The long queue outside Cellular Jail is a testimony to its place in India's national consciousness. The Andamans is also where the only British viceroy was assassinated and where Bose unfurled the Tricolour for the first time in 1943.
The railways observed a week of Azadi ki Rail Gadi, from July 18-23, through 27 trains and 75 railway stations, across 24 states that are linked to the Indian freedom struggle.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'An old party like the Congress cannot rely solely on the prescriptions of a 'Doctor' whose motives and intentions are still unknown and that he does not look attached towards any party or ideology,' point out Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
'It was disappointing on two counts. One is on the leadership issue and second is how the Congress must win elections.'
Strengthening the party's communication strategy to improve public engagement is foremost on the Congress agenda after Rahul Gandhi had stressed that they "have to go back to the people" at the Udaipur meeting.
Gandhi said around 400 Congress members will be attending the Chintan Shivir in Udaipur from May 13 to 15 and stressed on the message of every leader holding one party post.
If the Opposition has any chance at the prime minister's job, it can happen only if they all stop dropping names and work at the grassroots-level, state-wise, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The prominent faces among the 676 candidates for 57 seats spread across 10 districts in this phase included Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban and state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu from Tamkuhi Raj.
The Congress party will have an elected president by June 2021, with the party's working committee on Friday approving holding the internal election after the assembly polls.
Only three of its candidates -- Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar, Devender Yadav from Badli and Abhishek Dutt from Kasturba Nagar -- managed to save their deposits.
Ahmed Patel, K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh will be part of the Rajya Sabha Committee, which will also include Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and party's deputy leader Anand Sharma. Azad and Sharma are signatories to the letter that demanded an overhaul of the Congress party and a new 'full-time and visible' party president.
The roadshow will begin from Kachahari at 12 noon after party leaders garland the statue of BR Ambedkar and will cover a distance of around eight kilometers in three hours.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, Rahul Gandhi hasn't said a word of this nature nor alluded to it.
The much-awaited reshuffle of the Congress hierarchy, which took place today, saw the exit of veteran Arjun Singh and six others from the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and two general secretaries Mohsina Kidwai and V Narayanasamy, who was recently made Minister of State in PMO.
The Congress on Tuesday stepped up its attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party government for allowing European Union MPs to visit Kashmir while denying permission to Indian parliamentarians, and termed it a "national embarrassment".
The move is aimed at reflecting the diversity of India and highlighting the contribution of prominent personalities.
'Priyanka did draw huge crowds and eventually all of those ended up voting for the Samajwadi Party.' 'The voters today are smart enough to vote for the party which they know is going to win or they know this party will come second, but no way will they vote for a party which will come third or fourth.'
The highlight of the five-hour meeting, which ended with a plan to hold a 'chintan shivir' at the earliest opportunity to chalk the Congress' future strategy, was a demand by Sonia Gandhi's loyalists that Rahul Gandhi should assume the party leadership again.
High drama played out at the nearly seven-hour Congress Working Committee meeting with sources saying that Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the letter writers and some leaders found it to be insinuating that it was written in cahoots with the BJP.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her deputy Rahul Gandhi on Saturday refrained from commenting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech.
'Rahul Gandhi wants a group under the name 'new generation'. But look at the people who surround him.'
Mamata's 'there is no United Progressive Alliance (UPA)' remark after a meeting in Mumbai with Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, an ally of Congress in Maharashtra, evoked a strong response from the party, currently being led by interim president Sonia Gandhi.
The meeting of Congress's highest decision-making body is expected to be at a very 'high voltage' as Sonia's resignation will not be accepted by the CWC members.
"If they (some leaders) persist (with G-23) that means there is a vested interest for a few of them to work against the Congress party which we don't subscribe to and rather oppose it," the former Union minister said.
The former party donated Rs 54,000 between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020.
Mamata said that she raised the issue of violence in Tripura in which TMC workers were allegedly assaulted by BJP workers.
A day after a stormy Congress Working Committee meeting, Sibal made the remarks in a cryptic tweet.
To a question whether his party will not forge a coalition with any political party, Azad said, "If any political party is willing to accompany the Congress, and the Congress feels that it can fight the BJP, then it will be definitely accommodated."
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera tweeted, "Shayad meri tapasya mein kuch kami reh gayi (Maybe my penance fell short)."
After some recent events that turned against the party, including the Congress' G-23 Group asking for a revamp in the party, Congress leader and MP Manish Tiwari has been included in the star campaigners list of Congress for Assam and West Bengal Assembly polls.
'Several leaders leaving the party in quick succession tell us that something is very wrong with the oldest party'
Abhishek packs a punch and Nimrat is deliciously wicked but Dasvi falls short of being the razor-sharp satire it deeply aspires to be, feels Sukanya Verma.
'You need a leader whom India can identify with and I cannot think of any other leader except Sachin Pilot in the Congress party.'
The letter was not a challenge to leadership but a parchment of action to strengthen the party, Congress MP Vivek Tankha asserted, while former union minister Mukul Wasnik said those who saw the letter as an "offence" will also soon realise that the issues raised are worth consideration.
The stir, led by the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association, has been going on for several days, and FORDA also said that several of its members were 'detained' when they tried to hold a protest march from Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) to Supreme Court.
The Congress on Monday deferred the election to the post of party president till the COVID-19 situation improves and decided to set up a group to assess losses in the recent assembly polls, with party chief Sonia Gandhi saying it has to put its house in order by facing reality and drawing lessons from the 'serious setbacks'.
'Jinnah developed a belief that Gandhi had stolen the tag of the leader of the Indian people from him and that he later used religion to reduce Gandhi's idea of a united India to naught was his revenge.'
Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma succeed in convincing Rahul Gandhi of zero returns in blocking Parliament.
Asked about the organisational changes made by Gandhi and the subsequent reported statements by some leaders who had written to her over party reforms, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said he had not seen a single statement by any Congress leader on the issue and cannot comment on that.
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