The talk in a tea stall in the Yadav-dominated village of Mohli in Munger district of Bihar is all about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's exhortations to 'Yaduvanshis' to dump Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has fielded an unprecedented 22 candidates from the dominant backward caste.
A little over a year after it retained power in Kerala with a massive victory, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front suffered a huge setback on Friday in a bypoll held to Thrikkakara assembly constituency, with Congress candidate Uma Thomas winning with a historic margin of 25,016 votes, giving a boost to the morale of the party-led United Democratic Front in the southern state.
In the same breath, the RPI-A leader said, "No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, nor BSP supremo Mayawati."
Giving conflicting signals, Shiv Sena on Monday staked claim to the post of Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly but appeared open to conciliatory talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party over participation in the government "whenever it comes forward".
A day ahead of former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's visit to Rajasthan to raise the voice of the farmers against the farm laws, he said that the Centre should withdraw the laws and after thorough consultation with farmers and states, come up with a new set of legislations which the tillers would themselves want and is not something that is forced upon them.
At least three members of the BJP Parliamentary Board, that approved candidates list, told me that release of my book by Nitish Kumar in 2017 was strongly resented and probably this cost me the party nomination, Roy said.
The Modiquake has devastatingly hit all Opposition, says Nazarwala.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday charged BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi with having balked at appointing a RTI Commissioner and Lokayukta in Gujarat for fear of being booked for alleged irregularities in providing benefits to his favourite industrial group.
Despite holding 281 seats in the Lok Sabha, the BJP-led government has promulgated as many as six ordinances to pass legislation
The war of words between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar escalated on Monday with the latter tweeting that "50 lakh people" from Bihar would send their DNA samples for testing to the prime minister.
How many seats would the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance have got had they fought the 2014 elections with their current alliance partners? Our RediffLabs team has devised an Election Sentimeter to how the swing in votes affects the election outcome.
A weak presence in the Rajya Sabha has forced the NDA to try and rope in 'weak links' in the Opposition ranks to pass key legislation in the Upper House.
While the Congress will firm up its strategy once the ruling alliance tables the Bill, initial comments by its leaders have been encouraging.
Lok Sabha is set to witness a confrontation over Land Acquisition Bill on Tuesday when it is taken up for voting with opposition bent on opposing it even as the government again offered to make changes in the legislation in the "larger interest" of the farming community.
The senior Congress leader opined that the situation in Assam can now be divided into two phases -- pre-CAA and post-CAA, and it was necessary to unite all anti-CAA forces in order to protect the ethos of the Assam Accord.
The civil services seem to have gone sour under the NDA government. Ministers exercise executive power in a partisan manner. Consequently, a regime of favouritism holds sway over the corridors of power, feels Ram Ugrah.
Addressing over 10,000 block level and district level presidents Congress president Sonia Gandhi blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party for the" grave damage done to our secular polity, our society aand our economy by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government."
Such is the situation of the government in Punjab, the prime minister said while hitting out the Congress, and asserted that he will come to Jalandhar again and pay obeisance at the Devi Talab Mandir.
Shah also said that the parties in power in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka were answerable for the incidents cited by protesting writers.
If New Delhi finds itself out in the cold in Afghanistan, both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have only themselves to blame. Each has been in power for a full decade from 2001, without reaching out to the Taliban, points out Ajai Shukla.
While Manipur's Bharatiya Janata Party leadership has flown to Delhi to lay rival claims to the post of chief minister of the north-eastern state, National People's Party leader Conrad K Sangma, who had earlier flown to Imphal to seek a place for his party in the new government, seems miffed by hints that the BJP will go ahead and form a single-party government.
The seat had fallen vacant following the death of Lok Janshakti Party founder and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
As the first step, senior BJP Vice President and Convenor for the Lok Sabha polls, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, convened an hour long meeting with Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, who is officially with the United National Progressive Alliance. RLD members have been sulking against a non-starter alliance stuck with Bahujan Samaj Party of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.
Tamil Nadu electricity minister was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), official sources said, making him the first minister in the M K Stalin-led government to face such an action from a central agency.
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The Mahatma's descendants differ over Modi and the BJP victory... US-based Coalition Against Genocide vows to oppose Modi... Only Hindu US Congresswoman congratulates Modi... George Joseph/Rediff.com reports from New York.
The Bengal outcome can have a marginal impact on national politics. Whereas elections in UP next year might still change the course ahead of the parliamentary poll in 2024, observes Virendra Kapoor.
From the point of view of qualification, Murmu is probably educationally the least qualified among India's recent Presidents. But then, with the BJP in command, she will be required to do little but sign on the dotted line.
As per practice a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in the election year and a full-fledged budget presented by the new government.
Amid the opposition UDF's sloganeering against him, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Friday delivered the customary address to the assembly with the policy document outlining the Left government's administrative achievements and criticising the Centre for allegedly pushing the state to financial constraints by reducing its resource allocations.
As the tussle for control of the Nationalist Congress Party hotted up after its vertical split, Sharad Pawar on Thursday declared he was the president of the party and hit back at nephew and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's retirement jibe, saying he will work more effectively "whether 82 or 92."
'The Congress agreed to it, but the RJD has some problem with Kanhaiya.'
Madhya Pradesh minister Kusum Mahdele, who was caught on camera purportedly kicking a boy, on Monday sought to defend herself by saying that the video being played on news channels was an "absolute lie", even as the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party demanded her resignation over the issue.
Attacking "glorification" of only "one-family" by the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said that if voted to power the party would review christening of more than "600 schemes" in the name of three generations of Gandhi dynasty.
Right from the first week, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said, the BJP-led government showed "zero tolerance" towards brutalities against women. "I am confident that a time of gender equality would come. We ensured women gets the basic necessities of toilets, electricity and gas cylinders to make their lives easy."
As defence minister, Singh's most crucial challenge will be to speed up the long-delayed modernisation of the three services besides ensuring overall coherence in their combat readiness.
A senior politician Naidu respected once tried to convince the firebrand student leader to quit the Jana Sangh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday slammed the opposition alliance INDIA as a collection of arrogant dynasties who will take India back by two centuries as he exuded confidence that people will bless the "garib ka beta" with a record-breaking mandate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
Bracing for the opposition onslaught in Parliament, government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday decided to aggressively counter the attack on its leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan and rake up controversies related to Congress leaders.
"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.
