Bhupendra Patel can never really break free of intervention from New Delhi. But if he can win over the Gujaratis and improve the BJP's tally substantially, he will have proved that he should be taken seriously.
Oberoi is playing the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a biopic.
Gujarat assembly Speaker Nimaben Acharya, who won from Bhuj seat of Kutch district in 2012 and 2017, has also been denied ticket this time by the party.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Nitin Patel suffered a minor fracture in his left leg during the incident.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
Gujarat Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel was on Wednesday elected leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party Legislature Party, who will succeed PM-designate Narendra Modi as chief minister of the state.
Counting of votes will be held on Sunday in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in what is seen as a semi-final contest ahead of the general elections in less than six months.
The Centre on Saturday failed to break the logjam on the controversial anti-terror body National Counter Terrorism Centre with non-Congress chief ministers stoutly opposing and some of them demanding its withdrawal.
A day after Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team gave a clean chit to Gujarat CM Narendra Modi in the post-Godhra Gulberg massacre case, Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said "unsuccessful attempts" were made to drag in political leaders in the case by "concocting" certain facts.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
"(Someone said) I have promised that I will make a Shiv Sena worker chief minister but then he himself became CM," Shinde said, taking a jibe at Uddhav Thackeray.
"I had earlier said in a function of the Patidar community that my community is living under fear, but today after reading newspapers I have come to the conclusion that entire Gujarat is living under fear," Patel said in Ahmedabad.
Urdu journalist cum politician Shahid Siddiqui, who made waves recently when he was sacked by the Samajwadi Party for interviewing Gujarat CM Narendra Modi for his paper, spoke to Neerja Chowdhury on Uttar Pradesh, the goings on in the SP and the government led by it, of which he has had more than a ringside view.
Shortly after senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha said that he thinks his party should name Gujarat CM Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for 2014 general elections, BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's largest ally Janata Dal-United sought to downplay Sinha's remarks by stating that it wasn't BJP's official stand.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
Modi said that during his recent visit to Japan, he had the opportunity to meet Abe again and discuss many issues, but 'little did I know that this would be our last meeting'.
'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.
This comes days after the party stated it would move the Supreme Court after the Gujarat high court refused to stay Gandhi's conviction in a 2019 defamation case over his 'Modi surname' remarks.
In switching over, Nitish has sent out a message that if he could not now become the NDA's PM, then he would need to stay on as CM at the very least, which a third term for Modi would not let him have, N Sathiya Moorthy points out.
Terror activities of some right-wing groups and Maoist violence will be high on agenda at the Chief Ministers' conference on internal security to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on February 1.
The party also promised reservation to minorities on basis of their population after the caste census.
The Narendra Modi-Nitish Kumar tiff is set to enter the electoral arena with the Bharatiya Janata Party finding itself in competition in 100 seats against its own ally -- the Janata Dal United.
In a new bonhomie after the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US has expressed its desire to join the upcoming Vibrant Gujarat Summit-2015 as a partner country.
More than 3,000 gifts for Lord Ram from Sita's birthplace in Janakpur in Nepal have arrived in Ayodhya.
The Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government has been facing flak after Vedanta-Foxconn chose Gujarat to set up its multi-billion semiconductor plant.
The leaders of the two parties discussed the possibilities of seat sharing but did not divulge any details.
Pujara, on his part, thanked all the front-line warriors including doctors, para medical staff, and police, who are doing selfless service at this critical juncture.
The Gujarat high court on Monday said it does not have faith in the state machinery which gets into action only after innocent lives are lost, as it pulled up the Rajkot civic body over the purported lapses in functioning of the game zone facility where a massive fire killed 27 persons.
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Odisha government told the assembly over 40,000 workers migrated from the state last year, with the highest number -- 26,151 -- from Balangir.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel were among the prominent faces who exercised their franchise in the second phase of Gujarat elections on Monday.
After auto makers, PSA Peugeot Citron and Ford, IT major Infosys Limited is vying for land in Gujarat. N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor of the company, will meet Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday to discuss setting up of a campus in the state.
The reset button that the Bharatiya Janata Party has pressed on governance in the wake of the Covid-19 wave, which also saw a major overhaul by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his own Cabinet, continues as Vijay Rupani on Saturday became the fourth chief minister from the party to go.
Shah said the people of Gujarat would seek an answer from Congress in December, when the state goes to polls.
Meanwhile, Nitin Patel told reporters in Gandhinagar that this was a ploy to defame him.
Sisodia said the growing enthusiasm among the people of Gujarat in supporting the AAP in Gujarat was the reason behind the CBI action against him.
The Congress is now gearing up to take on the BJP over alleged corruption, jobs and issues tied to tribals, farmers and women.
