What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'It is mind-boggling that a party can be in rigor mortis even after numerous electoral defeats,' observes Ramesh Menon.
The discussion will be about setting up various coordination committees, he said.
While its performance in Bihar, has boosted fund collections, corporate contributors are still waiting to see its performances in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal before committing funds to the Congress.
Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress were stopped by police on Friday from visiting the trouble-torn Sandeshkhali, escalating the political tensions in the state as the leaders accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of fostering a 'lawless situation' and attempting to 'communalise' the issue.
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 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.
With an aim of expanding the party's base, Congress on Monday launched an online and application-based membership drive.
'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.'
Asked about the BJP's claim that its performance in southern states will be exemplary, Tharoor said, "The claim of an 'exemplary' performance is yet another product of the BJP's propaganda mill."
The Indian National Lok Dal will contest all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, senior party leader Abhay Singh Chautala said on Thursday.
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
Some have been cherry-picked to assert the BJP's supremacy over its allies or, significantly, its leaders who charted an independent course in the recent past.
Ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament, the government has convened a meeting of floor leaders of political parties in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Saturday.
Sibal said the party had not been an effective alternative in Bihar for a long time.
Sharma had on Monday slammed Congress' association with the ISF led by Muslim cleric Abbas Siddiqui in West Bengal, contending that it was against the "Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism" and the party cannot be selective in fighting "communalists".
The prospect of the Delhi chief minister's wife, Sunita Kejriwal, who has so far maintained a distance from politics, assuming a new role is also being discussed by people.
Moitra was expelled after the House adopted the report of its Ethics Committee that held her guilty of accepting gifts and illegal gratification from a businessman to further his interest.
The meeting of the 14-member all-important panel of the opposition will take place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on September 13 evening.
The teary-eyed Congress worker said he committed a "grave error" and appealed to the party workers and leaders to accept his apology.
Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla Tuesday said the decision to invoke a new penal provision related to hit-and-run cases, which has sparked protests by truckers, will be taken only after consultation with the All India Motor Transport Congress.
Though the party defended him saying "the case and his arrest is politically motivated."
The Bharat Nyay Yatra will be mostly covered by bus along with short stretches of walking.
Seeking to blunt Bharatiya Janata Party's efforts to 'appropriate' legacy of Ambedkar, Sonia said, "Congress had given Dr Ambedkar his dues by appointing him as chairman of the Draft Committee of Constitution."
With the assembly poll results in three states being a disappointment for the Congress, some rumblings have begun among the constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) ahead of their meeting on December 6, with many leaders alleging that the grand old party ignored others, but was unable to win elections on its own.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
Senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, in the race for the post of Congress president, not only possess contrasting demeanour but have had an equally disparate political journey.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
With the election campaign in Karnataka witnessing a bitter war of words between the BJP and the Congress, both the parties rushed to the Election Commission, seeking ban on electioneering by top leaders of the other side.
Some of them also flagged a lack of consultation before finalising the reports.
State police, however, denied there was any breach of security but said one Congress worker has been apprehended in this connection, while three other party workers were arrested for trying to enter the airport with black balloons.
The Nationalist Congress Party leader did not name Borwankar, but said some allegations had been levelled against him by "a retired IPS officer who had served in Pune as commissioner of police."
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra's expulsion from the Lok Sabha triggered a political slugfest on Friday, with the opposition calling it a 'betrayal of India's parliamentary democracy' and the Bharatiya Janata Party asserting that it was an 'apt decision' as there was proof of the allegations levelled against her.
The MNS chief started his speech with the name of Nehru, then paused. After a few tense seconds, he resumed: "After Nehru, here is the only politician who will be PM for the third term."
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
The Aam Aadmi Party will fight the 2024 Haryana assembly polls on its own, its state unit vice-president Anurag Dhanda said on Friday, saying the party has a complete organisational structure ready and will soon announce its village-level committees too.
The Congress on Wednesday hit out at the government over the women's reservation bill, saying the only appropriate description of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done with the matter is "it is a post-dated cheque drawn on a failing bank".
In a letter he wrote to the Chairman, Kharge urged him to not take up any other business in the House and keep the proceedings limited to the discussion on the security breach.
The Congress in Kerala on Friday warned Shashi Tharoor against praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the former minister set the record straight holding that he is a "proud Congressman" and had not even remotely endorsed the "Hindutva agenda" of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
