There are few leaders in the Opposition line up who can claim a path to party leadership like Sitaram Yechury and certainly, very few who blended that ascent through student politics with awareness about non-elite real India, urban India and liberal politics, as he did, notes Shyam G Menon.
Opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bharat Rashtra Party and Samajwadi Party, came together in a show of unity on Thursday and accused the Modi government of getting the second half of the budget session washed out, while asserting that if this attitude continues, the country will move towards a "dictatorship".
'The whole Kashmiri population is seemed to be a suspect community. This status is not good.'
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday wound up her visit to China, becoming the first world leader to meet the newly-elected Chinese leadership and renewing Sino-Indian friendship, which her late husband, Rajiv, had given an impetus 19 years ago.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
Separately, the poll panel also issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, asking him to respond to the complaints filed by the BJP against him and the main opposition party's senior leader Rahul Gandhi regarding their remarks.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
At least one commentator felt that both the BJP's reach and popularity had been underestimated in Kerala. They have shown systematic gain; one that seems personality-neutral and therefore institutionalised, explains Shyam G Menon.
The National People's Congress -- China's annual political gathering known as the Two Sessions -- brought leaders and lawmakers this week to set the Chinese Communist party's agenda for domestic economic and social development for the year.
The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
The CPI-M leader was the chief minister of the state from 2000 to 2011.
'We made a mistake. We misunderstood. Now all is well.'
A delegation of opposition party leaders on Friday met the top brass of Election Commission to raise its concerns over poll code violations by the ruling party leaders, and also flagged concerns over delay in release of voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the polls.
Manoj Tiwari is the only sitting MP whom the BJP has retained.
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.
A B Bardhan, who steered the CPI during the turbulent period of coalition politics in the 1990s, died in New Delhi on Saturday night.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
'When you have a village which is controlled by the BJP, who are the people likely to perpetrate the attack?'
Rahul Gandhi's focus will be on his Nyay Yatra, rather than the INDIA bloc's election campaign, leading to speculation among allies that the Congress leader is already looking at the Opposition's fight beyond May 2024.
Kharge said the leaders of INDIA parties have come together as democracy is under threat under the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused the Congress again of planning to redistribute people's property if it is voted to power, but stopped short of saying that the wealth would go to Muslims.
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.
'The PM who is first among equals, who has to listen to others, take their point of view into account and who would have to be a good manager'
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
The Delhi battlefield may not be a cakewalk for the Rhodes Scholar.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Is anyone in the BJP listening -- to what Nitin Gadkari had to say, but possibly left unsaid? asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Rahul Gandhi is raising the issue of a caste census though his party has been doing injustice on this front from the 1950s.'
There they were, showing the world that there are still people motivated not by religious structures, not by past glories, not by hatreds deliberately stoked. These were ordinary folks doing something extraordinary purely because they think that effort might shake a nation out of a spiralling miasma of division, mistrust, cynicism, sophistry and violence.
Even as the dust settles on one election, glory in Thiruvananthapuram has come with a new question on the horizon: Who will be UDF's candidate in the next Lok Sabha election given Shashi Tharoor has said 2024 would be his last? It isn't a vacancy that can be easily filled, points out Shyam G Menon.
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
The Bharatiya Janata Party was on Thursday poised for a landslide victory in Gujarat to retain power for a record seventh straight term but was behind the Congress in Himachal Pradesh which could go with the trend of alternative governments in the hill state.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Governor La Ganesan and Chief Minister N Biren Singh were among the early voters in their respective constituencies of Sagolband and Heingang.
Dong, whose age is not known, has served in all major naval divisions in the PLAN.
In the first such initiative, the Bharatiya Janata Party has invited the ruling and Opposition parties from around the world to witness the Lok Sabha elections in India first-hand.
