The Trinamool Congress and the Communist Party of India on Tuesday said they will skip the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building even as the war of words over the prime minister and not the President scheduled to do the honours on May 28 continued between the government and the Congress.
A day before the start of the Budget session of Parliament, as many as 18 opposition parties, led by the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Shiv Sena and the Trinamool Congress, decided on Thursday to boycott the President's address to the joint sitting of both Houses in solidarity with the farmers protesting against the new farm laws.
Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Bannerjee's ultimatum of "48 hours" to finalise sharing of seats in West Bengal worked. Without asking for more seats, the Congress on Thursday talked of "larger perspective of defeating the Communist Party of India-Marxist" in deciding to contest only 14 Lok Sabha seats, leaving the remaining 26 seats in the state for her party.
There was considerable disquiet in the Congress after Mukherjee accepted the invitation of the RSS to address its workers at its headquarters in Nagpur.
'The decline of the Congress party and its inability to play the lead role in Opposition politics has created a space for the TMC to expand.'
Training his guns directly at the Kerala Chief Minister and the Left wing Students Federation of India, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Tuesday claimed that his car was 'attacked' by Students' Federation of India (SFI) activists at the behest of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Kharge also hit back at the BJP for criticising his party colleague Rahul Gandhi over a copy of the Constitution with a red cover. He showed a picture of PM Modi gifting a similar copy to former president Ramnath Kovind.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
State RJD president Jagadanand Singh on Saturday announced its candidates for two seats, having done the same for 21 others a week ago, and declared that it was leaving one for the Left parties.
Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026. The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Modi, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress has gained the maximum number of 15 seats from the Asom Gana Parishad followed by seven seats from the Bharatiya Janata Party, four from All India United Democratic Front, five from Independents and one from the Communist Party of India.
Miffed over the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's "approach" towards finalising a seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India - Marxist and the Communist Party of India on Thursday called off their month-old alliance with the Jayalalithaa-led party.
As rescue operations in the landslide-hit areas of this north Kerala district entered fifth day, rescuers unearthed more bodies and body parts, taking the death toll to 215, with around 206 people still reported missing.
Meanwhile, the Congress and RSP whole-heartedly backed the Kollam MP.
The Chinese Communist party has not closed its door of contacts and negotiation with the Dalai Lama, a senior Communist leader wrote recently. Former RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade explains what the thinking on Tibet is likely in Beijing.
A full bench comprising of Chief Information Commissioner Satyanand Mishra and Commissioners M L Sharma and Annapurna Dikshit of the Central Information Commission reserved its verdict on political funding.
Even as the dust settles on one election, glory in Thiruvananthapuram has come with a new question on the horizon: Who will be UDF's candidate in the next Lok Sabha election given Shashi Tharoor has said 2024 would be his last? It isn't a vacancy that can be easily filled, points out Shyam G Menon.
Rahul Gandhi said both Rae Bareli and Wayanad "will get two MPs".
Trinamool Congress MP Kabir Suman said "his party is not doing anything for the people", and that he felt "suffocated and helpless" as an elected representative.
The Communist parties warned the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition not to take their support for granted. \n\n
An opposition party in Sri Lanka on Monday accused Congress president Sonia Gandhi of 'gross interference' in the country's internal affairs for seeking constitutional amendments to fulfil the political aspirations of the ethnic Tamil community in Colombo."Mrs Gandhi has said that there must be constitutional changes to address Sri Lankan Tamil issues. This is a gross interference in our internal affairs," said Tilwin Silva, general secretary of JVP.
'Even though as Xi will seemingly continue to stay in power beyond his third term, competitions for the post-Xi leadership would be inevitably unfolded beneath the surface of water, and that will be a big headache for Xi the dictator.'
Apart from the two major parties (Cong: 98; BJP: 67) the Bahujan Samaj Party is leading in four seats, while the Janata Dal-United and the Communist Party of India-Marxist are ahead in one each.
China's deteriorating economy is a serious concern. Xi Jinping and China's new premier will have a difficult task ahead of them after the 20th party congress, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and China expert.
If as critics point out, the environmental impact assessment study was commissioned only after the auction process got underway with not all the stakeholders getting to know of it, then the government has already compromised the trust it could have enjoyed with Kerala's public including its coastal communities, points out Shyam G Menon.
Apparently referring to ally Trinamool Congress, United Progressive Alliance Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday once again appealed to those who have not yet decided on supporting him to do so.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
The new alliance is called United Democratic Alliance.
The Election Commission has announced dates from October 18 for polls in the state.
Justice Dash said he was "ready to go back to the organisation" if they call him for any assistance or for any work that he was capable of doing.
If the Third Front -- currently comprising nine parties opposed to both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party -- manages to get more seats than the Congress, the Communist Party of India - Marxist led Left Front will work towards ensuring that the next prime minister is made from this bloc.But if the Congress' own tally turns out to be larger than the cumulative strength of the alternative-seekers, the Left will support a Congressman for the top slot.
The Congress expressed its 'whole-hearted' support to the 'Bharat bandh' called by farmer unions against the new agri-marketing laws and announced that it will hold protests that day at all district and state headquarters in solidarity with the demands of the farmers. TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the party rank and file would actively participate in the bandh to ensure it was a success.
Strongly condemning the Maoist attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh, the Communist Party of India(ML) has said that such an action would result in perpetuating more state violence on the poor tribals.
Setting aside ideological differences, the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India Marxist have joined hands in Sikkim to unitedly fight Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling's Sikkim Democratic Front in the assembly polls scheduled to be held later this year.The decision to form the UDF was taken in a meeting of Opposition leaders. The alliance is between the three national level parties and two other regional parties.
On its own or with allies the Congress has a strong presence in states that account for a total of 253 LS seats, or 20 short of the magic figure of 272 required to form a government at the Centre. So what is Mamata Banerjee talking about, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If we truly wish to understand and apply Marx's insights today, we must reject the rigid dogmas that later 'Marxists' imposed in his name.'
The government on Wednesday hoped that four political parties in Andhra Pradesh -- Congress, Telugu Desam Party, MIM and YSR Congress -- will take a call on Telangana issue by end of December, enabling it to convene an all-party meeting.
The special session is set to commence on a stormy note on account of Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha's stout refusal to resign despite the new ruling dispensation's motion of no-confidence against him.
Veteran Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare, who was shot at earlier this week, died at a hospital in Mumbai late Friday night after he was airlifted for treatment to the city this evening from Kolhapur. He was 82.
