'The people decide who is a purush, yugpurush and a mahapurush'
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar Wednesday said he will not tolerate any insult to Parliament and the post of vice president which he holds and expressed deep anguish over a Trinamool Congress MP mimicking him in the Parliament complex and a Congress leader videographing the act.
The chairman raised the issue of mimicry of the speaker and the chairman by an MP and the videography of the act, saying this was shameful and there has to be a limit.
All MPs of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, including nominated members, are entitled to vote in the vice presidential election.
'I give a lot of credit to Rahul Gandhi for standing up and fighting it for a long time and surviving, nobody else would have been able to survive'
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
Modi on Thursday became the first Indian leader to address the joint session of the US Congress twice.
The preferred format would be for the top BJP leadership in the government to reach out to the alliance leaders on a case-to-case basis.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The anti-defection law does not apply to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls.
Dhankhar, who took to cricket in his school days and also had keen interest in spirituality and meditation, began his political journey with the Janata Dal and won the Lok Sabha elections in 1989.
A political row broke out on Tuesday after Trinamool Congress leader Kalyan Banerjee derisively mimicked Dhankhar during the opposition's protest on the stairs of Parliament against the MPs' suspension, drawing strong condemnation from the ruling BJP.
Both the parties were not represented at the opposition meeting that decided on fielding Alva as their consensus candidate, but Pawar had said that he is in touch with both TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as AAP convener and Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The Opposition hit out at the government over the absence of Rajya Sabha Chairman, Lok Sabha Speaker and ministers from the traditional event marking the birth anniversary of those whose portraits adorn Parliament's Central Hall.
Alva said she believes that by supporting the BJP in this election, such parties and leaders have damaged their own credibility.
Karat had on Thursday said the vice-president should be a person who has an exemplary record in some field and should have the widest acceptance.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was on Saturday announced as the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance's vice presidential candidate.
"Congress VP Rahul Gandhi in Dadri meeting Mohammad Ikhlaq's family," the party Twitter handle INC India said.
The BJP cited a photograph of both purportedly sharing stage during a conference in India.
Margaret Alva claims she is unable to make phone calls after dialing 'friends in the BJP'
There's enough time for Mamata Banerjee to change her mind, Alva said.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia cited purported claims of the Pakistani journalist, Nusrat Mirza, to allege that Ansari shared many 'sensitive and highly classified' information with him.
The party is finding increasing acceptability in the 18-35 years age group with Rahul Gandhi adding a million followers in the past 2 months and Facebook and Twitter also seeing similar spikes.
'"PM Shastri ji created...VP Radhakrishnanji inaugurated. Narendra Modi closed it. Nehru ji lives in the hearts of INDIA'
Irked by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's remark accusing the "RSS people" of having killed Mahatma Gandhi, the Sangh has decided to initiate legal action against him and lodge a complaint with the Election Commission.
Strains in the Congress-Trinamool ties seem to be disappearing with Mamata Banerjee announcing her party's support to United Progressive Alliance Presidential nominee Pranab Mukherje and the All India Congress Committee now hopes that the TMC would also back Hamid Ansari in the vice presidential race.
In all likelihood he is going to rely on senior party leadership for political management, using the Youth Congress and the young brigade to mobilise the 'aam admi', which the Congress redefined in Jaipur as the poor and middle-classes, says Neerja Chowdhury.
If the Opposition is bent upon shouting its own agenda on a deaf ruling dispensation, then it becomes binding upon the chair to ensure that the parliamentary affairs aren't reduced to a farce.
As Congress intensified efforts for a consensus candidate for the vice president's post, the Communist Party of India Marxist said it is in favour of a candidate who does not belong to the Congress. This was conveyed by CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had recently contacted him as part of efforts to seek support of political parties in selection of a candidate in the vice presidential election.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday resigned from all party positions, including its primary membership, delivering another blow to the embattled party that has seen a series of leaders leave it.
Rahul Gandhi's surprise sabbatical has exposed faultlines in the Congress.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
The sources said Gandhi wants India to lead in the niche area which comes after software development.
Senior Janata Dal-United leader Dhananjay Singh pitched for Opposition unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and said party workers in Uttar Pradesh want Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to contest the elections from the state's Phulpur constituency.
'It is for the people of that state to decide whether what has happened is appropriate or not. But normally a party does not lose its support base just because of some MLAs jumping ship'
His comment came after the Shiv Sena attacked him for petitioning the president to save Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon from the gallows.
Domestic stock markets would be driven by inflation numbers, global trends, and the last batch of Q4 earnings this week, analysts said. Markets will also react to industrial production data and consumer inflation numbers that were released after market hours on Friday. "Participants will react to macroeconomic data viz. IIP and CPI first, which were released post-market hours on Friday.
Shehzad Poonawalla, an office-bearer of the Maharashtra Congress, said he would also contest the election if it was conducted in a "genuine" manner.
The joint Opposition including the Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamool Congress, the Left, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the Aam Aadmi Party did not join the Question Hour of the session when the House reassembled after its first adjournment till noon.
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