In yet another blow to the Congress in poll-bound Kerala, All India Congress Committee member and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president K C Rosakutty on Monday resigned from the party's primary membership and decided to associate with the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF.
Veteran Communist leader and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan, one of the most popular and crowd-puller leaders in the history of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in the state, turned 100 on Friday.
India's opposition parties have sharply criticized the Union Budget, calling it inadequate to address the country's economic woes and accusing the BJP-led government of using it to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi ahead of upcoming elections. Leaders from the Congress, TMC, DMK, SP, and CPI(M) voiced their disapproval, highlighting concerns over inflation, unemployment, and the lack of substantial measures to support the agricultural sector and the poor. They also criticized the tax cuts for the middle class as insufficient and coming too late after years of high taxes and rising prices.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
The chief contestants in the poll are the AINRC leader N Rangasamy heading the NDA in which the AINRC, AIADMK and BJP are the constituents.
The LDF government -- which has negotiated a series of crises in the form of natural disasters to the Covid pandemic -- cannot turn a blind eye to the accumulated debt of the state that now exceeds Rs 3 trillion and the need for more jobs, investment and industry.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
'Metro man' E Sreedharan, a much-admired technocrat who is credited with changing the face of public transport system in the country, will join the Bharatiya Janata Party giving a boost to the saffron party ahead of the assembly polls in Kerala.
Ruling Congress-led UDF in Kerala on Saturday suffered a setback in the civic elections, billed as the semifinal ahead of next year's assembly polls, as CPI-M-led LDF won a majority of local bodies while the BJP made inroads improving its performance.
In a significant political development, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday that an alliance with the Congress was finalised for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, which is going for its maiden assembly polls after being reorganised into a Union Territory.
Biju Janata Dal president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday appealed to all members of the Odisha assembly to support the National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu in the upcoming presidential election, describing her as the daughter of the state.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said his party would oppose the Centre's move to bring a bill in Parliament to amend the 1995 law governing Waqf boards, and accused the BJP of trying to snatch the rights of Muslims.
The meeting of the 14-member all-important panel of the opposition will take place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on September 13 evening.
Leaders of the Communist Party of India-Marxist gathered last week in Kerala, the only state the CPI-M still rules today.
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.
The Bahujan Samaj Party will contest in all the 140 assembly seats in Kerala in the forthcoming elections, scheduled to be held on April 13. Speaking to mediapersons on Saturday, Gafoor Puthuppadi, general secretary, BSP Kerala unit, alleged that both the ruling Communist part of India-Marxist led Left Democratic Front and the Congress-led opposition United Democratic Front were anti-development, and had betrayed people's expectations.
CPI-M alleged that some Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party workers came in a vehicle and hurled a bomb at Pinarayi in Dharmadam assembly segment from where CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan won.
Meanwhile, the Congress and RSP whole-heartedly backed the Kollam MP.
Pointing out that this is the first time that a complete alliance has been formed by the major Left parties in Bihar, the Communist Party of India state secretary Rajendra Prasad Singh said top Central leaders of the three parties will campaign together for the by-elections.
Regarding Satheesan, he said that "if we see each other at the venue, then we will see".
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
Bharatiya Janata President president Amit Shah on Sunday said his party's main agenda was a "Congress free India".
The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Drawing examples from history to prove his point, Vijayan said a Muslim man named Azimullah Khan had coined the slogan 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
'Although there is a visible dent in TMC's urban votes, especially among women, the CPI-M and the BJP are unlikely to benefit from this'
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
The BJP president hit out at Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, alleging that the maximum killings of BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers have taken place in the latter's home district.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Karat dismissed a suggestion that the CPI (M) considered the EC as its 'enemy.'
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
Shah had launched the high profile 15-day yatra against the alleged 'red and jihadi terrorism' in Kerala.
The RSS leader said he had not violated any customs and claimed that he ascended the 18 steps carrying the sacred offerings.
There are few leaders in the Opposition line up who can claim a path to party leadership like Sitaram Yechury and certainly, very few who blended that ascent through student politics with awareness about non-elite real India, urban India and liberal politics, as he did, notes Shyam G Menon.
A special session of the Kerala Assembly is being convened on Wednesday to discuss the three contentious central farm laws and pass a resolution against the acts, whose repeal is being insisted by farmers agitating at the borders of Delhi for nearly a month.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
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