Senior Bhartiya Janata Party General Secretary Arun Jaitley on Friday dismissed speculations about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi becoming a challenge to the party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani. "Politics is not so juvenile that Anil Ambani or Sunil Mittal can get anybody in the PM's seat," Jaitley affirmed while talking to reporters at the BJP headquarters in Delhi.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
The JD-U also accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and destabilising non-BJP governments in several states, including Delhi and Jharkhand besides Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier.
Altogether 160 MLAs voted in favour of the confidence motion while no vote was cast against the same.
Pressure is mounting for a resolution to be moved in the assembly when it meets next week for its maiden sitting to demand 'restoration of Article 370 and Article 35A' as committed in the National Conference's election manifesto, reveals Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
Citing his failure to check the post-Godhra riots, National Democratic Alliance constituent Janata Dal-United has made clear its opposition to Narendra Modi's projection as prime ministerial candidate but ruled out the possibility of aligning with "enemy" Congress at the cost of "friend" BJP.
The National Democratic Alliance had offered to extend outside support to the United National Progressive Alliance's prime ministerial candidate in 2007, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh has revealed.The NDA had made the offer to the UNPA during the presidential polls last year, the senior BJP leader told mediapersons in New Delhi on Saturday.The former finance minister also warned that the country was "hurtling towards an economic emergency" under the UPA govt.
The RJD leader said the coming to power of the Mahagathbandhan government with the JD-U, the RJD, the Congress and other parties uniting "augurs well for opposition unity".
"Truth alone triumphs!" This is how Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi reacted on Thursday to an Ahmedabad court's verdict rejecting a protest petition filed against the clean chit given to him by the Supreme Court- appointed Special Investigation Team in the 2002 communal riots.
If the BJP is waiting for a better assessment about the assembly polls, the Congress is doing the same to see if it should club the 2014 Lok Sabha elections with the assembly polls. says Anita Katyal
The Bharatiya Janata Party, if voted to power, will "revise" the country's nuclear doctrine to make it "relevant to challenges of current times", said the party manifesto while talking about maintaining the credible minimum deterrent in tune with the "changing geostatic realities".
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will get a 'decisive mandate' in the Lok Sabha polls and may take even less than 48 hours to decide on its prime ministerial pick, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday, asserting that it stands to reason that the party which gets the maximum seats in the alliance will be a 'natural claimant' for its leadership.
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
Hitting back at Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh, who recently snubbed him for extending an "unsolicited support" to Narendra Modi and "seeking votes" in his name without joining the Shiv-Sena-BJP-RPI alliance, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Monday taunted Singh for raising the objection, while Modi was silent on the issue.
As a controversy raged over Narendra Modi's interview to Doordarshan, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday said that the party's prime ministerial candidate had never said that Priyanka Gandhi was like his daughter and that the interview aired on the public broadcaster was deliberately "distorted".
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
BJP chief Rajnath Singh spoke to his party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani in the morning over phone from Jaipur and decided "not to go critical" of the government on the issue "in this time of crisis", the party said
This will be the first time BJP's prime ministerial candidate holds a discussion with IT, telecom czars.
'The consecration of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya has demoralised them.' 'And, now it is reflecting in their individual reactions as they are losing hope to take on the BJP in 2024.'
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Jailed MLA of Quami Ekta Dal Mukhtar Ansari will withdraw his candidature from Varanasi against BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, "to strengthen secular forces and avoid division of votes".
Seeking to placate the Shiv Sena which is miffed over the recent thaw between Bharatiya Janata Party and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, party's Maharashtra in-charge Rajiv Pratap Rudy will on Tuesday meet Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai to reassure its ally and fine-tune the tie-up in the state.
The Janata Dal-United, which is opposed to Narendra Modi's projection as BJP's prime ministerial candidate, on Monday said it will discuss all aspects of his anointment as the campaign committee chief and will spell out its stand soon.
Modi is likely to hold separate bilateral meetings with the foreign leaders.
BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Sunday said if elected to power, the party would work for the welfare of Muslims, and irrespective of how many of them vote for it.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday made his prime ministerial ambitions known, saying he is more qualified and experienced than those "roaming around" for the top job.
The legislature party of the PDP which met in Srinagar on Thursday afternoon unanimously chose Mehbooba Mufti as the chief ministerial candidate as also its leader.
Janata Dal-Secular leader and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday hinted that his party was interested in the agriculture portfolio in the new National Democratic Alliance government.
Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of forcing it to walk out of the alliance by not being forthcoming on Narendra Modi's future role, senior Janata Dal-United leader Shivanand Tiwari on Saturday said the announcement of a split in the coalition was a "mere formality".
A Janata Dal (United) leader in Bihar on Friday has dared the Bharatiya Janata Party to withdraw its support from Nitish Kumar led government in the state if it is not comfortable with the party stand on its secular agenda.
If Jaitley is finalised for the First Citizen's post, Modi will have scored two strategic goals, reports Rajeev Sharma.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, under fire by detractors for centring its whole poll campaign on Narendra Modi, found itself in a spot on Monday with its chief Rajnath Singh first projecting the party in a tweet and retweeting minutes later "Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkar (Time for a Modi government).
Dismissing reports of any discontent over shifting to Kanpur from Varanasi, BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi today said that there is a "huge wave" for change in support of BJP and Narendra Modi is on "top of this wave".
Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday decided to recommend the name of veteran leader L K Advani to contest the Lok Sabha election from his Gandhinagar constituency.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Saturday reportedly told United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that his party wanted best of relations with the US, but opposed the nuclear deal after the Hyde Act was passed, as it closed India's strategic options."Advani told Rice that the BJP developed strong objections to this present treaty only after the Hyde Act was passed because we believe that it impairs our nuclear programme.
'This is what happens to a party when it gets trapped in the vicious circle of nepotism and dynastic politics'
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
In a veiled reference to Narendra Modi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party's only goal is to grab the Prime Minister's chair for which it was "misleading people" and shedding crocodile tears.
Denying any conflict of interest between L K Advani and Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Venkaiah Naidu has supported the Gujarat Chief Minister's challenge to the Prime Minister, saying that everybody has the right to question his performance as he was accountable to the nation.
