Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the BJP-RSS of carrying out a "well-planned conspiracy" against national heroes and said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's ideology was contrary to the RSS' ideas. He defended the relationship between Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, saying they were "two sides of the same coin". He also criticized the BJP-RSS for their alleged attempts to appropriate the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's appointment as the Bharatiya Janata Party's Campaign Committee chief and the chain of events triggered by this announcement indicate that despite the recent patch-up efforts initiated by the party's ideological mentor, the Rahstriya Swayamsevak Sangh, all is not well in the saffron outfit.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat were among the early voters to exercise their franchise as polling was underway on Wednesday for the state assembly elections.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh paid tributes to late Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, socialist leader Sharad Yadav, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mother Hiraben Modi at its annual general body meeting in Samalkha on Sunday.
After meeting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat along with senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Sushma Swaraj and Anant Kumar and later rushing to L K Advani's residence to meet the party president on Friday, party leaders Arun Jaitely left for Mumbai while M Venkaiah Naidu left for Hyderabad.
Gadkari is credited with the construction of more than 90,000 km of national highways and 30,000 km of new roads in the country in the last 10 years.
Respected as a deft politician, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat enjoyed the enviable reputation of 'Ajatshatru' -- for having friends across the political spectrum in his over five decades-long political career. The former vice president, who died in Jaipur on Saturday at the age of 87, was undoubtedly among the top three leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani, who brought him to the centre-stage as vice president in August 2002.
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday asserted that Marathi is the language of Mumbai and Maharashtra and anyone who lives here should learn and speak it. Fadnavis was speaking in the state assembly after Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Bhaskar Jadhav said the government should clarify its stand on senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi's comments that a person coming to Mumbai may not necessarily learn Marathi.
Farmers from different parts of Uttar Pradesh demanding adequate compensation for their lands acquired by the government marched towards Delhi on Monday but were stopped at the Noida-Delhi border where they sat on a dharna.
Training his guns simultaneously at social activist Anna Hazare, Bharatiya Janata Party and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Sunday sought to pep up the morale of his party men, 135 of whom have been awarded tickets for the forthcoming 2012 election to the 403-member UP state assembly.
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha member from Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur fainted during an event organised at party office on Tuesday to pay tributes to Bharatiya Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookherjee on his death anniversary.
RSS leader whipped up a political storm for stating that the BJP was restricted to 240 seats, well below the majority mark, in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, due to its "arrogance".
'The disquiet in the Sangh is, of course, over demonetisation.' 'But more than that, it is about the growing centralisation in the running of the government and party,'
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
While there are some new faces in the cabinet, leaders such as BJP president JP Nadda and Jual Oram have returned as ministers.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The Communist party of India-Marxist said on Tuesday while underlining its belief that religion is a personal choice.
Debutant legislator Rekha Gupta was sworn in as Delhi chief minister along with six ministers on Thursday in a grand show of strength full of colour and spectacle to mark the Bharatiya Janata Party's return to power in the city after more than 26 years.
The government has to specify what it intends to do with caste census data. It will be closely tracked if the government would simultaneously move towards removing the present 50% bar on reservations using means which are permitted in law. If this is not done, the entire exercise will become meaningless and could boomerang on the BJP, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has reiterated that there were no differences within the Bharatiya Janata Party and that its leaders were capable of sorting out differences.
'My chants in praise of BJP and RSS stalwarts were a reaction to what MPs like Owaisi did.'
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has said the attack by the Bharatiya Janata Party workers and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on the party headquarters in New Delhi will be raised in Parliament on Monday. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, party general secretary Prakash Karat said, "What is worse is that the local leaders of BJP and RSS were leading the mob which threw boulders and stones on our national party headquarters in New Delhi."
'The people of Gujarat are more religious than people of other states, this gives the BJP an advantage.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday expressed confidence in the unity of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in combating injustice nationwide, a day after Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's decision to go solo in the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.
When the assembly election comes around later this year with Nayab Singh Saini, from the OBCs, at the helm, the sense of victimhood non-Jats feel will propel the BJP into power again, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The KPCC made this decision simultaneously as Sarin announced a press conference in Palakkad, declaring his intention to work with the Left Democratic Front moving forward.
Accusing the BJP of working to 'divide India and spread hate and violence', he asserted that a fight of ideologies is going on in India.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray president and former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has been sent an invitation by speed post for the Ram temple consecration ceremony to be held in Ayodhya on Monday.
During Emergency Indira Gandhi acquired absolute power. Lakhs of political opponents, students, activists were arrested.
This doesn't mean the Sangh will do away with its trademark khakhi shorts, white shirt and black cap, or its core shakha-setup.
Even before the first votes are counted in Maharashtra, fissures have emerged within the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on who will head the next government. Both camps are claiming the chief minister's post, with constituents in both camps laying claim over the chief minister's post. The MVA, consisting of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), and the Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, have expressed confidence that their respective alliance will form the next government after votes are counted on Saturday. While a majority of exit polls have predicted that Mahayuti will retain power, a few have favored the MVA.
The cabinet of the new government led by Rekha Gupta balances representation of all major communities that propelled the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Delhi with a massive majority after over 26 years.
Gandhi's remarks at a press conference during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Nagaland's Chiephobozoucame days after the Congress top brass declined the invitation to the event at the Ram temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.
Samajwadi Party candidate Afzal Ansari is the incumbent MP and slain don Mukhtar Ansari's elder brother. Afzal had won the 2019 election on a BSP ticket after defeating the BJP's Manoj Sinha, now the J&K lieutenant governor.
A strategist and a quintessential political leader with grassroots connect, Rajnath Singh is credited with expanding the Bharatiya Janata Party's organisational network in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh in the 1990s and the subsequent decades.
'I am not an aspiration-oriented politician.' 'This is the time to redefine politics.' 'Politics of power is not real politics.'
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
Modi earned his spurs as a doughty leader of the Opposition in the assembly, a post he held till 2004 when he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bhagalpur.
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