The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday clinched a stunning hat-trick win in Haryana overcoming anti-incumbency and dashing Congress' hopes of a comeback while the National Conference-Congress combine pulled off a spectacular victory in maiden elections in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress victory in Karnataka, its first big state since 2018, puts the party back in the game for general elections as it re-establishes primacy in the opposition space that is currently vastly fragmented despite efforts to cobble up a united front against the BJP.
Here are the 10 key issues likely to be the centre of discussion in the seven-phase general elections that begin on April 19.
'The greatness of India can be experienced by meeting Indians on the frontiers of India.' 'Every citizen on the border is a soldier'
'Congress leaders who are making strategy for the Congress to win elections have not even won a class monitor elections.' 'When you have not contested school monitor elections, what will you know about the ground reality?'
The veteran leader is also expected to use his good offices in unifying the faction-ridden party in the state, ahead of assembly elections just six months away.
Extending its winning run in the south, the Congress on Sunday won 64 assembly seats to form government in the Bharat Rashtra Samiti-dominated Telangana, with the southern solace coming in the midst of a saffron sweep of the Hindi heartland where the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested two states from the grand old party and retained one.
Former United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday is cruising towards winning the race for the White House in one of the greatest political comebacks in American history by almost defeating his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in an election that virtually divided the country into two camps.
In her article, Sonia Gandhi underlined that the next few months will be a crucial test of India's democracy and that the country is at the crossroads with the Modi government bent on "misusing every power" and elections approaching in several key states.
Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's Dara Singh Chauhan in the bypoll to the Ghosi Assembly constituency in Mau district with a margin of 42,759 votes on Friday.
Party sources said Gandhi is likely to be the sole candidate for the post and is 'deemed to be the next party chief on Dec 5.
Sources said the Congress, which has 19 legislators in the Bihar assembly, will go by what the Rashtriya Janata Dal decides and its presence will help strengthen the coalition.
Rediff.com takes a look at some of the events that made 2009 memorable, for the right and wrong reasons, and which left an indelible mark on India's collective opinion and imagination.
He also hit out at the Congress' state president DK Shivakumar, accusing him of spreading lies and inciting people.
Branding Trinamool Congress rebels as 'traitors' like Mir Jafar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party for fielding the turncoats in the polls leaving saffron party old-timers shed tears.
Today even those who support Prime Minister Modi feel there is a certain sense of listlessness in this government. What is it intending to achieve? This is not easy to say, notes Aakar Patel.
Polling is underway to elect 119 members of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, with voters queuing up to exercise their franchise amid tight security on Thursday.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
Dev had been serving as the national spokesperson of the Congress and its women's wing chief.
Polling will take place in 3,328 polling booths, out of which 1,100 are sensitive and 28 are categorised as critical.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
The Congress, by and large, focused on local issues in this election and its campaign also was run by state leaders initially.
Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge, a staunch Gandhi family loyalist from Karnataka, has become the Congress' first non-Gandhi president in 24 years.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
Muhammad Yunus urged the people to "exercise patience" before judging his government's role.
With the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and allies far ahead in all the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state and 1 in neighbouring Puducherry, it appears the outcome, for the Stalin-led Dravidian party will be similar to the success of the popular flick Baahubali.
While Ranaut will contest on a ticket for the BJP from Himachal Pradesh's Mandi constituency, her birthplace, Govil has been fielded by the party from the Meerut Lok Sabha seat.
In a dig at Rahul Gandhi, Dubey said that the former Congress president was expected to initiate the debate but did not do so last minute as "probably he got up late".
The rear windscreen of a car carrying Rahul Gandhi was damaged during the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', with West Bengal unit president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleging that the vehicle was "pelted with stones" in Malda district, while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed the incident took place in adjoining Bihar.
Tharoor said people of the country have the freedom to watch or not watch the BBC documentary on the 2002 riots and asked who can say the British broadcaster has no right to do a story on the topic.
'If the Congress party wants to take on the BJP it cannot do it in this fuddy-duddy, grand old party, style.'
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.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
Ramesh sought to uphold the "prominence" of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the organisational matters in any sort of emerging situation.
The Punjab CM said a young leader with a forward-looking approach would "galvanise" the rank and file of the party after the "unfortunate" resignation of Gandhi.
Manmohan Singh said Narasimha Rao can truly be called father of economic reforms in India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, in a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
'They must be hiding somewhere in a country where the Taliban would not even spare a 4-year-old girl.'
Mehdi said he made a mistake by crossing over to the AAP and asserted that he is a "loyal worker" of the Congress and Rahul Gandhi
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