About 20 Punjab Congress leaders met in Ludhiana on Tuesday, with some of them batting for a key role for Navjot Singh Sidhu, the former state party unit chief who was among the participants.
There are concerns within the Congress with respect to the articulation of the party's demand for the caste census, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently accusing the grand old party of attempting to divide Hindus through its push for the Other Backward Classes.
The Congress has so far announced 82 candidates for the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls beginning April 19.
Now, every state election -- first up, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year, then Delhi in January and Bihar in September next year -- will be seen by his followers for evidence of his recovery, and by rivals of sharpening decline, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna on Saturday floated the idea of having three more Deputy Chief Ministers in Karnataka, and said he will discuss it with the Congress high command, keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
'But the coldness between the two is definitely melting.'
In its complaint against Shah, the Congress told the EC that the home minister claimed in a speech in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon on October 16 that "...Bhupesh Baghel's government, for appeasement politics and vote bank politics, lynched Chhattisgarh's son Bhuneshwar Sahoo and got him killed..."
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
Amritpal Singh, the chief of the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit, who is lodged in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act, has thrown his hat into the ring as an Independent.
His remarks come a day after Ajit Pawar apologised to the people of the state for the collapse of the structure which was installed in the coastal district's Malvan tehsil, around 480km from Mumbai.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the Centre would soon form a committee which would adopt all possible ways for empowering Madigas (a SC community) with regard to their demand of categorisation of Scheduled Castes.
The Congress party continues to be racked by arbitrary decision-making and the absence of accountability.
Sources said the process was stuck since Rahul Gandhi is not willing to contest the election for the post of Congress president, although all the efforts to convince him are still going on.
Earlier, when reporters asked Nath about his party's strategy for the elections in the central Indian state, he had said the party had not started talks of alliance with anyone.
'The message has gone loud and clear (among the people of Assam) that the BJP is only interested in polarising (the country) and they are basically interested in (capturing votes in) the Hindi heartland and they don't bother much about rest of India.'
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.
'Some in the Congress believe the party should, somewhat brazenly, claim the cause of fighting corruption as its own. But the Congress's idea of fighting corruption is nothing but tinkering with laws, it lacks the stomach to take on the corrupt,' feels T V R Shenoy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed 14 rallies in Madhya Pradesh during campaigning for polls and reached out to young voters by reminding them of the failures of previous Congress governments on various fronts as he doubled down on development of all sections.
While the Gandhi siblings have had their way with Amarinder Singh's ouster, the future of the party under the temperamental Navjot Sidhu's leadership is uncertain, reports Sai Manish.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday named former Army Chief V K Singh as its Lok Sabha candidate from Ghaziabad, a seat represented by party chief Rajnath Singh earlier.
At the same time, Sonia Gandhi does not want to hold the post due to health reasons and Rahul wants a non-Gandhi should hold the post in place of Sonia.
Union Minister Manish Tewari, who has been hospitalised due to a heart ailment, is unlikely to contest the Lok Sabha polls, sources said on Sunday.
The BJP released the list a day after its central election committee met to finalise the names of its candidates for the high-stakes election.
Long queues were seen at outpatient department ticket counters in government hospitals, where senior doctors joined their junior colleagues in the protest.
Mahua asserted that despite all efforts by the Bharatiya Janata Party to "sound the death knell" for constitutional democracy, India is too great a country to be destroyed by the fascists.
'Minus Modi, the BJP will get only 50 seats.' 'He is planning 25 big meetings in Gujarat and that will make a difference.'
The impending expulsion of Trinamool Congress (TMC) member Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha, three bills to replace criminal laws and a proposed law for the appointment of election commissioners are issues set to dominate the Winter Session of Parliament, with the government urging the Opposition to ensure a conducive environment for discussions in the House.
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and the Union Territory of neighbouring Puducherry are likely to go to polls in April or May.
Opinion polls by a section of the media channels have stated that Harish Rawat is the most liked politician for the post of chief minister, way ahead of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee voiced support for MP Mahua Moitra on Monday, asserting that the party stands behind her in the face of a recommendation for expulsion from Lok Sabha over a 'cash-for-query' controversy.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
After the resolution was passed, Chaudhary said being a president of the Delhi unit he has seen the sentiments of Delhi Congress workers and supporters for Rahul Gandhi that only he can fight against the ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party.
Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and some other MPs suspended from Parliament will not be able to attend the meetings of parliamentary committees of which they are a member or chairperson till their suspension is revoked.
Eighteen Jharkhand Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs were suspended from the assembly till 2 pm of August 2 and were removed by marshals after they refused to leave the House on Thursday.
Releasing the manifesto titled 'Badlav Ka Sankalp' (commitment to change) in the presence of All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala and other Mahagathbandhan leaders, Tejashwi Yadav said their government, if elected, would first approve the process for appointments on about 10 lakh jobs in the government.
With his three-week temporary bail for poll campaign ending, Aam Aadmi Party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be back in Tihar Jail on Sunday as a court here put off till June 5 its order on his plea seeking interim bail on medical grounds.
Putting pressure on ally Congress over the deadlock regarding seat sharing for the Maharashtra Assembly polls, NCP said a meeting of its core committee in Mumbai on Monday will take a final call on the matter even as it asserted that it is sticking to its "original demand".
It will be clear whether the voters preferred the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led regime for a third term or the "six guarantees" by the Congress worked any miracles or the BJP's BC chief minister 'mantra' wooed the electors or if there will be a fractured verdict, by tomorrow evening.
The Central Committee members on Sunday elected a 25-member Political Bureau which picked the Standing Committee members to govern the country.
Some have been cherry-picked to assert the BJP's supremacy over its allies or, significantly, its leaders who charted an independent course in the recent past.
