The BJP believes that the only party still capable of leading a credible challenge against it is the Congress. Please note how BJP campaigners in states where the Congress may count for a cipher or thereabouts, mostly attack the Congress, observes Shekhar Gupta.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday turned down the Trinamool Congress' demand that the land of the unwilling farmers at Singur, acquired for the Tata Motors small car project, should be returned.
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
A rare meeting of the Congress Working Committee was held at 24 Akbar Road but after several hours of deliberations, Congress President Sonia Gandhi failed to put forward a road map for the party's revival or how to broaden the party's shrinking voter base. Instead, Gandhi focused much of her opening remarks on laying out a critique of the Narendra Modi government.
Analysts have their doubts how much independence she has as finance minister. As Amit Mitra advises the chief minister, day-to-day work is done by the finance secretary and the chief secretary.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bihar CM says there's no question of going back on supporting Kovind.
The Samajwadi Party is unwilling to cede ground to the BJP, especially in Amethi, since the Congress is too weak to counter the BJP's well-oiled election machinery.
In a jolt to the Congress ahead of Himachal Pradesh polls, senior leader Anand Sharma on Sunday resigned from the chairmanship of the party's steering committee for the state, saying he was left with no choice after the 'continuing exclusion and insults'.
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
'There is a group who want to internally damage the Congress and they may be hand in glove with the BJP.'
Higher education policy may be at the core of the Tamil Nadu assembly polls next May, with a potential to break the ties between the ruling AIADMK in the state and the BJP counterpart at the national level, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Reversing its earlier step, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to withdraw the ordinance as well as bill that sought to give protection to convicted lawmakers in the wake of public outburst against it by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.
Though the terms of reference of the committee to look into the creation of a Telangana state may come in the next few days, the Congress is worried about the 'political' price it may have to pay for moving too fast on the statehood issue.
The BJP top leader's Tamil pitch assumes significance Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had some days back alleged that the saffron party had no respect for Tamil language and culture.
The Central Committee members on Sunday elected a 25-member Political Bureau which picked the Standing Committee members to govern the country.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which is going to contest next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on the promise of creating leadership among Muslims, has created unease in the political parties that so far considered the members of the minority community as their core "vote bank".
Earlier, BJP leader Ram Lal said the Goa government is stable and no demand has been made for a change in the leadership.
Kharge said that while there are very responsible people in the party who were doing their duty, some people had assumed that lack of responsibility will be ignored.
The Congress in Kerala on Friday warned Shashi Tharoor against praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the former minister set the record straight holding that he is a "proud Congressman" and had not even remotely endorsed the "Hindutva agenda" of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'They want to keep the BJP out, but how to make it happen is the issue that the Congress high command will resolve.'
A top BJP leader from Bihar told ANI that Fadnavis is going to play a crucial role in the Bihar assembly election and he is associated with the Bihar BJP on purpose
President Xi Jinping, who has been occupying the top post since 2012, was unanimously chosen as a delegate to the ruling party's 20th national congress at the CPC Guangxi regional meeting on April 22.
Is Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi headed for a bigger role in the party or the government? When, muses Renu Mittal
'The two sides agree to continue firmly supporting each other in safeguarding their respective core interests,' a joint statement issued at the end of Muizzu's talks with Chinese leaders said.
In her three recent tweets posted on November 28, she congratulated Maharashtra's new Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray but not the government formed by the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress.
A crucial meeting of the Congress Core Group on Friday will discuss the Telangana issue with "both options open" as a decision "cannot be postponed anymore", said senior party leader Digvijay Singh.
The Congress' top leadership decided to rally firmly behind the Kiran Kumar Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh as the party prepares to face the Telangana issue after an official committee submits its report on the statehood issue by this month-end.
This will have an impact on inflation as everyone in the value chain passes on the costs.
'Looking at the changed political scenario in state, there is a need to think and decide the way ahead,' she wrote.
No decision has been taken so far on whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the of Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Sri Lanka on November 15-16, the external affairs ministry said on Thursday, asserting it will be taken after considering all aspects including "national interest" and "international obligations".
Many factors like women, caste combination, education qualification, age and performance of the legislators will be taken into consideration before the formation of the Yogi government 2.0, sources said on Thursday. Several rounds of meetings have taken place within the party after the poll results came out on March 10.
Babulal Chourasia, who had quit the Congress six years back, re-joined the party on Thursday in the presence of its state unit chief Kamal Nath in Bhopal. The move comes ahead of the local body elections in the state.
The 21st Law Commission said the special status given to the entity of HUF was a 'so-called gift by the British', who could not comprehend the complex socioeconomic structure of Indian families. 'Now, this status is being used for the evasion of tax only,' it said.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
The Karnataka BJP core committee had proposed only Tejaswini's name for the Lok Sabha seat, but Tejaswi Surya emerged the dark horse.
The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party leaders met on Tuesday morning to decide on seat sharing for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections but the talks were "inconclusive." With only four days left, to file nominations for the October 15 polls, time's running out for the 15-year-old alliance.
One way forward could be for the CWC to name an interim working president for the party and then ideally dissolve itself, following which the main leadership positions within the party, including the CWC itself, should be opened up to fresh elections
Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah on Thursday described the upcoming assembly elections as the second leg of the party's "Congress free India movement."
He said the timing of the decision would depend on the preparedness of three state leaders -- the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress president -- as they would have to present their case before the party's top brass.
