Congress leaders are now in a "wait and watch" mode over the possible ripple effect of Punjab developments in faction-ridden Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the only two states other than Punjab where the party is in power on its own.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win more than 300 Lok Sabha seats across the country in next year's general elections and return to power for the third consecutive term with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Amid the chanting of hymns, preceded by a gun salute and band played by the Assam Police, the state's longest serving chief minister's mortal remains were consigned to flames by his son Gaurav Gogoi.
A defeat in Assam would be bad news for the Congress which is in power in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur.
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
'In Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan, he is far more popular than the defeated chief ministers,' notes Karan Thapar.
Apart from Kerala, in no state did the Grand Old Party scored in double digits.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has written to the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry seeking the publication of electoral rolls for the upcoming election to the post of All India Congress Committee president, sources said.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
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.
Trinamool Congress national spokesperson Saket Gokhale was earlier arrested in December for a tweet endorsing an alleged fake news report about Prime Minister Modi's visit to Gujarat's Morbi town after the collapse of a suspension bridge in October. Gokhale was detained at Jaipur in Rajasthan and taken to Ahmedabad before getting a bail.
A sizeable number of MLAs from across state assemblies cross-voted in support of President-elect Droupadi Murmu, defying their parties' stated support to Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, sources said on Thursday.
There are also views within a section of the party that a turnaround in Uttar Pradesh is possible only if either of the Gandhis -- Priyanka or Rahul -- takes the lead in the state polls.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday, September 7, 2023.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
An inchoate anger is brewing within the party against the central leadership after the poor show in the assembly polls.
Former chief minister Tarun Gogoi demanded a CBI inquiry into the episode
Assam Congress on Friday decided to take collective responsibility for its "failure" soon after Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi announced he would resign taking full responsibility for the party's debacle in the Lok Sabha polls in the state.
Polling is underway to elect 119 members of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, with voters queuing up to exercise their franchise amid tight security on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and a strong team of Union ministers figure in the list of the party's 40 star campaigners for Karnataka assembly elections next month.
Party's state unit chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat were also detained along with the workers during the protests.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday said the accused in the Kanhaiya Lal killing case in Udaipur were 'linked' to the Bharatiya Janata Party and should have been 'hanged by now' but the investigation by the National Investigation Agency was not progressing as it should.
'You had earlier sent a Prime Minister from Assam (referring to Manmohan Singh) whom people do not even remember now'
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
'It is not his doing, but Rahul Gandhi is forced by circumstances.' 'In taking political decisions, everything has to get his clearance.'
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
Going by Himachal Pradesh's "riwaj", or tradition, it should be the Congress' turn to form the next government.
Criticising BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for advocating the Gujarat model of development, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi dismissed it, saying the same formula could not be applied to all states in the country.
The Congress accuses the BJP of engineering defections and trying to dismiss the Congress govt in the state. The BJP says the CM has lost a majority in the assembly and must go for a vote of confidence.
Two men came on a motorcycle and threw a grenade in front of the shopping mall at arterial R G Baruah Road just opposite the zoo around 8 pm.
It's great to win election after election on the strength of Modi's charisma and voter appeal, but the larger the Modi myth grows, the more the BJP diminishes, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
With the Pradesh Congress committees passing resolution seeking Rahul Gandhi at the helm of All India Congress Committee, party General Secretary, Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday said such measures have no binding effect.
Congress leader Pawan Khera was on Thursday arrested by Assam Police in connection with a first information report (FIR) over alleged remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the action coming soon after he was deplaned from a flight to Raipur where he was going to attend the party's plenary session.
Party president Sonia Gandhi nominated Mukut Mithi (Arunachal Pradesh), Peerzada Sayeed (Jammu and Kashmir), Prabha Rau (Maharashtra), B D Kalla (Rajasthan) and Salman Khurshid (Uttar Pradesh).\n\n
'The Congress, all these decades, worked on a slow Hindi-isation and Indianisation of Arunachal tribes. The RSS wants rapid Hinduisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'There are people who left and abused the party, so they should not be taken back'
While members from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland and Tripura are retiring on April 2, five members from Punjab are retiring on April 9.
