The Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance, which fought the April 2 assembly polls with the fancy claim of winning at least 35 seats in Kerala, on Sunday came a cropper as it failed to retain even its lone segment Nemom, even as all its major contestants, including 'Metroman' E Sreedharan and party state chief K Surendran, fell by the wayside.
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Telangana issue rocked Parliament on Monday with Lok Sabha Speaker Meria Kumar taking the unprecedented step of suspending nine members -- four of Telugu Desam Party and five Congress -- from Andhra Pradesh for creating "grave disorder".
Though the people of Andhra Pradesh seem to have more or less reconciled to the fact that bifurcation of the state is inevitable, political parties in Seemandhra are leaving no stone unturned to stall the proposed division process, at least till the 2014 elections.
The issue of resignation by Congress MPs from Seemandhra continues to hang fire. Their meeting with Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has been delayed further.
The great Indian election is over and now the wait for the results is shrinking with every passing moment. Though exit polls hint at a cakewalk for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance, there are some battles which will be keenly observed on the result day.
In an open defiance, Union Minister M M Pallam Raju on Wednesday questioned the government's hurry to push the Telangana bill and said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's disapproval of disruptions in Parliament was not "fair".
'The BJP will not be able to create dictatorship of the kind it is perhaps dreaming of.' 'We have Bengal as the biggest example.'
Former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor has informed the Kerala High Court that he had not acquired any assets of his late wife Sunanda Pushkar either individually or jointly with her son or anybody else as her movable and immovable assets are not yet "ascertainable or estimable".
With Pinarayi Vijayan set to be chief minister, what will be the role for party patriarch V S Achuthanandan? And what are the key takeways from the election results in Kerala?
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said he is being targeted by people within his party because he is an outsider and decried criticism of his response to Narendra Modi's call to support the clean India campaign.
After forcing some governors to quit, the Narendra Modi government on Friday sacked Lt Governor of Puducherry Virendra Kataria, in the first such action against political appointees of the United Progressive Alliance regime.
Shashi Tharoor speaks to Shobha Warrier on the controversy over his article seen as praising Narendra Modi and what the future holds for the Congress and Rahul Gandhi.
'In the long term, the party that is going to be irrelevant is the Left.' 'It seems absurd that the people of Kerala are the last ones to wake up to the reality that this kind of discredited dogmatic ideological politics has no place in the modern world.'
Thiruvananthapuram did not give him a resounding victory, but did not abandon him either. If he learns his lessons and avoids the pitfalls of the past, he will have a bright political future, says T P Sreenivasan.
For Arnab Goswami, the television studio is a stage and he plays his part to the hilt, with a finger on the pulse of the English-speaking audience, says Veenu Sandhu
YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy is in New Delhi to protest the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. He tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa that he is in New Delhi to show the strength of the Telugu people to Sonia Gandhi.
Voters are disillusioned with the two rival fronts in the state and there are no effective alternatives either. G Sreedathan explains
'We are a national party that wants to remind people about Bharatiya sanskruti, which, at the moment, is being remote-controlled by an Italian lady and her agents,' says former Union minister O Rajagopal, the BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram who will challenge Shashi Tharoor.
It is not just film stars who are spicing up the poll scene in Andhra Pradesh, but also corporate honchos who are jumping on to the political bandwagon to try their fortunes in Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
The Telangana Bill, which was rejected by the Andhra Pradesh assembly on January 30, will return to the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday along with six bundles containing 8,049 amendments.
'If the Nairs split between Shashi Tharoor and the BJP candidate, O Rajagopal and the Nadars combine with the Leftists and the Christians to vote for the CPI candidate, Bennet Abraham, what would happen to Tharoor. It is presumed that the voters do not cast their votes, they vote their castes,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan
I am not a quitter. I was with the United Nations for 29 years. I don't know whether I will have 29 years in politics, but I don't intend to end with just 5 years, Dr Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Shobha Warrier
'Shashi Tharoor has publicised whatever little he has done, far more than what he has actually done. Some of the bigger promises he made could never be implemented.' Ajit Joy, a former police officer and Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Thiruvananthapuram, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier that he is a more attractive candidate in his constituency than sitting MP Tharoor.
The year threw up quite a few shockers, some rather rude one. Below are Rediff.com's 12 picks that made us sit back and think, 'Did that really happen?'
