Having won in 2009 nearly half of the 64 seats going to polls in the penultimate round, the Congress appears to face a difficult task as people in the whole of Seemandhra, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand lined up to cast their vote in the Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday.
'People in politics have lost the value of being connected to their own people.' 'Now it's all about vote share, vote bank, how many parties can you break and make them join you.'
"The aam aadmi is groaning under unprecedented price rise. It is no achhe din (good times) for them. It is achhe din only for the prime minister," Gandhi said during his two-day visit to Amethi.
With Lok Sabha elections knocking on the doors, United Progressive Alliance chairperson and Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi appear to have suddenly woken up to the need to develop their respective constituencies -- Amethi and Rae Bareli.
The new candidates fielded from these constituencies by the BJP are: SP Singh Baghel (Agra), Parameshwar Lal Saini (Sambhal), Raj Kumar Chaher (Fatehpur Sikri), Jai Prakash Rawat (Hardoi-SC), Ashok Rawat (Misrikh-SC) and Arun Sagar (Shahjahanpur-SC).
The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh said the people of Amethi and Rae Bareli have self-respect and they do not beg from anyone.
Be it Assam, Haryana or Delhi, the Congress is facing one crisis after another regarding its Rajya Sabha nominations, reports Renu Mittal.
Talking tough, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday warned party men against groupism and asked them to forget the past and prepare for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks on Pakistan sparked a political row on Friday, with his party quick to dissociate itself from the comments while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party latched on to them, accusing the Congress of being an apologist for Pakistan and the terrorism emanating from its soil.
Mayawati said that the BSP and the SP would not ally with the Congress party in the upcoming elections.
'The 2024 general elections proved that UP is not Gujarat.'
The feud in the royal palace of Amethi took a new turn on Sunday with Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh's son Anant Vikram Singh formally joining the Bharatiya Janata Party in an obvious bid to challenge his father.
The 43-year-old popular television actor-turned politician continued to cultivate Amethi in the past five years despite her loss in 2014 to Gandhi and this helped her reap electoral dividends.
'The Constitution of India defeated the BJP.'
It sent shock waves in the party -- a political greenhorn had taken on Modi in his home turf of Gujarat. Smriti had clearly tried to choose sides, in this case Vajpayee's camp. Many felt that this would end Irani's career. A revealing excerpt from Nidhi Sharma's new book She, The Leader: Women in Indian Politics.
Mayawati made it amply clear that her party will not enter into any alliance with the Congress.
Skirting any comments on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (demonstration on the streets of Delhi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi chose to train his guns at the Uttar Pradesh government for neglecting Amethi, the Gandhi family's political bastion.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be the deputy leader.
"Now, Rahul Gandhi calls the entire OBC community thieves. He gets flak in the courts but he refuses to apologise thus showing how deep-rooted his hatred for OBCs is. The people of India did not forgive him in 2019. In 2024 the punishment will be more severe," he said.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
I think Sharad Pawar invited Ajit Pawar for the INDIA bloc meeting, Raut said.
BJP plans to put up strong candidates against these 15 MPs.
As many as 28 out of 41 sitting women MPs, including Sonia Gandhi, Hema Malini and Kirron Kher, retained their seats in Lok Sabha.
The Congress was not unduly perturbed by reports that party vice-president Rahul Gandhi's application for proof of residence in Amethi was turned down by the district magistrate, stating emphatically that this would have no impact on his nomination from his Lok Sabha constituency. Anita Katyal explains why
Throughout her campaigning, Irani asserted that people of Amethi want change and development and will vote for Modi.
There were verbal exchanges between members of Congress and treasury benches after Leader of the Congress Mallikarjun Kharge referred to the food park scrapped by the Narendra Modi government.
The "venom" that the Congress leader has been spewing against the prime minister in his "political frustration" has now turned into an insult to the country, Irani alleged.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
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.
Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Amethi Lok Sabha seat Smriti Irani on Thursday submitted to the Election Commission that she did not complete her graduation from Delhi University.
She, however, did not talk of the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance and sought support for only her party's candidates.
The remarks by the BJP leaders came as 17 opposition parties resolved to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly to defeat the saffron party and work with flexibility by setting aside their differences. They dubbed the planned alliance as "unholy and opportunistic".
Overall, the implications of these elections will favour the BJP in the Upper House where it is short of a numerical majority but has an operational majority.
The SP chief said, "If the Congress behaves like this, who will stand with them."
With Rahul showing a significant lead over Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi in opinion polls across southern India but lagging in the north, the Congress believes his contesting from the south will help galvanise cadres.
To repeated questions, the SP chief asserted that the Congress was 'very much in the alliance'.
The Congress vice president has eyes on the larger objective of his partnership with Akhilesh, which may provide the template against the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
As the Uttar Pradesh assembly election battle hits new lows, Rediff.com's Aslam Hunani walks you through all you need to know about the fifth phase of polling on February 27.
The great Indian election is over and now the wait for the results is shrinking with every passing moment. Though exit polls hint at a cakewalk for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance, there are some battles which will be keenly observed on the result day.
The Congress' announcement that the party chief will contest from Wayanad evoked sharp reactions from the Left and Right of the political spectrum.
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