The main Opposition party is likely to lose some more of its strength in 2016-17
What some of our leaders were up to on Monday and Tuesday.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Chennai on November 2 and is likely to hold a meeting with her Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin to discuss their strategies for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
The 'Angh' of Oting, Tahwang, is contesting the February 27 assembly polls on a Naga People's Front (NPF) ticket against the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party MLA P Paiwang Konyak, who is a cabinet minister in the outgoing government.
The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days, even as the ruling BJP has been striving to break the 38-year-old pattern of alternating governments and retain its southern citadel.
He told PTI in an interview that parties that are still thinking of 'being the leader' of a possible united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls have not understood the gravity of the situation at all.
India and China made progress in five-six friction points along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh through talks in the last three years and efforts are underway to resolve the remaining issues, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday.
There are three things you never do in a small North East state: Undermine local leaders, divide and rule, push homogenisation, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
For the most battle-hardened, specialised and successful counter-insurgency army in the world, this is an unfamiliar, first-time experience of dealing with the north east's deepest complexities, observes Shekhar Gupta.
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.
'Every seat the Congress gets above 100 will keep pushing the Modi-Shah BJP lower in the dangerous sub-200 zone,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
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.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday accused the Samajwadi Party of entering into a deal with the UPA government and playing the "communal card" to justify its support to the Congress-led government at the Centre.
The second meeting of the NITI Aayog's governing council, was, however, attended by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
There are two such seats in Tamil Nadu and one each in West Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Madhya Pradesh.
The Congress's revival plan says it needs to bring back into its fold Hindus repelled by the Sangh Parivar, take its message to youth and women and sections upset at curbs on their personal freedoms.
Even if they score administratively, state governments ruled by the party suffer from an inability to communicate positively, say observers.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists seven states where the Grand Old Party suffered a severe setback.
'It seems we will get an NRC which will include the names of illegal foreigners and exclude genuine Indian citizens'
Sources said that despite senior leaders making serious attempts to convince him to rethink on his decision, Gandhi is said to be unfazed.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to release Cheetahs in a Madhya Pradesh national park as a 'tactic to divert attention' from the grand old party's 'immensely successful' 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
'The dialogues and language used in this movie are indecent. In Tulasidas' Ramayana, Lord Ram was portrayed as 'Maryada Purushottam' and decent language was used. In Adipurush, dialogues of characters are of very low level'
' These youngsters don't have patience, which is a key trait in politics'
Over 83 per cent of the more than 13 lakh electorate cast their vote on Monday in the single-day Nagaland state election which passed off by and large peacefully, Chief Electoral Officer V Shashank Shekhar said.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
The youth leadership taking the reigns of the states was a rare event in the last century as very few broke the glass ceilings.
By comparing I.N.D.IA. with banned terror outfits, Modi has exhibited the kind of nervousness never ever associated with him even at the height of the Gujarat riots, and certainly since his prime ministerial days, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Besides law and order, the long standing demand for junking Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, economic woes of the land-locked state which has hardly any industries, are expected to figure high on the agenda of the unfolding electoral battle between the two main parties with smaller local parties such as National People's Party and the Naga People's Front chipping in with their own demands.
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
Assam minister Dr Himanta Bishwa Sarma who on Monday quit from the Tarun Gogoi cabinet said that he had been forced to take the step after the Congress leadership had repeatedly ignored the representations made by the rebel MLAs about the 'inefficient' handling of affairs by the chief minister.
The resurgence that Congressmen feel is in fact more sentimental than substantive. The substantive reality is that the Congress is a party in terminal decline since 1989, says Shekhar Gupta.
In his hunger for power, the prime minister has forgotten raj dharma, the Congress alleged.
Addressing a press conference in Kanyakumari ahead of the launch of the party's 3,570-km 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, Gehlot also said the party's rank and file is in favour of Rahul Gandhi becoming Congress president again.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Sunday termed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government as the most corrupt in independent India and pledged to send corrupt ministers of the outgoing administration to jail once his party is voted to power.
Adequate security and Covid safety measures have been put in place for the electoral exercise.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has tested positive for Covid-19.
'The Congress may have made mistakes, but their ideology is not wrong. India will not function if you do not believe in unity in diversity,' declares filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
Voting will be held on Thursday for the first phase of Gujarat Assembly elections in 89 seats spread across 19 districts in Saurashtra-Kutch and southern parts of the state where 788 candidates are in the fray.
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