kind of coinage, the Opposition seems to be readily conceding the point that Modi is taller than all of them put together. So they need something bigger than themselves, collectively or not, to capture the voter imagination when it is about taking on Modi and the BJP in 2024, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Gandhi said he was "waiting with open arms".
From Instagram to X, social media platforms, in the run-up to the polls have seen bitter poster wars and even bitter meme battles for political one-upmanship.
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Opposition parties will hold the next meeting of their 26-member INDIA coalition in Mumbai on August 25 and 26, sources said on Thursday.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to emerge as the single largest party in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls with 217 seats while Congress will be reduced to about 73 seats, an opinion poll has predicted.
Narendra Modi on Sunday hit back at Sonia Gandhi over her 'zeher ki kheti' barb saying it is the Congress which spews poison and reaps the harvest out of it with its divisive politics.
A pre-poll survey on Thursday projected Naredra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party sweeping Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka and the party-led National Democratic Alliance giving a big jolt to ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections.
'We felt it is our responsibility to stand by the farmers' and extend support of the whole of Maharashtra, Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray saahab'
The Centre may opt for fresh assembly elections in Delhi if no party or group is in a position to form a government in the national capital in the present circumstances.
The Triple Talaq and RTI bills were passed by Rajya Sabha in the last 10 days after the National Democratic Alliance government got support of a few parties, including the Biju Janata Dal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the YSR Congress, in Rajya Sabha where the BJP lacked majority.
BJP alleged that it was an attempt by a "grand alliance of most corrupt parties" to ensure that its "corruption" was not exposed.
The BJP on Thursday alleged that the opposition parties have decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi just because it has been built at his initiative.
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