In private, questions are being raised about the wisdom of a 'dual-SIM' leadership during the long run-up to the 2026 assembly polls where 'family rule' could become an election issue, reports N Sathiya Moorthy.
The opposition also made it clear that they have taken over the state-wide protest against SilverLine and would continue the agitation till the government withdraws from the initiative which they termed as "destructive" for the southern state.
Considering the anticipatory bail plea moved by George, the high court granted him interim relief with conditions.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Only when you are close to the party, will you understand what the BJP stands for.'
The consent is akin to a blanket nod for the agency to probe scheduled offences specified in the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DPSE) Act, 1946.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'While the Congressmen were fighting, the LDF was quietly doing its job, perhaps bringing in results in the lives of the people.' 'Pinarayi Vijayan and several ministers in his cabinet believed that the government should do real business, which is not to fight with the UDF but govern.'
The go-ahead given to prosecute Arundhati Roy would be seen by supporters of freedom of speech as an announcement that the Right-Wing doesn't feel humbled by the results of the elections, argues Shyam G Menon.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
In a setback to the Congress in Kerala, senior party leader K Sudhakaran on Thursday said he would not contest against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Dharmadom constituency in northern Kannur district.
'The path of militant Hindutva that the BJP's national leadership chose as its main electoral plank literally dug the grave for the party in Kerala,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Friday sought to quell the suggestions of its rift with the Bharatiya Janata Party and that Mohan Bhagwat's recent critical references related to the Lok Sabha polls were aimed at the ruling party, insisting that such claims are just speculation meant to create confusion.
'One is happy. The moment one starts criticising the BJP, ED, IT and CBI comes to one's house.'
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
Veteran Communist leader and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan, one of the most popular and crowd-puller leaders in the history of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in the state, turned 100 on Friday.
Irani said the show of strength by the Congress is aimed at putting pressure on the probe agency, and asserted that nobody is above the law "even Rahul Gandhi".
Meanwhile, allegations and counter claims continued on polling day as well, with Chandy's son -- Chandy Oommen -- claiming that his father and their family had been hounded for over 20 years.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
'Barring Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the BJP will may make inroads in Karnataka, Andhra and Telangana in 2024.'
If a 15 seconds-long mic problem merits a case being registered, then the police risk an avalanche of complaints of similar and greater gravity, seeking their intervention, notes Shyam G Menon.
'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.' 'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
This takes the number of suspended MPs in the Lok Sabha to 97.
IMD issued red alerts for Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Idukki districts.
Voting for by-elections to seven assembly constituencies of six states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tripura, West Bengal, and Jharkhand, started on Tuesday at 7 am.
Tharoor said that every 'Ram bhakt' was not a Bharatiya Janata party supporter and he saw no reason why he or the grand old party should relinquish Lord Ram to the saffron party.
A purported video in which veteran Congress leader A K Antony's wife Elizabeth was seen justifying their elder son's recent entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party has gone viral on social media platforms, putting the Congress party in a fix in Kerala.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged on Friday that China was preparing for war and the Indian government is sleeping over it and trying to ignore the threat.
In a major organisational rejig ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Saturday appointed Avinash Pande the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, replacing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while Sachin Pilot was made the general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh.
Antony, along with his wife Elizabeth, reached Chandy's residence in Thiruvananthapuram to bid adieu to his trusted lieutenant during trying times of their decades-long political career.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
Congress candidate R Selvaraj defeated the CPI-M's F Lawrence by a comfortable margin of 6,334 votes in the June 4 bypoll whose outcome has come as a morale-booster to the one-year old Oommen Chandy ministry. Selvaraj had resigned as CPI-M member of the assembly in March this year citing serious differences with the party leadership, causing the byelection, before joining Congress
Against the backdrop of Kerala's appetite for commonsense, it was assumed that this controversy would pass. Respect for rationalism and scientific outlook is strong in the state despite political forces gnawing at it for their own goals, observes Shyam G Menon.
Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor will face-off in an electoral contest on Monday for the post of All India Congress Committee chief, as the party gets set to have a non-Gandhi president in over 24 years.
No one from the Gandhi family was present at the All India Congress Committee headquarters when the leaders filed their nominations for the election.
Singh has questioned the reliability of the EVMs on more than one occasion following the Congress' defeat in the recent assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
The senior politician's arrest was formally recorded after he was brought to Thiruvananthapuram via road from his residence and thereafter, he was produced before a duty magistrate who granted him bail.
The Left government in Kerala on Thursday withdrew a handbook for police personnel on duty at the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala after the Bharatiya Janata Party raised a hue and cry over a mention in the book that all pilgrims can enter the temple.
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