The talks between the ruling Congress party and the Praja Rajyam Party for a tie-up for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation on Monday suffered a major setback.
A fact-finding team of MPs and MLAs from the Left parties and the Congress, which arrived in Agartala on Friday to look into post-poll violence in Tripura, was attacked in Sepahijala district, police said.
The yatra, which is scheduled to begin on January 14, will cover 6,713 kilometres and the participants will travel on buses and foot.
The brainstorming session (chintan shivir) of the Congress will be held in Jaipur from January 18 to 20 to discuss political and economic situations and seek new ideas ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is expected to name the committee's chairperson soon.
Like the last time, Ghulam Nabi Azad is believed to have taken the lead in preparing and despatching the letter this time too.
"I have been given BJP ticket from Mandi and the party has informed me about this," he said.
Despite Natwar Singh's outbursts against Sonia Gandhi, the Congress on Monday said it did not want to make him a martyr by summary expulsion as the former external affairs minister's aggression showed his "sense of guilt".
The Congress on Wednesday said that the process of declaring its candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha election would start soon."Party leaders sent to various constituencies for selection of nominees have already submitted their reports. The party will soon announce its candidates in certain seats, where there is a unanimous opinion on nominees," All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijay Singh said.
As the All India Congress Committee Plenary session started in New Delhi, the party rank and file hoped that the Congress high command would be able to clear up the mess surrounding the party in the wake of the various scams surrounding it.
Throwing its weight behind actor-cum-MLA M Mukesh, the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in Kerala on Saturday said that he need not resign from his post as legislator merely because a rape case has been registered against him.
From making dosas at a roadside eatery to trying out skills using a pair of scissors at a hair cutting saloon, politicians leave no stone unturned to impress voters during the run-up to the upcoming Telangana assembly polls.
Over 2.5 million voters will decide the fate of 239 candidates in the fray for 26 Jammu and Kashmir assembly seats in the second phase of the election to be held in the Union territory on Wednesday.
After over a week of diffidence, the Congress on Monday came out openly backing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the controversial Indo-Pak joint statement in Egypt that has come under a lot of criticism.
The poll panel said it found Kharge's letter, placed in the public domain in the middle of the ongoing electoral process, 'highly undesirable' and designed to create confusion, misdirection and impediment to the conduct of smooth, free and fair elections.
Rajnath came down heavily on the National Conference-Congress alliance over its poll promise of restoring Article 370 and said it is impossible as long as the BJP is there.
Stepping up its attack on Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare-led civil society, Congress on Wednseday dubbed the yoga guru as a 'king of black money' and Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde as a 'Bharatiya Janata Party man'.
The team, comprising Vayalar Ravi, Pranab Mukherjee and Ghulam Nabi Azad, is right now meeting party legislators at Sahyadri Guesthouse at Malabar Hills.
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.
Surjewala said that the legislators should first hold a dialogue with the party on the condition that they give up the security of Haryana police in Manesar, and the hospitality and friendship of the BJP.
Sources said Sidhu's resignation has not been received by the party and its leadership will take a call once it reaches them.
Rattled with the twin problem of defection and resignation after the selection of candidates for the ensuing assembly election in Nagaland, the Congress has called upon all the deserters to come back and work for the party.
The BJP may win more seats in the February 5 assembly election, but not enough to trump AAP, notes Ramesh Menon.
The Congress claimed that not inviting the Manipur CM to the meeting violated Schedule 7 of the Constitution.
The Rajya Sabha election scene in Karnataka heated up with the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (Secular) combine fielding its second candidate, even though the alliance has the strength to win only one out four seats.
"No such alliance has been formed, but the possibilities are always there," All India Congress Committee general secretary Ashok Gehlot told PTI.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Alva, who has been sulking since her son Nivedith was not given nomination in Karnataka elections, was critical of adoption of 'different yardsticks' in deciding party nominations for coming elections in six states.
"For me, they (Maoists) are no enemies at all. If they are under some wrong notions, we need to talk to them," Rao said in the Rajya Sabha, while participating in a debate on the Dantewada massacre.
The SP chief said, "If the Congress behaves like this, who will stand with them."
P Chidambaram proposed that Sonia should be made the party's interim president.
The Congress on Monday emphasised once again that the United Progressive Alliance was not scrapping the India-United States nuclear agreement right now and said that it was making efforts to allay the apprehensions of the Left allies over the agreement. "There is no backing off right now," said All India Congress Committee spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed. He was responding to questions on whether the Indo-US nuclear deal had been put on hold in view of the opposition.
Counting of votes began on Wednesday in the Congress presidential polls in which senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor faced-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
I don't want to hide that some questions are still being resolved, Rawat said.
Rather unusually, for it was a party forum, China cropped up several times during the discussions at the All-India Congress Committee plenary session at Burari in Delhi. And references to the country were not in socialist solidarity, either.
The Congress party on Wednesday gave a deadline to Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan up to September 23 to decide whether it wanted to come with Rashtriya Janata Dal-led United Progressive Alliance in the coming Bihar Assembly polls.
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has announced that the state will become the first in independent India to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), with the date of implementation to be announced soon. The UCC, which aims to unify personal laws for all citizens, has been approved by the state cabinet and preparations for its implementation are almost complete. Dhami stated that the training process for UCC implementation is nearly finalized and the government is aiming for a swift rollout. Speculation is rife that the UCC could be implemented on Republic Day, coinciding with the conclusion of municipal elections. The UCC includes provisions related to marriage, divorce, annulment of marriage, succession, and live-in relationships. The state government has introduced a dedicated portal for online registration of related matters and has authorized Common Service Centers (CSC) to simplify access for citizens. In remote areas, CSC agents will provide door-to-door services. The Gram Panchayat Development Officer will serve as the Sub-Registrar for registration work in rural areas. The government has also implemented Aadhaar-based registration to make the process easier. Citizens can track their application status through email and SMS, and an online complaint portal has been set up. Dhami dismissed Congress allegations of divisive politics, emphasizing that the UCC provides a uniform system and law for all.
All India Congress Committee General Secretary Digvijay Singh, who appears to have stirred a hornet's nest with his remarks on Naxalism, will have to do some explaining to the party leadership on his newspaper article critical of Home Minister P Chidambaram when he returns from the US next week.
In his first address after being appointed the vice president of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi on Sunday spoke of the anger of the youth saying they feel alienated from the political class and demanded a complete transformation of the system to give them a role in the political space.
