A strong view is now emerging -- at the top levels of the All India Congress Committee and the United Progressive Alliance government -- over the recent spat between state Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and Union Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy on the Gas pricing issue.
Spurred by the spectacular victory of the YSR Congress in the by-elections, many ruling Congress members of Legislative Assembly and main opposition Telugu Desam Party are believed to be keen to join the Jaganmohan Reddy bandwagon in Andhra Pradesh but he is said to wary of taking all of them.
YSR Congress Party on Friday called a general strike across Andhra Pradesh protesting the tabling of Telangana Bill in Lok Sabha terming it as a "mockery" of democracy.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
Jaganmohan Reddy, whose party has nine MPs, had already announced last month that his party parliamentarians would quit on April 6, at the end of the budget session, if the special category status was not granted.
This will pave the way for emergence of 24,000 new panchayat-level leaders in Telangana, he said.
In the backdrop of the Delhi gang-rape case, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee President Botsa Satyanarayana on Monday stirred a controversy by questioning the need for women to roam in streets at midnight.
In view of the Andhra CM's resignation from the post and the Congress, party president Sonia Gandhi has requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to grant special category status to the Seema-Andhra for five years. Renu Mittal reports
In an unprecedented action in state legislature history, Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar on Friday night disqualified 16 MLAs of ruling Congress who had voted against the party government during a no-trust motion in December last year sailing with expelled Congress leader Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
As the Centre grapples with the Telangana crisis, Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan on Saturday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and is understood to have briefed him about the situation in the agitation-hit region.
Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar on Saturday issued notices to nine Congress and as many Telugu Desam Party MLAs on petitions seeking their disqualification for voting in favour of the no-confidence motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi is all set to move a No-Confidence Motion against the ruling Congress government in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday.
In significant upsets, the Congress on Wednesday wrested a Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka and an assembly seat in Gujarat in two Bharatiya Janata Party strongholds after 15 years but it was routed in Andhra Pradesh due to the Telangana factor.
Cracking the whip, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday suspended for at least five sittings 12 members from Andhra Pradesh who have been agitating against decision to form Telangana and paralysing the House since the current session began on August 5.
Pawar said even during the Emergency years there was a feeling in political circles that nothing would change for the next 25 years, but people ushered in change the very next year in 1977.
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.
The party is very much united and working together, the AICC general secretary organisation said.
State police, however, denied there was any breach of security but said one Congress worker has been apprehended in this connection, while three other party workers were arrested for trying to enter the airport with black balloons.
The 13 members include, sitting Congress MLA Danasari Anasuya (Seethakka) and former legislator Vem Narendar Reddy.
'As Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Delhi, on 24th December 2022, the security of the Bharat Jodo Yatra was compromised on multiple occasions'
Pawar said state Congress leaders Ashok Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat had met him and extended an invitation to participate in the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
There's a lot riding on the film stars campaigning in Andhra Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections, as the state bifurcation issue will play a dominant factor in the regions of Seema-Andhra and Telangana. Vicky Nanjappa reports
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
The assertion by the Congress came after Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, citing concerns raised by three BJP MPs over the spread of coronavirus, urged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to consider suspending the Bharat Jodo Yatra if adherence to Covid protocols cannot be followed.
Satish Sharma was a Gandhi family loyalist and was among those who mentored Rahul Gandhi in his early days in politics. He died in Goa at 73.
In Tamil Nadu, though reformist spiritual giant Sri Ramanujacharya was a crusader against discrimination who nurtured equality almost a millenium ago, the broad canvas of social justice had only an occasional place for him.
YSR Congress, which is fourth largest party with 22 members in the 17th Lok Sabha, wants to maintain equidistance from both the ruling and opposition sides.
Congress leader and former union minister Captain Satish Sharma died in Goa on Wednesday after a brief illness. He was 73.
Addressing a press conference, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and the party's chief whip in the Upper House Jairam Ramesh alleged that the government is throttling the voice of the Opposition leaders to prevent them from raising issues of public importance.
A proposal to give foodgrains instead of cash to agriculture workers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has "not received" any positive response, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told Rajya Sabha.
Keeping the Lok Sabha polls in mind, the Congress has chalked out a strategy in which all regions in Andhra Pradesh will remain happy, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
Moving forward following the decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh, the Congress on Tuesday night appointed separate Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs for Seemandhra and Telangana.
The Congress has almost decided to accept the demand for a separate state of Telangana but is still to work out the nitty-gritty of Andhra Pradesh's bifurcation.
In a startling development, a Union minister and Congress leader has dashed off a letter to the Andhra Pradesh governor, urging him to take action against the state government ruled by his own party
With the Congress leadership reportedly inching towards a favourable decision on Telangana statehood demand, a party member of Legislative Assembly and several YSR Congress legislators from non-Telangana regions on Thursday said they have "resigned" in support of united Andhra Pradesh.
The Andhra Pradesh high court's verdict striking down the 4.5 per cent reservation quota of the central government for the minorities has evoked a strong reaction from the Muslim community.
The ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh has remained unfazed over Thursday's developments in which senior party leaders decided to join the Telangana Rashtra Samithi over the separate statehood issue.
Serious difference in Andhra Pradesh's ruling Congress party on the issue of Telangana state further deepened with ministers and other leaders stepping up their attacks directly on Chief Minister K Rosaiah.
Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu blamed the ruling Congress for the present state of affairs in Andhra Pradesh and asked the party to bail the state out of the crisis. "This has become such a complex issue that divisions have taken place in political parties. Congress is responsible for this and they should solve the problem," Naidu, on a tour of West Godavari and East Godavari districts in coastal Andhra, said at Tanuku.
