After placating sitting MP Suresh Kalmadi who was sulking over denial of ticket, the Congress managers are confronted with a tough task of retaining the Pune Lok Sabha seat by overcoming the main challenge from a resurgent BJP in a quadrangular contest which is on cards.
Yeddyurappa would take the oath alone as the chief minister and once the majority is proved on the floor of the assembly, cabinet members would be inducted.
The Union home ministry has received a factual report from the Maharashtra government on the prevailing situation in the state in the wake of caste-based violence there, a ministry spokesperson said.
'Our honourable CM is so shameless that she will say the state is among the safest for women.'
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who was under fire from Bharatiya Janata Party leaders after the Shiromani Akali Dal leadership, including Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal campaigned against the saffron party nominees during the assembly elections attended the oath-taking ceremony of Manohar Lal Khattar in Panchkula on Sunday.
Shops remained closed in some parts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for a few hours and internet services were restricted in sensitive areas to check 'rumour-mongering', but normal life remained largely unaffected
Archis Mohan decodes Bharatiya Janata Party's pre-presidential poll manoeuvres.
Prohibitory orders were imposed in Delhi and parts of Karnataka. Police kept tight vigil in Kerala. In Gujarat, 50 people were arrested for Thursday's violence.
Like Modi, Keshav Prasad Maurya worked at tea stalls. Dinesh Sharma, on the other hand, is a professor at Lucknow university.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi attacked the Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday for "failing" to ensure development of Northeast though he represented Assam for the last 23 years in the Rajya Sabha.
Two technocrats, two hard-boiled politicians are India's new Cabinet ministers...
'The BJP is not the party it was 10 years ago. It has changed. It is emerging like the Congress.' 'Sometimes, I feel the BJP has taken the Congress' space.' 'Its politics is also resembling the Congress.'
A total of 126 votes, including four of Congress and one of CPI, were cast in favour of the confidence motion while 24, including 22 of Lalu Prasad led RJD, voted against the motion as BJP members staged a walkout before the vote.
UDF, LDF raise voice against cow slaughter ban backed by BJP leadership.
Will N Chandrababu Naidu's son Lokesh be able to manage the old guard the way his father did?
"Our only solace is that Modi will win Varanasi, but there will be a by-election here. Modi will not be able to cobble 272 seats to become prime minister so he will remain the chief minister of Gujarat. He will resign from Varanasi and then we will ensure Kerjiwal's handsome win." Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reports on how Varanasi's 300,000 Muslim voters are strategising their vote.
Amid a plethora of senior party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, Bharatiya Janata Party's Devendra Fadnavis took the oath of office at a mega function organised at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
Incidents of arson, firing and vandalism were reported from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab as protesters agitated against the dilution of the SC/ST Act.
'For the sake of the nation, and the preservation of its polity, it is high time the country's largest political party and the country's largest religious minority make peace between them,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'No one talks about the Mumbai riots anymore, though like Delhi 1984, the guilty have not been punished. In Gujarat, many powerful leaders of the state's ruling party are in jail for their role in the riots... In Mumbai, only one politician of the Shiv Sena, a former MP, was convicted of hate speech, along with two other Shiv Sainiks, one of whom was a corporator and the other a junior functionary... So why the apathy? Could it be because despite these statistics and the widely-publicised findings of the Srikrishna Commission, what remained in public consciousness was the violence by the Muslims, thanks to a highly efficient Sena propaganda machine? There's no demand for it, but would an SIT probe into the closed cases of the Mumbai riots help today?' The fadeout of Mumbai's riots from public debate can be called a triumph of the communal State, argues Jyoti Punwani.
The BJP is of the view that Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand governments could collapse and a Modi wave may resurrect its chances, notes Archis Mohan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the vote of thanks to the President's speech on the opening day of the Budget session.
Rahul Gandhi thinks his imaginary Congress is the silver bullet; Narendra Modi thinks he himself is the silver bullet; Arvind Kejriwal seems to think that neighbourhood councils are a silver bullet. But none of them is right, says Mihir S Sharma.
n an exclusive interview with Rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad analysed the political scenario in his home-state Bihar, admitting that political equations have changed after the Bharatiya Janata Party forged alliances with Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha.
'The Constitution, which talks about democracy and equality, is something that will be applied in this country, and not Manusmriti in which the RSS believes.'
'When corporates have a stake in the government through contributions to political parties, democracy, which is supposed to work for the common man, doesn't.'
Can un-democracy be the foundation for a democratic party that aspires to be different from all other parties in India.
Have Muslim women taken to the BJP under Modi even while their menfolk cling to 'secular' politics, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
Accusing Congress of "trying to hide in the bunker of secularism", Narendra Modi on Sunday said that it was fighting for its survival with even a 100-seat mark in the new Lok Sabha appearing "an uphill task for it".
Very few old-style RSS workers-turned-leaders have survived Narendra Modi's political ambush in state politics. Harin Pathak's end closes the chapter for Modi who started his post-2002 riots journey with a new mix of profit-centric development and middle class-pleasing commerce, technology-driven communication with voters, and an unspoken Hindutva that speaks only through posturings and symbols. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reveals the real reasons for the Modi-Pathak rupture.
The letter, to maintain the current policy of denying Narendra Modi a visa to the United States, was released just as the BJP president arrived in Washington DC for a round of meetings with US lawmakers. Aziz Haniffa reports
Accusing Bharatiya Janata Party of fanning communal flames, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the party's "politics of hatred" was damaging the country's fabric and apprehended he may also be assassinated like his grandmother and father, who had fallen victims to it.
Narendra Modi seems to prefer that Hindu strongman image remain tucked in reserve, to only come when called; life's been more complicated.
Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Muslims may turn to the BJP or may not come out to vote in great numbers like they have in the past.' 'Anything can happen.' 'They can feel an increased sense of alienation, but that depends on the BJP -- on how it includes them.'
Here is the full transcript of Congress vice president and Lok Sabha poll campaign chief Rahul Gandhi's first formal TV interview with Times Now Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami.
'I told him when I started my political career seven decades ago he was not even born. His political activities, the protests he organises and the way he fights the biggest corporate of India, the Ambanis, give hope to all people who are progressive. My desire is that such a party must grow, and I wished him all success for its growth.' V S Achuthanandan, the senior-most Communist in India, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why he turned down Arvind Kejriwal's invitation to join the Aam Aadmi Party.
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