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.
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
"Such are his core supporters that they will vote for him even if cooking oil sells for Rs 5,000 per litre under his leadership.' 'They don't think about inflation but Modi when they go out to vote.'
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram is Congress nominee from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha while senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
More screenings are expected to take place in some colleges in Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram later Tuesday, a senior police officer said.
"I sometimes think of leaving it, but the chief minister's post doesn't leave me," Ashok Gehlot famously said earlier this year, in part as a signal to the Congress top brass not to pick someone else for the job if the party wins the assembly polls.
At its Jaipur meeting, the BJP will focus on this year's assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh while the Congress's Chintan Shivir in Udaipur will discuss how it can resurrect itself.
With the Pradesh Congress committees passing resolution seeking Rahul Gandhi at the helm of All India Congress Committee, party General Secretary, Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday said such measures have no binding effect.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
Over the past week, Rahul Gandhi has replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa, and brought in young leaders as secretaries. These changes are unlikely to be a one-time exercise and poll-bound states would get the primary attention.
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.
The Congress on Tuesday announced its second list of 43 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath once again from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara and Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav Gehlot from Rajasthan's Jalore.
It also assured that the amount of medical insurance coverage under the Ayushman Bharat scheme would be doubled from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
In a letter to Kharge, Khan said he will not campaign for party candidates for the remaining phases of the Lok Sabha polls and is also resigning from the state Congress campaign committee.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
The party also announced that Kamal Nath will contest the bypoll for the Chhindwara assembly constituency.
The G-23 group seems to have expanded with several senior Congressmen attending Wednesday's meeting.
Party's state unit chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat were also detained along with the workers during the protests.
If as critics point out, the environmental impact assessment study was commissioned only after the auction process got underway with not all the stakeholders getting to know of it, then the government has already compromised the trust it could have enjoyed with Kerala's public including its coastal communities, points out Shyam G Menon.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
In a major exercise ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Congress on Thursday night constituted screening committees for all states and union territories for early selection of candidates.
The Gujarat government had carried out fake encounters only to raise Chief Minister Narendra Modi's profile so that he becomes a "hero" in the eyes of people who believe acts of terror are done by Muslims, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has alleged.
The controversy has sparked reactions across states. The famous Mankameshwar temple in Uttar Pradesh has now banned offerings of 'prasad' bought by devotees from outside and said they can offer homemade 'prasad' or fruits.
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.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and chief ministers of some BJP-ruled states were among those present at the Raj Bhavan ceremony.
Fifteen ministers took the oath in Rajasthan on Sunday in a cabinet expansion that included 12 new faces, fulfilling a key demand of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot whose rebellion last year shook the state's Congress government.
Kharge said that while there are very responsible people in the party who were doing their duty, some people had assumed that lack of responsibility will be ignored.
A dedicated party worker, who made his way up in the state politics from the municipality level, Patel was a surprise choice for the top post when the BJP decided to effect a regime change, replacing the entire ministry a year before the elections.
'I would like to see Kharge include Shashi in the Congress Working Committee.' 'The other alternative is that the Congress will marginalise him.'
Among the 17 new AICC secretaries named so far, 10 are below 50 years of age, indicating the generational change in the 132-year-old Congress being brought in by 47-year-old Rahul, reports Amit Agnihotri.
'The consecration of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya has demoralised them.' 'And, now it is reflecting in their individual reactions as they are losing hope to take on the BJP in 2024.'
From attacking Pramod Mahajan and Smriti Irani and participating in Bigg Boss, Sanjay Nirupam has plunged into an ugly controversy with his latest remark.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi had brought in the United States style 'primaries' with much fanfare to empower grassroot leaders to fight the Lok Sabha elections.
Vinai Kumar Saxena's current job as lieutenant governor of an Opposition-ruled state will raise the bar -- not just for him, but also for the Aam Aadmi Party government, which never says no to a fight with the representative of the central government in India's capital.
The Congress chief took a swipe at the ruling party saying if it had a film franchise it would be called "Lie Hard".
The party's CM choice came as a surprise for many as the low-profile, first-time legislator was not seen to be among the top contenders for the post.
Nearly half of the MPs elected in the 2019 general elections in India were first-timers.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
