The Congress, however, said state chiefs are free to take their decisions within the party's norms and constitution.
Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Chaudhary switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jaipur on Monday ahead of assembly elections due later this year.
'I have never seen a common man tapping a chief minister on the shoulder and giving him his petition, like needing money for a child admitted in a hospital.'
Efforts to forge unity in the opposition ranks gained momentum on Monday with the Congress asserting that a 'vast majority' of non-Bharatiya Janata Party outfits will meet soon, after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met its president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress leadership is unlikely to remove Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda although his detractors have intensified their demand for his dismissal after the party's poor electoral performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
The party delegation is on a two-day visit to Kashmir to attend a series of meetings on the current situation in the valley.
In its complaint against Shah, the Congress told the EC that the home minister claimed in a speech in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon on October 16 that "...Bhupesh Baghel's government, for appeasement politics and vote bank politics, lynched Chhattisgarh's son Bhuneshwar Sahoo and got him killed..."
He said had the alliance with Goa Forward gone through, the Congress would have got majority in the state and that it was unfair to now make him a "villain".
All India Congress Committee in-charge for Chhattisgarh P L Punia and AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal were also present during the meeting convened by Rahul Gandhi at his residence.
Senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday asserted that her party, if voted to power in Assam, will bring a new law to 'nullify' the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state.
Tharoor said there could be a surprise result in the election next year as there is an opposition coalition and there are chances of the INDIA alliance coming to power at the Centre by trouncing the BJP-led NDA in the general elections.
Hitting out at Congress leaders for the party's performance in the Lok Sabha polls, Baig, a MLA from Shivajinagar, had recently held Siddaramaiah's "arrogance" and KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao's "immaturity" responsible for the "flop show."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in paying tributes to the valour and sacrifices of Bangladeshi freedom fighters and Indian armed forces on the 50th anniversary of the occasion 'Vijay Diwas'.
'There may be some planted stories here or there, people trying to create manufactured controversies but the party is fully united. We will make sure the yatra is even more successful than it has been in other states'
Singh, a veteran Congress leader, was a member of the Upper House of Parliament from Assam for almost three decades.
It referred to Article 105 of the Constitution which deals with powers, privileges etc, of the Houses of Parliament and of the members and committees thereof.
The bench said it was not questioning the credentials of the election commissioners appointed but the procedure.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who set off a national debate when he walked the Bharat Jodo Yatra in a T-shirt in north India's cold winter, donned a pheran to ward off Kashmir's bone-freezing chill on Monday.
A few former MLAs, considered to be his loyalists and a few supporters, turned up at Sidhu's residence in Patiala Friday morning to extend moral support to him.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
Kharge termed the high-level committee constituted by the Centre to examine the feasibility of 'One Nation, One Election' a 'gimmick' and alleged the Modi government wants to slowly replace democracy in India with dictatorship.
Gandhi noted that lakhs of migrants continue to walk hundreds of kilometres to reach back their homes without food, water, medicines and cash. She also accused the central government and the Railways of completely ignoring the demands made by the Congress for ensuring the safe and free travel of migrant workers and labourers to their homes.
Fearing defeat in the upcoming high-pressure polls, state Congress chiefs are reluctant to fight from their constituencies, eye a shift. Anita Katyal reports
She also made a strong defence of Rahul Gandhi, who is on sabbatical for more than a month
Marking a vertical split in the Nationalist Congress Party, its senior leader Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government as deputy chief minister on Sunday.
'The strategy of frontal organisations of the Maoists is to create unrest and ensure that such unrest leads to a law and order problem.' 'To cover such acts it was necessary to bring in a different definition of unlawful activities which is different from the definition of unlawful activities in the UAPA.'
Occasional lovers' tiffs have marked the history of RSS-BJP relations. To think that Nagpur will bring about any change in leadership is a misreading of both its intent and its power, points out Shekhar Gupta.
With battle lines between Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls firmly drawn, the principal opposition party has decided to hold its strategy meet on January 17, the day when the All India Congress Committee is holding a session on the issue.
The police which are probing the matter on Bommai's instruction had arrested B R Naidu, the former chief of Congress' Karnataka unit social media team, on Wednesday night from his residence.
Both the BJP and the Congress said they will seek support of the MGP in case they fall short of the majority mark of 21.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said there are courts to ensure that criminals get the harshest punishment but 'playing with law and order only gives birth to anarchy'.
The issue of extending support to Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Admi Party is "under consideration", Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday.
The development comes a day after clashes broke out in Parliament on Sunday between pro-government MPs and opposition lawmakers over differences over the approval of four members of the pro-China President's cabinet.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Centre on Saturday night announced that the probe into alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam NEET will be handed over to the CBI for a comprehensive investigation.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has said she is not the only face of the party for Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and her remarks at a press conference on Friday about being the face of the party were made in a 'slight exaggerated way' in response to repeated queries from the media on the issue.
Tagging a tweet on the organisational changes by the party in Tamil Nadu, Karti Chidambaram tweeted, "These jumbo committees serve no purpose. 32 VP, 57 GS, 104 Secretaries. None will have any authority which means no accountability."
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday conducted raids at over a dozen locations in Chhattisgarh including at premises linked to state Congress leaders as part of an ongoing probe into the alleged coal levy scam, officials said.
Rahul Gandhi's name does not figure for any organisational post.
Abraham succeeds Dr Surinder Malhotra who served as president of the Indian National Overseas Congress for the last 12 years. George Joseph reports from New York
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