The Congress on Friday alleged that Facebook was being used as a weapon by the Bharatiya Janata Party to spread hate and fake news in the country and demanded that a joint parliamentary committee probe be conducted on the issue and laws be enacted to restrict Facebook and WhatsApp.
Shedding his defiant posture after persuasion by party leaders, former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa on Friday left Bangalore for Mumbai to attend the concluding session of the Bharatiya Janata Party's National Executive meeting. "I am leaving for Mumbai to greet Nitin Gadkari on his re-election as the party president for the second successive term," said Yeddyurappa, who had earlier decided to skip the meet as he was apparently upset over being sidelined.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
He claimed that Tej Pratap kept egging on his henchmen while Ramraj was being humiliated and that he even got the entire episode videographed.
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.
RLSP leaders feel insulted after getting no response from the BJP on their demand for a 'respectful seat sharing formula' for the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Monday met political strategist Prashant Kishor in New Delhi and will host a meeting of leaders from several parties and eminent personalities on Tuesday to discuss the current scenario in the country, his party said and asserted that the Maratha strongman is working to unite the Opposition.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed three bills to replace the colonial-era criminal laws by voice vote.
"Terms like 'unity in diversity' are used for our country. The country belongs to all. No remarks should me made that harm the country," Singh, a confidant of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, told reporters when asked for his reaction to the BJP leader's comments.
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.
The legendary PT Usha will be officially elected as the first woman president of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) during the governing body's polls on Saturday, ushering in a new era in country's sports administration.
SP-Congress alliance is likely to consolidate Muslim vote in their favour.
Success in Karnataka's assembly polls will hinge on two factors: Drop a large number of incumbent MLAs and project Modi and not the state leaders, least of all Bommai.
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.
Neither Modi nor Shah had held legislative or executive power in Delhi before 2014. They have no training in appealing to the diversity of India as represented in Parliament. Their prism is the provincial politics of Gujarat. An exclusive excerpt from Vinay Sitapati's fascinating new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi.
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.
The fact that Home Minister Amit Shah recently met Raje was a marker that Delhi will be compelled to take her more seriously than it would care to. Like B S Yediyurappa, she's a regional chieftain who can't be discarded at will, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
A revealing excerpt from Mani Shankar Aiyar's fascinating new book, The Rajiv I Knew.
'To summarise, PM Modi's failures in the last nine years can be categorised under 'durniti' (bad policies), 'anyay' (injustice) and - perhaps most importantly - 'badniyat' (ill intention)'
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.
'I have to take a stand to strengthen it. I cannot sit silent.'
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
"Religious festivals seem to have become occasions to intimidate and bully others -- a far cry from when they were occasions for joy and celebration. Instead, there is intimidation and discrimination only on account of their religion, food, caste, gender or language," Gandhi said.
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.
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.
Congress campaign seeking to paint the ruling party as anti-poor and anti-farmer seems to have unnerved the BJP, feels T N Ninan.
'... are losing faith in the institutions of government, where people do not believe that the institutions of government operate according to the Constitution, within the confines of the law, where these institutions are seen to be representing a small faction of a particular community against all other (minority) communities.'
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 Brij Bhushan camp, who claim to have the support of 22 of the 25 state units, expressed 'confidence' of winning all 15 posts during the WFI elections on August 12.
The AAP leaders have alleged that four MLAs were offered money by the BJP to quit the party.
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.
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.
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 culling of key state leaders and bureaucrats has given rise to distrust and uneasiness in Pramod Sawant's style of functioning, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Tharoor argued that the proposed bill represents a "grave chapter in the history of the Indian republic, seeking to ratify an ordinance that in many ways is an assault on our democratic heritage and the spirit of federalism."
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