Strongly backing Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi over his handling of ethnic violence in the state, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Thursday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing it of 'adding fuel to the fire'.
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
Opposition parties in Assam assembly on Tuesday raised a storm over inordinate delay in complete the fencing along the 263 km India-Bangladesh border in the state. The opposition called upon the Congress government in Assam to urge the central government to show urgency in resolving border disputes with Bangladesh to facilitate completion of fencing work.
In the wake of Team India's stupendous win against Pakistan at Mohali, the World Cup mood has spilled into the election campaigning even in the far flung Assam on Friday.
Bharatiya Janata Party nominee S Selvaganapathy was declared elected unopposed to the lone seat in Rajya Sabha from Puducherry, the first time the saffron party has got representation in the Upper House from the Union Territory, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's two nominees, Kanimozhi N V N Somu and K R N Rajeshkumar, were elected without contest from Tamil Nadu.
The ULFA anti-talks faction triggered a blast at Assam Pradesh Congres Committee headquarter on March 14 in which three Congress leaders were injured. But Gogoi on Friday tried to make light of the ULFA threat saying that the threat had been there since a long time.
'The situation is so bad that it is not possible for me to explain in words how bad the conditions are for the common man of Manipur.'
In a bid to embarrass the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday sought to know if the party and its President Sonia Gandhi concurred with the Assam Accord signed by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and demanded the agreement be implemented to solve the crisis in the state.
The Gauhati high court on Monday said the observations made by a Barpeta court in its order granting bail to Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani for allegedly assaulting a woman police officer ''crossed its limits" and "demoralised" the police force and the government of Assam.
Indicating a shift in stand, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday said his party is open to consider quitting Maharashtra's ruling alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) if the rebel MLAs camping in Assam return and discuss their grievances with CM Uddhav Thackeray, while coalition allies Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress vowed support to the beleaguered governing bloc and asserted its majority can only be determined in the assembly and not outside.
Apart from Kerala, in no state did the Grand Old Party scored in double digits.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-Asom Gana Parishad alliance swept the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) polls on Sunday, bagging 58 out of the total 60 wards, while the main opposition party Congress drew a blank.
'People understand Hitlershahi, tanashahi and now Modishahi.'
Assam's plight has originated in the fact that the Congress party, for its shortsighted political considerations, has refused to acknowledge that infiltrators are foreigners, says Sudheendra Kulkarni
As violence continued to rock parts of Assam in support of various demands for separate states, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday ruled out further division of his state, saying people there want to live like a joint family.
During the Rath Yatra, Lord Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and younger sister Subhadra are carried from their home temple to another temple, located in what is believed to be their aunt's home.
Stung by the public of dissent against his leadership shown by about 20-odd comparatively young members of Legislative Assembly, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has resorted to consultation with veterans within the party to nip it in the bud.
The AGP, which has ruled the state on its own twice, will play the junior partner and contest 24 seats while the rest 126 will be divided among BJP and three smaller outfits, with the saffron party leading the alliance.
Going by Himachal Pradesh's "riwaj", or tradition, it should be the Congress' turn to form the next government.
Fast running out of patience, dissident Congress legislators in Assam have set Sunday as the deadline for the party high command to take a decision regarding their demand to replace Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra will be hearing the petition filed by NGO Manipur Tribal Forum.
It said that Congress' strategy to pursue 'fringe and disruptive politics' in Parliament was only for political reasons and opposition to the development agenda of the BJP government, which has been rejected by the people in the four large states of Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala.
The main Opposition party is likely to lose some more of its strength in 2016-17
Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan who heads the group said he had submitted the report on the party's performance in Kerala, Assam and Puducherry and that the assessment for West Bengal was underway.
Even if they score administratively, state governments ruled by the party suffer from an inability to communicate positively, say observers.
'We wanted the PM to speak, and he just refused to -- now we have the opportunity, not just in the Lok Sabha, but also in the Rajya Sabha, to lay the government on the mat.'
The cross-country foot march stayed in the news almost right through, mostly for the barbs between the BJP and the Congress and occasionally for other reasons, including infighting in the opposition party.
Amid the deepening political turmoil in Maharashtra, state Congress president Nana Patole accused Deputy CM and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar of harassing Congress legislators and ministers by stalling their development funds.
The improvised explosive device was planted on a bicycle parked near a pan shop in front of Jorhat district police station located on Mahatma Gandhi road in the town, hat is located about 310 km to the east of Guwahati.
West Bengal CID claimed that two of its teams in New Delhi and Guwahati were restrained on Wednesday morning by the local police in the respective places from carrying out investigations into the cash seizure from three Jharkhand MLAs.
The Congress-led coalition government has tabled the Assam Preventive Detention (Amendment) Bill 2009 with an aim to make the Assam Preventive Detention Act, 1980, more effective. The government intends to increase the maximum period of preventive detention from six months to two years.
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the "historic day will remain etched in their memories forever".
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was elected to Rajya Sabha for the fifth consecutive term on Thursday as Congress won both the seats to the Upper House from Assam.
Stakes are high for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the counting of votes on Thursday for three state assembly polls, as the results will signal if it has deepened its roots in Tripura, a Left bastion captured by the party in 2018, and made further inroads in Meghalaya and Nagaland, or if the opposition has managed to dent its influence.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh will have to treat these militias for what they are: Criminals armed with deadly weapons. Otherwise, nothing will distinguish the National Democratic Alliance government from the ten-year long perfidy of the UPA in Assam.'
Worsening the crisis in Assam, State Education and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma quit on Monday demanding the immediate ouster of Tarun Gogoi as chief minister.
As the news of former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's demise broke, leaders across the political spectrum paid tribute to the Assam leader.
Three persons were injured in police firing at Donkamokam, in the violence-ravaged Karbi Anglog Hills district on Friday, even as the army staged flag march in the affected district headquarter town of Diphu.
A "slip of tongue" by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at a public rally where he interchanged the official designations of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah has kicked off a political controversy in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday accused the Tarun Gogoi-led Assam government of not taking timely steps to contain the conflict in violence-hit districts of lower Assam.
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