Pandey's retirement comes days before the Election Commission is to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls.
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Saturday said the Lok Sabha poll mandate is a "decisive rejection" of the politics of divisiveness and hate, and stressed that the INDIA bloc must continue functioning cohesively both inside and outside Parliament.
No one else filed papers till Sunday, according to Mullapally Ramachandran, the chairman of the party's Central Election Authority.
In a letter to Kharge, Khan said he will not campaign for party candidates for the remaining phases of the Lok Sabha polls and is also resigning from the state Congress campaign committee.
Chairman of central election authority Madhusudan Mistri will be available in Congress headquarters in the national capital to take the nomination papers as returning officer of the election.
Over the past week, Rahul Gandhi has replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa, and brought in young leaders as secretaries. These changes are unlikely to be a one-time exercise and poll-bound states would get the primary attention.
A senior party leader on the condition of anonymity said the CWC meeting will be called next week although the agenda is to be worked out and finalised.
The Congress on Thursday accused the central government of evading a debate on India-China border face-off and asked why the Modi government has been running away from the issue.
'BJP and RSS may have differences over minor issues but their hearts long for one common aim -- that of A Hindu Rashtra.' 'And this time to prove this point the RSS has prepared to help BJP win this election with all its might.'
Congress's Lok Sabha members Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Karti Chidambaram, Pradyut Bordoloi and Abdul Khaleque said this list must be made available in order to verify who is entitled to nominate a candidate and who is entitled to vote.
There was speculation that he might meet the party's All India Congress Committee in-charge of Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and other senior leaders, but sources close to Pilot said no meetings were fixed.
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
Former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, who was on Sunday elected the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislative party in Himachal Pradesh, hit out at the Congress, alleging its government was failing to deliver on poll promises and leaders were moving in different directions.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday chaired a meeeting of the party's Central Election Committee to finalise candidates for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls.
Sharma claimed he has received complaints that neither any virtual nor any physical meeting was held to finalise the electoral rolls, the sources said.
Congress MLA Narensh Saini and Samajwadi Party MLA Hari Om Yadav, both from Uttar Pradesh, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday, a day after the ruling party suffered a jolt with the resignation of state government minister Swami Prasad Maurya.
Tewari's consideration to contest comes amid the reports of several party top leaders being in the fray.
Rahul is looking to bring new leadership in the state units that can bring in the young generation back into the party fold and revive its sagging image and morale. Renu Mittal reports
'The message is loud and clear: "If you're not falling in line, we will open a line of understanding with the MNS, and then the Shiv Sena will be in trouble".'
Former Goa chief minister Churchill Alemao on Saturday resigned from the Congress to contest as an independent candidate from the South Goa Lok Sabha seat, protesting the denial of a party ticket to his daughter Valanka.
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.
'Not just Maharashtra, the Congress has not fielded even one Muslim candidate from Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.'
Controversial Punjabi singer Sidhu Mussewala, who joined the Congress sometime ago will contest from Mansa and actor Sonu Sood's sister Malvika Sood from Moga.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
By filing his nomination as Congress president on Friday, Shashi Tharoor has shown he is no 'quockerwodger' -- a word he introduced into our lexicon which means someone acting on the instructions of an influential third party.
Over 2.5 million voters will decide the fate of 239 candidates in the fray for 26 Jammu and Kashmir assembly seats in the second phase of the election to be held in the Union territory on Wednesday.
'Nearly 10 million people will benefit from the increase in the rebate limit for those earning up to Rs 12 lakh.' 'We expect all that money will come back into the economy in either savings, consumption, or investments.'
While Brijlal Khabri, former BSP MP from Jalaun, is UP Congress Committee chairman, former UP cabinet minister and Mayawati's once close confidant Naseemuddin Siddiqui heads the party's state media department. Completing the ex-BSP troika, Nakul Dubey, former UP cabinet minister in the Mayawati dispensation (2007-12), is one of the six UP Congress regional presidents. He is reckoned among the most active of the three.
In a four-cornered fight, the real battle is between Union minister Pratima Bhoumik and CPM's Kaushik Chanda.
United States President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the nomination of popular Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, 44, as his defence secretary.
'This is the victory of the people of Gujarat who want real development, not the hype of development.'
Names of Hardik Patel, the face of the Patidar agitation ahead of the 2017 polls who quit the Congress to join the BJP, and Rivaba Jadeja, wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, figure in the list.
Bharatiya Janata Party's firebrand leader Sushma Swaraj will contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections from Bhopal or Vidisha constituency in Madhya Pradesh.The final decision about her nomination will be taken by the Central Election Committee on February 26, she told rediff.com.
"The film has been made to insult the entire Sikh community. We will not let the movie release in Mohali or anywhere in Punjab. The SGPC is united in this matter," said Rajinder Singh Tohra, a member of the SGPC.
Karra, who became the J&K Congress chief last Friday replacing Vikar Rasool Wani, said a call is already there for all secular parties who are opposed to the "hegemonic attitude" of the BJP to unite.
This will be the first time that the Congress, since its ouster from power in 2014, will get the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It failed to get the position in the past 10 years as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House, both in 2014 and 2019.
Speaking to the media, Gehlot, who is in Kerala to take part in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, said, "I said earlier that I will request him (Rahul Gandhi) to accept this post when all the Congress Committees are passing resolutions in this regard. He made it clear that no one from the Gandhi family will become the next chief. He said he has decided this due to some reasons, a non-Gandhi family member will become the party chief."
Devendra Fadnavis will lead the new Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar serving as deputy chief ministers. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday evening at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers. The Mahayuti coalition won the recent assembly elections by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
'The Constitution of India is a stumbling block. So, they want a Presidential mode of election.' 'This is the sole purpose of the BJP to go for one nation, one election.'
