As Mallikarjun Kharge won the Congress president poll, his electoral rival Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said the 'democratic contest' has galvanised vibrancy at all levels and has prompted a healthy and constructive discussion on change, which will serve the party in good stead in the future.
A non-Gandhi is set to become the Congress president after 24 years.
After being elected president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in 1999, Najma Heptulla rang up the then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi from Berlin to convey the news but had to hold the phone line for an hour as a staff told her that 'madam is busy'.
According to the current projections, Republicans have won 51 seats in the 100-member upper house of US Congress, while the Democrats have 42.
Counting of votes began on Wednesday in the Congress presidential polls in which senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor faced-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
Speaking to media after meeting party functionaries at Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee office in Mumbai, the former diplomat also said his aim was to make Congress stronger before the 2024 polls.
'Someone posts a job on LinkedIn and there are a thousand resumes in an hour? This is not the America IT professionals are used to.' 'Once they lose their job, it's impossible to get a job.'
'There is ample evidence to suggest that attacks on the PM's probity and his connections with business houses do not resonate with voters.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
Carter was in politics, but not a politician, certainly not a transactional politician, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
The National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu swept the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality in Rairangpur, in this nondescript, tribal-dominated town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, ahead of her journey to Delhi.
'I would like to see Kharge include Shashi in the Congress Working Committee.' 'The other alternative is that the Congress will marginalise him.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary board on Tuesday named Droupadi Murmu, the party's tribal leader from Odisha, as the ruling National Democratic Alliance's candidate for the presidential election.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Left leaders met Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar separately on Tuesday to try and convince the veteran leader to be the joint opposition nominee for the presidential election.
Trump spoke approvingly of his recent telephone conversation with Xi Jinping. This could indicate the possibility of America and China reaching some level of tactical accommodation, which would not be good news for India, points out Ambassador Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary.
Amid the ongoing political turmoil in the Congress in Rajasthan, the party's chief whip in the state, Mahesh Joshi, on Tuesday said a meeting of the MLAs loyal to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was not called to mount pressure on the party high command.
From the 30-share Sensex pack, Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries, Infosys, Tata Motors, Infosys, Titan, Maruti and NTPC were among the major laggards. Mahindra & Mahindra, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and IndusInd Bank were the gainers.
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge- one of the candidates in the party's presidential polls, cast their votes in the election to the top post, for which voting is underway in Karnataka on Monday.
Showing total disregard for the US constitution, Trump has said that this could be the last election to be held in the country. A Trump presidency could lead to mass deportation of undocumented migrants and harsh family separation, warns Aseem Chhabra.
Mallikarjun Kharge has the stature, maturity and gravitas to lead a national party like the Congress with its rich history of struggle and myriad achievements, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
The two leaders had a complex relationship yet formed a partnership and even after their parting of ways, the two admired each other in their efforts for India's freedom.
Freedom At Midnight is a bold attempt to revisit the whole discourse about Partition, its causes, and the predicament under which the Congress leaders accepted it. It perfectly captures the extremely confused and complicated situation to which it seemed the only viable solution, observes Utkarsh Mishra.
Tharoor's close aide Aalim Javeri collected the forms from the office of the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on the first day of the start of the nomination process, all but confirming an electoral face-off for the top party post with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
Pilot said rules and discipline of the party apply to all, adding that he hoped Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge would take a decision in the matter soon.
Congress's presidential poll candidate Mallikarjun Kharge has stayed away from participating in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in his home state of Karnataka alongside Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as the party is keen on underlining the impartiality in the election to the top post, sources said on Monday.
He showed a video of Solanki and Poonia purportedly entering a hotel and exiting a hotel room one after the other.
'As far as skilled immigration is concerned, the US needs Indian skills and Indian talent, and there are no two opinions about it even among US companies.'
'There are ominous portents of an isolationist administration not only building a physical wall to the south to prevent unwanted immigrants from entering the land of milk and honey, but also trade walls not just against China, but all nations,' foresees Sreekant Sambrani.
He also asked why anyone seeking to contest the Congress president's election should go to the PCC office to get the electoral roll as this does not even happen in a club election.
Donald Trump's exaggerated opinion of his dealmaking capacity can get him into trouble, observes R Sriram.
Will he, will he not? That is the question on every Congress leader's mind as Rahul Gandhi has still not indicated whether he is ready to take on the mantle of party president.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and African heritage, has formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination becoming the first Indian-American to win the nomination from a major political party, and chose Minnesota Gov Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday.
The Day in Politics: Featuring Dr Singh, Messrs Kejriwal and Sisodia and Mamatadi.
He also said his equation with the Gandhi family will remain the same as it has been for the last 50 years.
In Karnataka, the BJP lost the elections because of multiple poles of power, a problem the central leadership could not sort out in time. Could the same happen to the Congress in Rajasthan? asks Aditi Phadnis.
In instructions for polling issued on Saturday, Congress central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry had said Pradesh Congress Committee members 'will mark '1' on the ballot paper against the name of the candidate and fold the ballot paper to put it into the ballot box'.
This comes amid ongoing probes by lawmakers and an internal government watchdog into how the agency handled Trump's safety and how a gunman nearly killed the Republican presidential candidate for Pennsylvania during a rally this month.
That's a deficit the NDA will have to make up with the help of 'friendly' alliance partners, the very groupings the PM has said are 'family-run'.
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