The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from its lone southern citadel with a comfortable majority in a morale booster win that will be key for reviving its electoral fortunes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
While 39 members of the all-important panel are general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state and 13 special invitees.
The Congress steering committee on Friday approved several amendments to the party constitution, one of which is to give permanent membership to former prime ministers and former party presidents in the all-powerful working committee.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United said it was the right time to withdraw the general consent to the CBI.
"The governor has returned to Ranchi...so far he has not issued any order," an official source in Raj Bhavan said.
The Congress on Tuesday made significant gains in the assembly elections, dealing a body blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
With all exit polls predicting a clean sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recently-concluded assembly polls, several leaders have started working overtime to deny the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from walking away with credit for this victory, says Anita Katyal
Four BJP leaders and former Supreme Court judge S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the Constitution bench that upheld the archaeological report on Ayodhya, were among six new faces appointed as Governors on Sunday.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
Baghel went on to allege that the RSS brought "aggressive Hindutva" here, saying that it believes in "destroying everyone whose thinking does not match theirs".
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.
State Election Commission has found nine articles in local newspapers as "paid news" during Chhattisgarh assembly polls and directed that expenses incurred in publishing them be added to poll expenditure of parties and candidates concerned.
The Maharashtra Congress has convened a meeting of its legislators on Tuesday in view of the developments in the state that saw a split in the Nationalist Congress Party and Ajit Pawar being inducted as deputy chief minister in the Eknath Shinde government.
Pilot said "opportunist" people are ruling at the Centre after taking votes on emotions but they have failed the country on all fronts.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Allocation of portfolios would be the immediate vexatious issue for the party, with supporters of Virbhadra Singh already feeling sidelined after the elevation of the late chief minister's professed rival Sukhu.
This cult of speed reaches its crowning glory during that peculiar Indian spectacle called medical camps. Medical camps are an activity in which doctors from cities travel to underserved areas, often on weekends, where the poor are then herded in hundreds for deliverance, photo-ops and freebies. In their more evolved form, there are surgical camps where bewildered and overawed patients are put onto operating tables and, much like an assembly line, a series of operations are performed in rapid succession. The surgical instruments are often magically sterilised in minutes between procedures, says Dr Sanjay Nagral.
As the old Parliament building hosted a session one last time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday bid a poignant farewell recalling the country's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru's iconic 'tryst with destiny' speech for continuing to inspire everyone and another predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 'governments may come and go' remark.
Outcome of Assembly polls in five states will set the tone for the winter session of Parliament beginning on Thursday though the government has listed a heavy legislative agenda and opposition is demanding extension of the 12-day sitting.
BJP president J P Nadda on Sunday promised Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and 33 per cent reservation for women in government jobs in Himachal Pradesh while releasing the party's manifesto for the state assembly polls.
The BJP and Congress have already launched spirited campaigns for the elections.
Mukesh Agnihotri, the leader of opposition in the outgoing assembly, was administered the oath as the deputy chief minister.
'Adivasi seats will sound the bugle of the end of the BJP regime in Gujarat.'
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
"The Congress have gone and made promises in Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that they never fulfilled," Rajeev Chandrasekhar claimed.
The Congress's loss in the three states in the North-East, a region it had dominated for decades, shows there is a lot left to do to reclaim its political turf despite the Bharat Jodo Yatra which it had touted as a successful experiment in mass public outreach.
Addressing a gathering after the 'bhoomi pujan' of a bottling plant here, Adityanath said people are seeing that those who showed little respect for law and order earlier were now running for their lives.
Addressing a function to mark 'Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas' in Jashpur district, Bhagwat appealed to tribals to stay strong against those who try to dupe them by taking advantage of their innocence.
'Modi is imposing himself as the face of Gujarat to send a message that people should not forget that a Gujarati is prime minister.'
Some of them have also endorsed Sachin Pilot as chief minister. However, they added that whatever decision the party high command takes in this regard, they will accept it.
'As Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Delhi, on 24th December 2022, the security of the Bharat Jodo Yatra was compromised on multiple occasions'
Soren also claimed that his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma indulged in "purchase" of Jharkhand MLAs.
The Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly while the BJP got 25 seats.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
He alleged that the people of Madhya Pradesh were 'befooled' by the saffron party as there was no council of ministers or a health or home minister in place in the state amid the crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak.
'The BJP while being in government in Gujarat continues to campaign like an Opposition party whereas the Opposition does the opposite.'
He told PTI in an interview that parties that are still thinking of 'being the leader' of a possible united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls have not understood the gravity of the situation at all.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
