The Election Commission Wednesday directed the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to refrain from making speeches on religious and communal lines, and opposition Congress from potentially divisive statements on the socioeconomic composition of the armed forces.
Reacting to the grand old Congress party's decline to the 'pran-pratishtha' ceremony invitations of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya, Digvijaya said that the ruling party had turned the event into a BJP and VHP event.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
All the issues around which the grand old party wanted to fight the May 10 assembly elections have been put on the backburner as party state president DK Shivakumar in damage control mode took up a temple run.
'The whole Kashmiri population is seemed to be a suspect community. This status is not good.'
"The nakli Shiv Sena wants to bury me alive. They abuse me in such a way that it will be liked by their favourite vote bank," Modi said.
The Congress on Sunday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'redistribution of wealth' remarks targeting the party, saying after facing 'disappointment' in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, the PM has now resorted to 'lies' and 'hate speech' to divert people from the real issues.
'Just today a shopkeeper I went to was saying how bad business is. He must have been a BJP supporter.' 'He finally said, "It's a good thing there's an NDA government, not a BJP government, 'they' had become too big for their boots,".'
'I would think that India faces less damage from opinions voiced overseas compared to the damage it suffers if the right to free speech of its citizens is curtailed in the name of image management,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
Ramesh asked the PM why river Ganga is "dirtier than before" even after spending Rs 20,000 crore on the Namami Gange project.
Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa and Brahm Mohindra will be two deputies to Punjab's Chief Minister-designate Charanjit Singh Channi, said party leader Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Maharaj, who joined the BJP in 2014 soon after Harish Rawat became the chief minister of Uttarakhand, alleged that the Congress is "looking at people as Hindu and Muslim face".
'There was a statement by a minister that 30,000 Kashmiri Pandits have come back to the Kashmir Valley after the abrogation of Article 370, it is all b.......t and a white lie.' 'Nobody has come back.'
Nine people from Himachal Pradesh, including a key Hindu Raksha Mahasabha functionary, three former armed forces personnel and two retired officers of the state administrative service, joined the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari attributed the party's poor performance in Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal to lack of support from the minority community, asserting that 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' was unnecessary and proposing instead 'Hum unke saath jo humare saath' (we are with those who are with us).
Shops owned by Muslims were shut for half a day in solidarity with the family of Hiremath and to condemn the dastardly act that shook the twin city of Hubballi-Dharwad.
The Lok Sabha contest in Thiruvananthapuram is shaping up to be a significant battle involving key candidates like Shashi Tharoor, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Panniyan Ravindran. This three-cornered fight highlights the political dynamics in Kerala's capital city, with each candidate bringing their own vision and promises for the region's development, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
An independent United States Congressional research report has alleged that the scope and scale of human rights abuses in India has increased under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
After perusing the transcript of the statements given in the interview, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta observed, "Prima facie, there is no hate speech. No case is made out."
'We can't sit back clutching our memories of the riots. The country, the future of our children are more important.' Jyoti Punwani reports on an unusual election meeting in Mumbai.
Wankhede is facing the vigilance probe by NCB after an independent witness in the drugs-on-cruise case, in which Aryan Khan is one of the accused, claimed of overhearing a discussion of a Rs 25 crore pay-off, including Rs 8 crore for Sameer Wankhede.
He was trolled during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, but despite the tactics by his rivals, action hero Suresh Gopi rose to national stardom in cinema style on June 4, winning the Thrissur seat on a BJP ticket and scripting history for the saffron party in Kerala.
'The Karnataka government should be alert because in Gujarat during the same occasion, the Kar Sevaks were set on fire at Godhra'
Seeking clarification, Karnataka Governor has sent back to the government a bill that sought to collect funds from temples with over Rs 10 lakh annual income, citing that a case concerning the earlier related act and amendments made to it is still pending in Supreme Court.
'The Hindu quest for political power in terms of a Hindu identity can pose a problem for tolerance, as the alignment of religion with power often does.'
Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj, who is facing first information reports (FIRs) in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra for allegedly using derogatory words against Mahatma Gandhi, remained defiant and said he does not have any remorse for his utterances.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday claimed that the Congress and Samajwadi Party will run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take 'tuition' from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath 'where to run bulldozers'.
Singh also defended Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath over the latter's comments on 'Hindu Rashtra.'
Kejriwal's announcement is a renewed push to counter the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat and attract Hindu voters, as per political experts.
The Indian American community has embraced and felicitated Tulsi Gabbard like no other Indian American congressional candidate, even though she's not Indian American, reports Aziz Haniffa
Mumbai's historic tryst with the Lord of Wisdom began at the Keshavji Naik Chawl in 1893.
'...We should first look at and acknowledge what we have done to ourselves.' 'To not do so opens us to the accusation of rank hypocrisy and also reduces the stature of our globetrotting peaceniks,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday embark on a near two-day meditation exercise at the famed Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari, and the district has come under a thick security blanket following the high profile event.
Kharge accused PM Modi of inciting people over the issues "that the Congress will never do".
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
In a statement, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh questioned the motive behind the inauguration of the "incomplete" temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS.
Chhattisgarh Police arrested Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh on Thursday over his alleged derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi, following which a court here sent him to police remand for two days, an official said.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances