The Congress leader said he sought to know whether the cooker blast was as big as the terrorist attack in Mumbai, Delhi or Kashmir.
Bhartiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh said that the party should jointlytake responsibility for victory or defeat. "If any individual must own up the defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, I as the president of the party I accept the responsibility," he said while making opening remarks at two day meeting of the national executive at Parliamentary Annexe in New Delhi on Saturday.
The veteran leader's decision came a day after the party anointed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the campaign committee chief for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, ignoring his reservations on the matter.
Although Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has accommodated 22 members from Madhya Pradesh in the recently constituted national executive, state partymen are disappointed, as Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan does not find a place in the all powerful parliamentary board.
Consultations within the Bharatiya Janata Party on government formation gained momentum on Friday with Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi holding a long meeting with party chief Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders.
Despite a new found bonhomie between Narendra Modi and Nitin Gadkari, differences in the Bharatiya Janata Party seem to be far from over at its national executive meeting in Mumbai on Friday with leaders L K Advani and Sushama Swaraj set to stay away from a rally scheduled for evening.
SP-Congress alliance is likely to consolidate Muslim vote in their favour.
Scindia, who was also named as its Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh by the BJP, hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "competence and complete dedication" to serving India and asserted that the country's future is fully secure in his hands.
The top two in the government and in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah, respectively, spent the day trying to hard sell not just the contentious land Bill but also how the Modi government stood for the welfare of farmers.
Anshuman Mishra, the non-resident Indian businessman who unsuccessfully tried to get a Rajya Sabha nomination from Jharkhand, may have played a key role in convincing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to attend last week's Bharatiya Janata Party national executive in Mumbai.
An LJP parliamentary board meeting chaired by its president Chirag Paswan instead passed a resolution in favour of an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and said its MLAs will work to strengthen the hand of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'I wonder how people who come to power through democratic means turn out this way.' 'But people of India are strong, and those who think they can hoodwink people, are mistaken.' 'You can fool some people for some time, but not all people, all the time.'
Bharatiya Janata Party patriarch L K Advani's absence in Panaji on Friday cast a shadow on the national executive meeting beginning on Saturday raising doubts whether the party would go ahead with its plans to announce Narendra Modi as head of the campaign committee for the Lok Sabha elections.
The party is studying the governance of different countries to present an alternative model of development for India ahead of the 2014 general election, says Akshat Kaushal
The culling of key state leaders and bureaucrats has given rise to distrust and uneasiness in Pramod Sawant's style of functioning, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Unless the anarchy in Manipur is brought under control quickly, we are sowing the seeds of a flare up in the entire North East and the end of our dream of checking China in South East Asia, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In a major cabinet reshuffle, Arjun Ram Meghwal has replaced Kiren Rijiju as the Union law and justice minister, a communique from the President's Secretariat said on Thursday.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, whose elevation as BJP's campaign committee chief prompted L K Advani's resignation from all key party fora, on Monday said he has urged the veteran leader to change his decision.
The former Congress chief is an accused in the National Herald case in which BJP leader Subramanian Swamy is the complainant.
The national executive committee meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Patna over the weekend, climaxing with a large public rally, was supposed to be a kind of coming out party for the junior partner in the Bihar government. In the event, it turned out to be a setback resulting from a self-goal.
According to sources, Kavitha was to be made to sit face-to-face with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, who was arrested in connection with the liquor policy case on Monday night.
Congress campaign seeking to paint the ruling party as anti-poor and anti-farmer seems to have unnerved the BJP, feels T N Ninan.
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.
Yogi Adityanath's aura is no longer limited to Uttar Pradesh. At the age of 49, his journey to the higher echelons in the BJP has well and truly begun, predicts Sudhir Bisht.
The BJP leadership, which met at senior leader Lal Krishna Advani's residence on Sunday night, decided that it will not oppose the Bill provided the amendments suggested by them are brought in.
'Judges have families; they have their future to worry about.' 'In an atmosphere of fear, the judges are constantly under some kind of psychological pressure.' 'I have seen this is happening across the board in the country today.'
From handling the party organisation, finalising candidates, shooting the breeze with the media to pow-wows with diplomats and liaising with the PMO -- Arun Jaitley is the BJP's chief backroom manager in this election, reports R Rajagopalan.
'It is not just the religious minorities who are being intimidated or targeted.' 'You see an equal intimidation or effort of intimidation towards anyone who does not agree with the Hindutva interpretation of the Hindu faith.'
Strong demands for accountability for the Lok Sabha debacle were voiced on Saturday at the Bharatiya Janata Party National Executive meeting in which party President Rajnath Singh acknowledged a qualified responsibility on his part and announced a Committee to go into the defeat.
The anti-defection law does not apply to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls.
'We don't want anyone to remain in the party who keeps damaging the party.'
A parliamentary panel on Friday questioned top Twitter officials over a whistle-blower's revelations on its India operations, and gave them a dressing-down as their replies on issue of data security and privacy were "not satisfactory", sources said.
The absence of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa could cast a cloud over the Bharatiya Janata Party National Executive beginning in Mumbai on Thursday which is all set to pave the way for a second term to party chief Nitin Gadkari.
The Bharatiya Janata Party begins on Wednesday a three-day conclave of its leaders from all over the country on the road ahead for the party that has suffered two consecutive defeats in the Lok Sabha elections and has seen a generational change at the top.
'These guys who are running away -- they are running away from all that the BJP stands for.'
Even with the elevation of Nirmala Sitharaman to the post of defence minister, the party still needs to redress the gender imbalance and fill the 33 per cent quota in posts.
The cost of Rs 52.71 crore included Rs 33.49 crore spent on the construction of the house and Rs 19.22 crore on a camp office for the chief minister, the report said, citing records of the Public Works Department (PWD).
Former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa will probably be missing in action at the National Executive Meeting of top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which starts on Tuesday. Yeddyurappa, who is facing a slew of corruption cases, has enrolled himself for a three-day course at the Art of Living Foundation in Bangalore.