Accusing the Congress party of "failing to keep national interests over its political agenda", Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said the chief opposition party stood "isolated" in disrupting the Parliament at a time when MPs of other parties condemned the Gurdaspur terror attack and stood in solidarity.
He said while the state government had sought Rs 8,481 crore as central assistance, the Centre has provided Rs 940.92 crore.
However, speculation remained rife that the meeting was part of Banerjee's plan to form an opposition front with regional players minus the Congress.
'We don't know how and why this happened as the route interlock signal works fine millions of times every day across India.'
'The central learning of the day was that if the BJP leadership can cajole, coax and convince regional parties to vote for bills, it would not be a stretch to see the same votes cast in favour of the land bill,' a senior Congress leader from a northern state told Rediff.com
Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee's letter, which was released by the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre's actions.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
The road for the Opposition is full of 'ifs' and 'buts', reports Sunil Gatade.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
Responding to the debate on the bill, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the ban commercial surrogacy was "the need of the hour".
Even the United Progressive Alliance constituent Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday rubbished the Planning Panel's claim that the number of poor people had declined to 21.9 per cent.
The coming together of SP and BSP leaders on one platform is being seen as the emergence of a new phase of politics in the state after a dismal show of all anti-BJP parties in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly polls.
Sparks flew on the first day of the debate on the no-trust motion moved by the Congress with the Opposition on Tuesday asserting that it was forced to do so to break Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'maun vrat' (vow of silence) on Manipur and the treasury benches hitting back saying it was a no-trust vote against a 'poor person's son' who has worked for the welfare of the people.
Those who know Naveen Patnaik well say his final decision will depend on who has the edge after the election.
The government is making behind-the-scenes offers to other parties in a bid to break them but as long as the Congress is firm on the decision, there is little that the government can achieve on the Insurance Bill.
The JD-U also used the meeting to call for a joint Opposition candidate for the election to the President's post and urged Gandhi to take the lead in the matter.
Besides, the government would also undertake and promote steps for water conservation and curbing extraction of underground water, which is depleting the water table and is a matter of concern, the minister said.
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The government told an all-party meeting Monday that it does not intend to bring any legislative business in Rajya Sabha during the first part of the Budget Session which is till February 11, sources said.
There is speculation that the Congress may bring Priyanka Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Randeep Surjewala and RPN Singh, among others, to the upper house.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
As nominations for Rajya Sabha biennial polls closed on Tuesday, a contest is on the cards in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana even as Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram are among those set to be elected to the Upper House.
It was a changed scenario in the new Lok Sabha with the churning brought out by the elections throwing in contrasts.
Congress on Monday appeared to claim credit for effective handling of cyclone 'Phailin', saying all steps are being taken under its rule to make the country "disaster-resilient" which was evident from the Indian Meteorological Department's accurate prediction and "record" evacuation of over one million people in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
On May 2, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will step into Bihar and challenge the Nitish-Lalu order in the state.
Every party had been asked to give in their suggestions during the meeting.
An Election Commission official said minor clashes between political workers were reported from some areas.
In the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, there were 135 women candidates while in the second phase, there were 100 women candidates, bringing the combined total for the first two phases to 235 women candidates.
The ground, which served as the battleground for the 51-year-old bureaucrat-turned-politician during the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement, is getting decked up and workers are busy making arrangements.
Rajya Sabha proceedings were adjourned for the day on Tuesday after repeated stoppages as opposition members continued to protest demanding the revocation of suspension of 12 members.
Where did the rasgulla originate from? Is the dish originally from Odisha or West Bengal?
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
'If the Congress is to challenge the NDA government, Rahul Gandhi will have to shed his indifference to Parliament, become more visible and vocal and, essentially, lead from the front,' says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
Parliament has passed a bill to extend the tenure of the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to a maximum of five years from the present two years.
All you need to know about the MP who became a trending topic on Twitter.
The counting will begin at 8 am, and as per the Election Commission's COVID-19 guidelines, a candidate, his poll agent and counting agent can remain present in the counting hall, officials said, adding various measures have been taken to ensure social distancing and avoid crowding.
Some of the Congress's new-found enthusiasm for hitting the streets will show its result in the Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka elections. That is when we will know if the Congress will go to the regional parties or the parties will come to the Congress.
Most of the parties supported 'one nation one election', says defence minister Rajnath Singh.
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