Sacking Ajay Mishra would further antagonise Brahmins in UP already upset with Yogi's government.
Despite consumer inflation, joblessness, etc, ordinary voters still think Modi is the best to rule the country.< Going into the poll with a tried and tested prime ministerial candidate is a huge plus for the BJP --- and a huge handicap for the Opposition, points out Virendra Kapoor.
Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi held a virtual meeting on Friday evening with leaders of 19 Opposition parties, including the chief ministers of some Opposition-ruled states, amid efforts to boost Opposition unity and evolve a common strategy against the National Democratic Alliance government.
In a joint letter to the prime minister, the opposition leaders, including some chief ministers, have also demanded providing foodgrains to the needy, and giving Rs 6,000 per month to the unemployed.
Tejashwi accused the Nitish Kumar-led government of meting out "step-motherly" treatment to migrant labourers.
Several leaders from the Congress and its alliance partners from across the country attended the event.
More than 20 national leaders will attend the meeting, TMC sources said. Most of them have already arrived in Kolkata.
Modi did not have the guts to face the students of the country and so he crushed them using the police, he alleged. "I challenge the prime minister to go to any of the universities, stand over there without his police, without his infrastructure and tell the people what is he going to do with this country," the Congress leader said.
The 84-year-old priest-activist Stan Swamy, arrested under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the Elgar Parishad case, died at a Mumbai hospital Monday in the middle of his fight for bail on health grounds.
Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday said it has set up a new fulfilment centre (warehouse) in West Bengal, its second-largest in the state, that will help in creating nearly 3,500 direct jobs. Spread across an area of over 2.2 lakh sq ft, the new facility in Dankuni will cater to the needs of Flipkart and Myntra customers in the region and bolster the e-commerce major's efforts to ramps up supply chain infrastructure in the eastern part of the country. The facility will also help thousands of sellers offer a wider selection and enable faster deliveries of customer orders within the region and neighbouring states while also helping create national market access, according to a statement.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
26 candidates in Amethi fray take away 60,545 votes; the difference between the victorious Smriti Irani and Rahul Gandhi is 55,120 votes.
The bench rejected Yadav's arguments that he has been in jail for 24 months, saying in comparison to the 14-year sentence awarded to him, 24 months was nothing.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The former Deputy chief minister made the sensational assertion on his twitter handle, sharing a mobile number which, he claimed, Prasad was having access to despite serving sentences in fodder scam cases.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
Amid tight security, 62.60 per cent of 56,18,267 voters exercised their franchise in 17 to decide the fate of 309 candidates.
Congress MP Abhijit Mukherjee, son of President Pranab Mukherjee, has called on Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav in jail.
Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee's letter, which was released by the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre's actions.
From Jammu and Kashmir to Andhra Pradesh, consumers are facing power cuts ranging from 2 hours to 8 hours.
AICC in-charge for Jharkhand, R P N Singh, said the party is happy for its best performance in the state since its creation in 2000.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday urged top opposition leaders to rise above political compulsions to take on the BJP in the interest of the nation and start planning "systematically" to realise the "ultimate goal" of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha polls
The six accused in the Prof H S Sabharwal murder case, who were acquitted by a local court, have been released from the Central Prison in Nagpur.
Vimal Tomar, Pankaj Mishra, Vimal Rajoria, Shashi Ranjan Akela, Hemant Dubey and Sudhir Yadav -- all activists of the sangh parivar affliated-ABVP -- were charged with murder and rioting by unlawful assembly.
Left behind after elections will be the Biharis with their stagnant conditions of poor education, poor health infrastructure, poverty, unemployment, division of society and the aftermath of coronavirus. What will remain is the Bihari tenacity, observes Asmita Bihari.
Statistics show the BSP has always gained from pre-poll alliances, reflecting in the party winning more seats in subsequent elections and largely retaining the vote share too. Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
Three more Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activists were arrested on Wednesday for alleged involvement in professor H S Sabharwal's murder, taking the total number of arrests in the case to five.
The Rajasthan Police has also set up a high-level committee to probe the allegations of delay against the Alwar police in taking Khan to a hospital.
Within four years of winning a single party majority in the Lok Sabha with 282 seats -- the first time it has happened in 30 years -- the BJP has lost it.
Leave alone taking forward the seat-sharing talks with the existing and probable allies, the Mahagathbandhan remains an amorphous entity weeks before the first phase of polling on October 28, a situation that will make the rival NDA camp, which in any case looks sitting pretty, all the more happier.
These parties also asked the Centre to present a revised comprehensive economic package that will be a 'true stimulus' and sought reversal of all unilateral policy decisions, especially pertaining to labour laws, as they put forth a 11-point demand charter before the government during a virtual meeting, called by the Congress to discuss the situation arising out of the pandemic as well as the lockdown.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and other leaders claimed the countdown for the ouster of the BJP and its allies from power in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls had begun.
In a bid to embarrass Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, Nitish Kumar has invited 'bujurg' Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani to attend his oath-taking ceremony.
Gandhi came along with Mukherjee and while the former president left after sometime, the Congress chief offered to drop him back but Mukherjee politely refused.
Hemant Kumar's fine century enabled Kerala take a 23-run first innings lead over Railways on the penultimate day of the Ranj Trophy match.
Patel, 71, the quintessential backroom strategist for the Congress, died at a Gurugram hospital in the early hours of Wednesday due to multiple organ failure more than a month after he tested positive for COVID-19.
The move is being seen as an attempt to forge opposition unity to defeat the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Jayanta Roy Chowdhury reports on how the West Bengal elections are being fought by the BJP and Trinalool Congress amid COVID challenges, 'Bangaliana', and campaigns based on religion, region, and caste.
Arch-rivals Left and Trinamool, SP and BSP come together for Sonia's lunch
There was considerable disquiet in the Congress after Mukherjee accepted the invitation of the RSS to address its workers at its headquarters in Nagpur.
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