The current battle within the party is seen as setting the stage for August 10 when Sonia completes one year of interim presidentship, and questions are being raised about a leadership vacuum. For the first time, responsible quarters are suggesting that as Sonia cannot function as interim president indefinitely and Rahul seems to want power but not the responsibility, one way out is collective leadership, reports Aditi Phadnis.
"I am ready to fight the money power (of her political opponents), and (central) agencies (which her party alleges has been unleashed on TMC with a political motive), but I will not bow my head," she said.
The JD-U has five members in the Rajya Sabha, including deputy chairman Harivansh whose fate now hangs in the balance as he may have to resign since his party has moved out of the ruling alliance.
He is a well-regarded person and he has done a lot of developmental work in his state. He will reply to all the actions that have been initiated against him at the appropriate time, the Bihar chief minister said.
Senior Congress leader Oommen Chandy is set to become the Kerala chief minister with Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala on Sunday opting out of the race for the top post. A meeting of the senior party leaders held at the KPCC headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram unanimously decided Chandy should lead the United Democratic Front ministry. The Congress Legislature Party meeting scheduled in Thiruvananthapuram later on Sunday will formalise the decision
Flaying both the Congress-led United Democratic Front and Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance and a section of the "right wing" media for trying to tarnish the image of the government and its development and welfare programmes, he said the people have rejected their 'vicious propaganda' by giving the Left a decisive mandate.
He said a tie-up between the two parties could have caused a 'damage' to the BJP-led NDA on the 23 seats.
'Why choose people from outside the state?'
It will be a 'tough fight' between the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress in this month's assembly polls in West Bengal while in Kerala the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front had an 'edge' over the Congress-led United Democratic Front, Communist Party of India General Secretary A B Bardhan said on Friday.
BJP sources said a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance is expected to take place soon to highlight its growing strength and to dispel the impression that the departure of some of its oldest allies such as the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and the Janata Dal-United have the left the saffron party without a major partner.
Continuing its pressure on Congress led United Democratic Front government for re-investigation into the alleged involvement of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien in the Suryanelli gangrape case, opposition Left Democratic Front on Wednesday walked out of the assembly after government rejected the demand.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
Many often stereotype Andhra Pradesh politics as being star-struck, but as Pawan Kalyan's political journey shows, stars are turning out to be a passing cloud.
'Himanta Biswa Sarma has put a lot of effort in demonising Muslims this time.'
Call it the art of staying rooted yet bending with prevailing political winds. With Telangana going to the polls in December, and assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra and Odisha scheduled next year, what factors have influenced parties' recent moves?
Ruptures in the opposition unity emerged barely a week after 17 parties joined hands to put up a joint candidate against the ruling National Democratic Alliance nominee for the July 17 presidential election.
Voting for the assembly by-election from Neyyattinkara segment near Thiruvananthapuram got underway on Saturday morning on a brisk note.
The opposition bloc also got support from Telanagana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's BRS, which saw the bill as a move to usurp powers of an elected government in Delhi, and asked the House to vote against it.
Communist Party of India's Pannyan Raveendran defeated his Congress rival V S Sivakumar by a margin of over 70,000 votes.
'Only when you are close to the party, will you understand what the BJP stands for.'
Without revealing details of the proposed programmes, the leader of the Janata Dal-United, a constituent of INDIA, said that a decision in this regard was taken at the just concluded conclave of the opposition alliance in Mumbai.
A G20 dinner invitation from President Droupadi Murmu describing her position as 'President of Bharat' triggered massive debate on Tuesday, with the opposition alleging that the government is planning to drop India and stay with just Bharat as the country's name.
Asserting that the probe into the killing of fishermen by Italian marines was progressing well, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday told the state assembly that no leniency would be shown to accused Italian marines as government's priority was to ensure justice to the victims' families.
The Congress and All India United Democratic Front will battle it out in the seven constituencies of Assam's minority-dominated Dhubri district bordering Bangladesh in the second phase of polling on April 11.
The humiliating rebuff given to the power brokers in Delhi in Kerala's local body election carries a big message: Malayalis thoroughly disapprove of the Modi government's shenanigans to misuse central agencies to destabilise a genuinely popular state government, notes M K Bhadrakumar.
The Congress in Maharashtra is making all efforts to woo the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to back United Progressive Alliance nominee Pranab Mukherjee for the presidential poll on Thursday.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Three persons were shot dead and several others were injured as violence and arson marked the conclusion of nomination filing for the three-tier West Bengal panchayat polls slated next month.
Former United States president Donald Trump has announced that he will run for the president in 2024 to make America 'great and glorious' again, vowing to fight like no one to defeat the 'radical left Democrats' that are trying to destroy the country from within.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), a banner political party formed by several minority organisations in Assam, led by perfume mogul Badaruddin Ajmal, has extended support to the UPA's candidate for the Presidential election.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Thursday filed a defamation case in a local court against Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran V S Achutanandan.
The victory of Prime Minister and Congress candidate Manmohan Singh appeared certain in the May 30 Rajya Sabha elections in Assam at the end of withdrawal of nomination papers on Thursday. At the close of the deadline for withdrawal, all the three contestants -- Dr Singh, who is the first Congress candidate, Santius Kujur, the party's second candidate and All India United Democratic Front's Aminul Islam remained in the fray.
'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.' 'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
'Shatrughan Sinha's name is in the Congress's probable candidates list.'
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