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.
Sitaram Yechury strived to have the country's Left movement shed its doctrinaire approach to India's socio-cultural complexities and stitch electoral and social alliances to fight the Sangh Parivar.
The last electoral contest for the top post of the party took place in 2000 when Jitendra Prasada had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.
Ramesh, however, said it was too early to talk about all this right now as the Congress' first priority was the upcoming elections in Karnataka and the string of state polls this year.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday dubbed the electoral bonds as the 'world's biggest extortion scheme' and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 'champion of corruption'.
However, he claimed that this was a fight to save the party and its ideology and to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister once again.
While Hardik Patel will contest from Viramgam, Rivaba Jadeja has been fielded from Jamnagar North.
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.
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.
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.
Local residents have stressed that land acquisition for rehabilitation must be completed promptly, as it has been delayed after estate owners challenged it in the Kerala high court.
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.
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.
'The government does not want to be transparent or accountable. Therefore, they do not want to appoint information commissioners.'
Senior Congress leader and Maharashtra assembly poll candidate Balasaheb Thorat has asserted that the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will win a clear majority and also indicated his chief ministerial aspirations. Thorat, who is among the senior leaders in the MVA after NCP (SP) head Sharad Pawar, said he enjoys cordial relations with leaders of the alliance. He also criticized the ruling Mahayuti coalition, accusing it of corruption and communal politics.
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
Pandey's retirement comes days before the Election Commission is to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls.
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 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.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
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.
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.
Sharma claimed he has received complaints that neither any virtual nor any physical meeting was held to finalise the electoral rolls, the sources said.
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.
Tewari's consideration to contest comes amid the reports of several party top leaders being in the fray.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.'
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.
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.
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.
'Not just Maharashtra, the Congress has not fielded even one Muslim candidate from Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.'
After a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, which was stormy at times, the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest policy making body, authorised incumbent chief Sonia Gandhi to schedule the internal elections after the conclusion of assembly polls in five states due to be held in April-May.
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."
Party sources said Gandhi is likely to be the sole candidate for the post and is 'deemed to be the next party chief on Dec 5.
