The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday stepped up its protest against Rahul Gandhi for his 'panauti' jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged the Election Commission to take action against the Congress leader.
Can ordinary citizens counter this backward march? Can peace activists ensure that the two communities retain their bonds? Do they have a choice, asks Jyoti Punwani.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
Mann said that the results in Gujarat, where the party exerted all its efforts to make inroads, will be "surprising".
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kejriwal also targeted the BJP over its state president C R Paatil, and claimed there cannot be a bigger insult of the state's people than the ruling party appointing 'a man from Maharashtra' as its chief.
Addressing the 'parivartan sankalp rally' in Ahmedabad, Gandhi made a host of promises to people of Gujarat, where the assembly polls are due later this year, including creation of 10 lakh new jobs, building 3,000 English medium schools and free education to girls.
Terming the charges against him a "BJP conspiracy", Siddaramaiah said he would wage a legal fight.
A Congress woman MP from Gujarat on Wednesday broke down in the Lok Sabha while mentioning how she was allegedly manhandled by state police in her home constituency during Tuesday's Gujarat Divas celebrations.
After the Karnataka porngate, a similar scandal has hit the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat assembly where two of its MLAs have come under the scanner for allegedly watching obscene pictures, prompting the speaker to seize their tablets and order a probe.
Months after exiting the decades-long association with the Congress party, Azad said that he was not against its policy of secularism, but its weak party system.
If the Anandiben Patel administration was shaken by the Patidar agitation, the Vijay Rupani government would have to deal with the Jignesh Mevani-led Dalit movement.
'They sent a message that I will not be given the ticket and ordered me to issue a statement -- Gujarat style -- that with immediate effect I was retiring from politics.' 'They were treating me like a political novice who would be pushed around on the order of vested interests.' 'This rude behaviour hurt a lot. It was then I spontaneously decided that I will challenge this dictatorial order and expose all those who want to hurt Lingayat pride in Karnataka.'
Of the 10 MLAs, eight including Vaghela and his son, who had voted for the BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha poll, were expelled by the Congress on Wednesday.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of hatching a conspiracy to assassinate Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, fearing poll defeats in Gujarat and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and alleged Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari's involvement in it.
Kejriwal's new jobs promise comes days after he assured free electricity up to 300 units per month if voted to power in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state where polls are due by the year-end.
Better living conditions must be an integral part of all political campaigns. But this will only happen if the public pressures the political class to understand the irreversibility of climate change and make the environment a crucial part of their manifestos.
The independents also scored big in some seats.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
NCP's Kandhal Jadeja was the only MLA to win from the party.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday took on Narendra Modi on his home turf of Gujarat, saying the state was nowhere near "swarg" (heaven) as claimed by him, and accused the BJP's prime ministerial hopeful of being concerned only about his chair.
Party sources said the issue of Rupani's successor will be discussed in the legislature party meeting likely to be held on Sunday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday cast his vote at a polling station in Ahmedabad during the second phase of the assembly elections in Gujarat and said the state's people listen to everybody, but it is their nature to accept what is true.
Gujarat has registered a voter turnout of 64.33 per cent for the recently-concluded elections to 182 assembly seats, a drop of more than 4 per cent as compared to the turnout registered in the 2017 polls.
'The 2024 general elections proved that UP is not Gujarat.'
The Patidar leader also urged the Congress to raise the issue of EVM tampering.
Now, every state election -- first up, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year, then Delhi in January and Bihar in September next year -- will be seen by his followers for evidence of his recovery, and by rivals of sharpening decline, points out Shekhar Gupta.
As the new year arrives, what is clear is that the BJP's stars continue to shine the brightest while its rivals' search for a way to dim their glow go on.
A court in Surat in Gujarat on Thursday sentenced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to two years in jail in a 2019 criminal defamation case filed against him over his "Modi surname" remarks.
On the other hand, Congress' vote share has risen to about 41.4 per cent this time
BJP veterans whom K Annamalai has reportedly sidelined are upset over his 'immature' way of handling allies, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Exuding confidence, Kejriwal said, "Our government will be formed in Gujarat in 2027."
Party spokesperson says it was weak organisation and local issues that did the NDA in
Godhra is one of the 14 seats which the AIMIM is contesting in the next month's elections to the 182-member Gujarat assembly.
Once people throw out the Congress, they do not let it come back. They put 'no entry' boards for the Congress, he said. It always thought power was its birthright but it has now been exposed, the prime minister said
The Uttarakhand assembly on Wednesday passed the Uniform Civil Code Bill, which may serve as a template for other Bharatiya Janata Party-run states to enact similar legislation.
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh has said that the recent porngate scandals in Karnataka and Gujarat assemblies have exposed the real face of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the clean chit given to the accused MLAs in the Narendra Modi-led government was a foregone conclusion.
With the strategy working in its favour, the BJP could be encouraged to undertake similar steps in states, including Karnataka, where elections are due next year, to counter factors that might work against it.
The first list has 10 Patel or Patidar faces, 11 tribals, 10 OBCs and five SCs.
The current public mood is that it will be a hung assembly. No one, not even in the BJP, is talking about even a simple majority for the party.
