Rajput said that India will miss pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 at home, if he is ruled out of the event through injury.
India is looking to win the upcoming tournament for Virat Kohli like the batch of 2011 won it for Sachin Tendulkar, feels Virender Sehwag.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, Rahul Gandhi hasn't said a word of this nature nor alluded to it.
A debate is again raging in the Congress over uncertainty related to its leadership, with a section of party leaders, including some MPs, asking Rahul Gandhi to return to the helm.
Noting that a very important policy for advancement of SCs and STs was Schedules Caste Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan, Raju said the group has recommended a central and states' legislation on them.
'Wait for more action the day after (the Friday meeting).'
Will he, will he not? That is the question on every Congress leader's mind as Rahul Gandhi has still not indicated whether he is ready to take on the mantle of party president.
In the wake of several Congress leaders quitting the party and its Punjab unit in turmoil, Sibal demanded that an immediate meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) be convened and wondered who in the party was taking decisions in the absence of a full-time president.
As Madhya Pradesh goes to polls, all eyes will be on 29 key assembly seats, out of the total 230, where the contest will be keenly watched.
The Congress Working Committee meeting witnessed Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar being targetted by senior Congress leaders on the issue of spiraling price rise. The three leaders who attacked Sharad Pawar but did not name him were former maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, All India Congress Committee general secretaries R K Dhawan and Satyavrat Chaturvedi.
Tharoor had so far maintained a silence since the letter appeared in the media and was heatedly debated at the Monday meeting of the Congress Working Committee, which urged Sonia Gandhi to continue as party president and bring about organisational changes.
ICC Cricket World Cup and Wimbledon went down to the wire.
Kharge said that while there are very responsible people in the party who were doing their duty, some people had assumed that lack of responsibility will be ignored.
A day after the Congress brainstormed over its electoral reverses, senior leader M Veerappa Moily on Monday said Sonia Gandhi should take "full control" of the party with a free hand to change non-performing leaders, and asserted that a "mere culture of tweets and social media propaganda" would not take the organisation forward.
As Azad ended his decades-old association with the party, leaders across political spectrum praised his contribution to Jammu and Kashmir, with the BJP hailing him as a "towering leader".
The Congress president also announced that a compact task force will be set up to drive the process of internal reforms that are essential.
Sources said that despite senior leaders making serious attempts to convince him to rethink on his decision, Gandhi is said to be unfazed.
The arrests were made on the basis of a complaint filed by Rupa Verma on Wednesday, the chairperson of Child Welfare Committee of Ranchi district, they said.
Cong's LS whip asks: "Why he is speaking language of RSS/BJP'
P Chidambaram proposed that Sonia should be made the party's interim president.
Voting began on Monday in the Congress presidential polls as senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor face-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
The ambit of the G-23 grouping increased this time as some more leaders -- Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma -- joined them.
The party, the sources said, has also approved 50 per cent representation to SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities at all levels of the organisation, as part of its social engineering efforts to win the confidence of the weaker and oppressed sections of society.
Party leaders, sources said, maintained that Congress cannot afford to have a new leader at the helm for rebuilding the organisation at this juncture and that the responsibility for the defeat is collective and not individual.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan was on Tuesday after being blocked by ex-Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar on Twitter following a verbal spat over the selection of Ravindra Jadeja.
Ghulam Nabi Azad's resignation from the Congress on Friday marked the most high-profile exit of one of the "Group of 23" (G-23) leaders, who had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi two years ago for a "collective and inclusive leadership" in the organisation, exposing the faultlines in the grand old party.
With nominations rather than election being the order of the day in Congress, a contest for the membership of the all powerful party Working Committee appears unlikely. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has herself given an indication to this effect by going in once again for the process of nominating the state unit chiefs of the party.
He also said he does not want any other member of the Gandhi family to succeed him, virtually ruling out Priyanka as well for the top party position.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) member also reminded regional parties opposed to the BJP of the defeat in the 2019 general elections when Narendra Modi powered the National Democratic Alliance to a second straight term in office due to a fragmented opposition, warning the 'BJP is coming after them' in their respective states.
The government on Wednesday said any attempt by China to set up a hydropower station on the Brahmaputra river will act as an encroachment on the entitled rights of lower riparian states like India and Bangladesh and adversely affect the availability of water in its basin during the lean season.
Two state ministers have also come out in the open to demand a detailed assessment by the top leadership.
The party will hold the internal elections by October 15.
The petition stated that the proposed project would affect the flow of the river Cauvery considerably and will severely affect the irrigation in Cauvery basin of Tamil Nadu.
The scenes at the party headquarters were indicative of the growing tumult in the Congress with the party deeply divided on the leadership issue.
'Soniaji is like a mother to the party. We revere her even now'
High drama played out at the nearly seven-hour Congress Working Committee meeting with sources saying that Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the letter writers and some leaders found it to be insinuating that it was written in cahoots with the BJP.
'Since we defeated their evil designs on July 10, their poaching approach became more aggressive with using blackmail and money power as tools to finish off the political opposition in Goa.'
The Congress is seeking to give a strong political message to the nation from the land of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, with the party leadership holding the prayer meeting at Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, followed by the CWC meet at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel national memorial in the state.
Assam reeled under devastating floods caused by incessant rain, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking stock of the situation and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visiting several relief camps sheltering affected people on Saturday, officials said.
