OBC leader Dharam Singh Saini on Thursday became the third minister to resign from the Uttar Pradesh cabinet this week, giving yet another jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the run-up to the assembly polls.
Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
Shinde is in the national capital to review on Tuesday the legal strategy on the disqualification petition against 16 MLAs supporting him filed by the Uddhav Thackeray camp.
The RSS chief also mentioned the violation of the 'Code of Conduct' by various political parties during the Lok Sabha polls.
Fasting quota activist Manoj Jarange on Monday sought reservation for the Maratha community in entire Maharashtra and not in specific regions and warned the ongoing agitation will be ratcheted up if the demand was not fulfilled by the state government.
The party would consider aligning with any party after assessing the post-poll situation, she said.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
The draft bill on reservation to Jats and four other castes was cleared at a Cabinet meeting under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com offers his unique perspective on the Patel agitation and the reservation issue.
The Congress president during his year at the helm of the party has repaired the citadel for far more challenging years ahead, and played a crucial role in shaping the Opposition alliance.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday refused to vacate the stay granted by it last month on Haryana government's decision to grant reservation to Jats.
Entertainers can be good politicians if they treat the citizens as the audience, and treat their job like a live show, and work hard to make sure the audience likes them, asserts Sandeep Goyal.
State Congress president and former chief minister Kamal Nath has been fielded from his home-turf Chhindwara, from where he is currently the legislator.
Shinde announced that his government is committed to providing reservation to the Maratha community.
Modi spoke to the BJP's longest serving president, who is credited with crafting the party's rise through the 90s when it came to power for the first time as the head of coalition governments under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and congratulated him.
'Mayawatiji no more controls the bahujan vote in UP.' 'In this election more than 40 per cent of the BSP's core voters blessed the SP without the SP even asking for it.'
There are concerns within the Congress with respect to the articulation of the party's demand for the caste census, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently accusing the grand old party of attempting to divide Hindus through its push for the Other Backward Classes.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Telangana president and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Wednesday said his party, when it comes to power in the state, would abolish minority reservations and provide the benefit to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and others.
The caste survey in Bihar was conducted in two rounds between January 7-21, and April 15-May 15.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill providing internal reservation of 10.5 per cent for Vanniyars, a most backward community in government jobs and in admission to educational institutions.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday appealed to the opposition for the unanimous passage of the women's reservation bill and said shortcomings, if any, can be rectified at a later date.
He blamed 'bad elements' encouraged by ruling Telugu Desam Party for the violence that erupted at Tuni in the district on Sunday, and alleged that the TDP government tried to suppress his agitation by creating obstacles to the public meeting.
Activist Manoj Jarange on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra government to make it clear whether it is ready to provide reservation to the entire Maratha community and why it needs more time in granting quota to it.
All 39 constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday reposed faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and resolved to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly under his leadership.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's Dara Singh Chauhan in the bypoll to the Ghosi Assembly constituency in Mau district with a margin of 42,759 votes on Friday.
He held two massive roadshows in Rajasthan and one in Madhya Pradesh and his entries in many of rally venues were marked by a drive through cheering supporters.
"Articles 15(4) and 16(4) (dealing with provision for socially and educationally backward classes, and reservation) do not put any limit on the percentage of quota and there is no constitutional hurdle in increasing the same," Sharad Pawar said.
He also hit out at Akhilesh Yadav, saying the UP chief minister is neither with Backward Classes nor Dalits.
Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Tuesday said he had spoken on a particular verse in Ramcharitmanas and not about Lord Ram or any religion, but refused to retract the comments which have triggered a row and embarrassed his party.
Unless Punjab has a chief minister who is able to look beyond community/vote bank politics, carry all sections of society, stop appeasing while addressing genuine concerns and break the stranglehold of the SGPC over Sikh affairs, my beloved home state is bound to die and conversions will be rampant, warns Sanjeev Nayaar.
From start to finish, Dharmaveer 2 feels less like a biopic and more like propaganda crafted for Eknath Shinde's political gain, observes Prasanna D Zore.
"Earlier, governments were busy in vote bank appeasement but we are busy satisfying people," the prime minister said.
Referring to the demand of giving a Kunbi certificate to all 54 lakh people whose proof of being Kunabi has been found till now, Patil said that they will be given the certificates soon.
Addressing a huge rally in Maharashtra's Nagpur on the occasion of the Congress' 139th foundation day, he said unemployment in the country has reached its highest point in the last 40 years.
Espousing an aggressive pro-backward and Dalit stance synchronising with the Maurya controversy, the SP has thrown down the gauntlet with Akhilesh upping the ante on the burning topic, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The controversial decision of the United Progressive Alliance-II government ahead of general elections to include Jats in Other Backward Classes category came under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking explanation from the Centre for allegedly ignoring the advice of a statutory body to keep the community away from reservation benefits.
SP leader Akhilesh Yadav has successfully poached a number of OBC leaders from the ruling party, including Swami Prasad Maurya, in his efforts to broaden his party's social base beyond the traditional Muslim and Yadav votebank to take it on this time round.
Terming a separate quota for Muslims unsustainable, the Andhra Pradesh high court on Monday quashed the state government's decision to give reservations to the minority community.Under the Reservation in Favour of Socially and Educational Backward Classes of Muslims Act, passed on July 23, 2007, the Congress government had extended 4 per cent reservations in education and government jobs to the 15 backward groups of Muslims in Andhra Pradesh.
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