The Bharatiya Janata Party sealed its alliance with the Telugu Desam Party on Saturday for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, with former chief minister of the southern state N Chandrababu Naidu asserting that the combine will sweep the polls.
Rejecting criticism of tardy relief operations in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said government was making all efforts and complimented armed forces personnel for their untiring efforts in rescuing the stranded people.
A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar slammed the United Progressive Alliance government for shelving the special status demand at the behest of its 'natural' ally, the Congress hit back charging him with misleading the people on the issue and instigating them against it.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday dubbed as an eyewash the setting up of a Group of Ministers to draft a new bill to insulate the Central Bureau of Investigation from political interference.
When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government came to power in 2004, then Home Minister Shivraj Patil lost no time in replacing four governors appointed by the NDA dispensation.
Hundreds of Congress workers on Monday clashed with the police during a protest against the BJP government's Land Acquisition Bill, saying it was anti-farmer.
Presenting a report card on completion of 30 days in office on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rued that he did not have the luxury of 'honeymoon' period as a "series of allegations" were levelled against his government in less than 100 hours.
'You won't find such an apathetic indecisive party in the world.'
Congress leaders on Tuesday threw a protective shield around party Vice President Rahul Gandhi against the predicted rout in the elections and went on to say that he will remain their leader for the future.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the upcoming assembly election is a fight between trust on development and dynastic politics.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Kharge launched a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the Himachal Pradesh poll schedule was announced but not of Gujarat so that the PM can inaugurate many more bridges like the one that collapsed in Gujarat's Morbi.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday alleged that the Indian Army was using caste as a factor for recruitment under the Agnipath scheme, drawing a swift rebuttal from Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who rejected the charge as a "rumour".
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader also claimed that the entire controversy was an "international conspiracy by the Left-wing organisations, including Amnesty International," to defame the Narendra Modi-led Central government.
Hoping to make its mark in Kerala, the BJP sewed up an alliance with the BDJS, the new party formed by SNDP, a powerful organisation of the backward Ezhava community.
Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil was the first who expressed his desire to put in his papers even before Modi government took charge, but he was told by Congress leaders not to do so as it would then put pressure on the others to do the same, reports Anita Katyal.
They noted that the exercise had begun in 2011 and an Inter-Ministerial Group submitted its recommendations in 2012 after meeting for 10 times.
The statement comes in the wake of two independent members of the NSC, P C Mohanan and J V Meenakshi, quitting the Commission over disagreements with the government on the back-series GDP data and delay in release of labour force survey. Mohanan was also the acting chairperson of the Commission.
Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar said on Friday there was no Modi wave in the country but argued that the new government at the Centre should be stable in the larger interest of the economy and the country. He observed that development would be a major plank in the run up to the coming parliamentary elections.
Krishna said that these two leaders 'have taken the country to great heights and this is not an exaggeration'.
Rahul Gandhi stressed the importance of an electoral understanding in UP if the BJP is to be defeated in the Lok Sabha polls.
Blames govt for raising fiscal deficit by financing consumption-based subsidies rather than focusing on infra.
What Rajya Sabha can do for the states, no other House can do, the Prime Minister said.
Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge, a staunch Gandhi family loyalist from Karnataka, has become the Congress' first non-Gandhi president in 24 years.
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.
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said speaking Hindi gives her 'shivers' and she speaks the language with hesitation.
They raised slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party and the central agencies.
The RJD supporters were creating a ruckus outside 10, Circular Road, where Rabri Devi lives and had been locked from inside by a Central Bureau Investigation team which had raided the house on Friday in connection with its case against Lalu Prasad Yadav, her husband, in the railway recruitment scandal.
The party says it has trained over 1,00,000 workers in the last one year.
The BJP's rediscovery of its allies, including the PM touching the feet of Parakash Singh Badal, would be interpreted as the party's efforts to keep its flock together if it falls short of the majority mark on May 23.
The Aam Aadmi Party claimed on Wednesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party has approached four of its legislators in Delhi, asking them to switch sides and join the saffron party or else, face 'false cases, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and the ED (Enforcement Directorate)'.
On its own or with allies the Congress has a strong presence in states that account for a total of 253 LS seats, or 20 short of the magic figure of 272 required to form a government at the Centre. So what is Mamata Banerjee talking about, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Several legislators in states on Monday said they have cross-voted in favour of National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu by not following their respective party lines in the presidential election.
Raja said he had, in fact, brought a 'revolution' in the telecom sector.
Jaitley said the verdict held that nobody was guilty in the case and investigation agencies would take an appropriate decision, taking facts and history into account.
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.
'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 and his corporate sector supporters have identified Maharashtra as a key state where the BJP-Shiv Sena can pick up more seats. In fact, it is estimated that if the Thackeray cousins join hands, the NDA partners can improve their tally from the present 23 seats by adding another eight to 10 Lok Sabha seats, reports Anita Katyal.
Gautam Adani's alleged proximity to Narendra Modi may dent the latter's self-styled image of incorruptibility, points out Kanika Datta.
Dulat, who was advisor on Jammu and Kashmir to the central government during the tenure of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, also advocated the need for starting a dialogue with Pakistan.
