Sustained persuasion by his family members and senior Nationalist Congress Party leaders made the NCP leader quit as deputy chief minister.
'Mamata is an emotional person, she follows her heart.' 'We loved that Didi, we still love her, but she is a changed person.' 'Why and how the change happened, who is responsible, I can't say.'
He maintained that the laws were for their benefit and then apologised to people of the country, adding that the government could not convince a section of farmers despite its clear heart and clean conscience.
The decision came after the PDP's core group met for the first time on Sunday following the demise of former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
'Certainly if Advani had agreed to Vajpayee in sacking Modi, then we would never have been talking of Modi today.'
The fate of 961 candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided by about 12.79 core voters in the fourth phase.
Elections for 19 Rajya Sabha seats spread across eight states will be held on Friday with the contest in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan promising to be a close affair between the BJP and the Congress.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav lashed out at his one-time ally, the Congress, and said that in the state the BJP is nowhere.
Senior leaders of Bhartiya Janata Party L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj on Friday termed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's talks with his Pakistani counterpart Gilani as a complete surrender of the national interests.
'After Vajpayee-Advani, Modi-Shah is the second best in India.'
'BJP ministers in Chhattisgarh were arrogant'
If Advani's ideological leadership galvanised the party's cadres and core support, Vajpayee's soaring oratory, common touch, easy charm and convivial manners won over the masses and brought new allies on board.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
The National Democratic Alliance won 64 seats.
As the Aam Aadmi Party heads for a resounding win in Delhi, Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists the reasons behind Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's triumph.
Leaders, including the President and Vice President, react to the bhoomi pujan of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
'The ground reality is that Banglar manush Didir shonge aachhe (The people of Bengal are with Didi).' 'Even as the BJP is still looking for a CM candidate, the elections will be over and we will form government with a two-thirds majority.'
In the absence of a conducive environment, India should not show any "hurry" to hold talks with Pakistan when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits New York later this month, BJP president Rajnath Singh said.
Mayawati is now gearing up for a fresh start for the 2019 general election. Unconfirmed reports from the BSP camp suggest she has already reached out to arch-rival Akhilesh Yadav, reports Sahil Makkar.
As state minister Suvendu Adhikari, along with other functionaries, openly air grievances against the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation, senior leaders are frantically looking for ways to pacify the rebels.
Veteran party leader Lal Krishna Advani, who was present with a score of senior leaders in the party headquarters to greet Gadkari, said the party will grow from strength to strength under the leadership of Nagpur-born Gadkari.
'Mamata is synonymous with Bengal, its culture, language, traditions.'
Bringing to fore the feud in the Rajasthan Bharatiya Janata Party, its leader Gulabchand Kataria on Saturday night called off his 'Lok Jagran Yatra' following differences at a core committee meeting which saw Leader of the Opposition Vasundhara Raje threatening to quit the party and walking out the meeting in a huff.
The BJP needs to win at least six of the seats to remain in majority in the 225-member assembly (including the Speaker, who has a casting vote), which would still have two vacant seats -- Maski and R R Nagar.
"All legislators will remain united and stay together till August 14," Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi said after the CLP meeting chaired by Gehlot.
'While the government must be relentless in its efforts to curb unruly elements to ensure secular harmony and protect its goal of national development,it must not lose the moral high ground by giving in to the antics of the anti-nationalist lobby.' 'They must be countered and relegated to the dustbin of history,' says Vivek Gumaste.
Although conventional political wisdom would decree that the construction of a 'magnificent' Ram temple at his 'birth-place' would bring the BJP a big yield of votes in the prospective elections, its leaders know by now that the mandir must not exist in isolation in its game plan, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
With 103 members belonging to the BJP, the Karnataka assembly will witness a balance it has never seen.
'We are not corrupt like the CPM and BJP. The BJP is thoroughly corrupt but somehow you don't write about the BJP and CPM.' Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi speaks out.
Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley has asked Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to rethink on holding talks with Pakistan after Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed in a United States military operation in Abbottabad near the Pakistan military academy, 61 km from Islamabad.
"Notwithstanding my personal anguish, I hope this will not cause any damage to the hard-earned peace and development in the state," Singh wrote in his letter to Gandhi
Rajnath did not refer to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in his address.\n\n
After distancing itself from the controversy over Nitin Gadkari's business dealings, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Sunday said it was upto Bharatiya Janata Party to decide on his second term as party president.
'Goa is a tiny state, but in terms of its Business of Politics, several powerful lobbies of India are involved in it, be it the mining lobby, hoteliers' lobby, casino lobby, hawala lobby, drugs lobby etc.'
When Vinod Kumar Singh, the minister for mines and geology, found that mediapersons did not join the chorus, he stopped and asked if they were "sons and daughters of Pakistan".
'The BJP's all-India plans can be expected to become clearer around 2022-2023, particularly if -- as some anticipate -- the senior Congress leadership cracks, broadly as between the Nehru-Gandhi loyalists and those who may be termed 'pro-changers',' observes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
As India suffers and the ruling party is on the defensive, the truth is that the only way that this wave will pass is if exponential growth of the virus stops on its own, asserts Aakar Patel.
Article 370 is a golden cage that keeps Kashmiris trapped in a stifling environment, deters other Indians from investing in the state perpetuating its economic penury and expressly hinders the understanding of India; all under the false premise of preserving a narrow parochial identity, says Vivek Gumaste.
'As an actor he was surrounded in stardom, but as a politician he is humble'
'If the Ram Mandir is made, it is because of the collective strength of our country.'
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