'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
Hijacking of an aircraft will now entail capital punishment in the event of death of "any person" as Parliament on Monday passed a bill to provide widen the ambit of the law in dealing with this crime.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties, led by the Congress, staged a walkout from both Houses of Parliament on Wednesday, in protest against all states except two being 'ignored' in the budget, an allegation termed 'outrageous' by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamanm, who said all the states never found a mention in any of the previous budgets, including those presented by the Congress.
The Shiromani Akali Dal skipped the meeting, besides the Aam Aadmi Party, the TRS and the BJD.
At the core of Nitish Kumar's decision was a cold political calculation. He assessed that the RJD's support base was unlikely to vote for JD-U candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. He was unsure of winning even half a dozen if he stayed with the RJD and the Congress.
Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 2 pm after opposition members held protest in Parliament seeking a discussion on the issue.
Priyanka Gandhi asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will remain silent on the matter.
What was the "locus standi" of Sonia Gandhi when she along with the then prime minister Manhoman Singh inaugurated legislative buildings in Manipur and Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked on Wednesday while countering the Congress's criticism over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress candidate Shafia Zubair won the Ramgarh assembly poll in Rajasthan, while BJP candidate Krishan Middha won over his nearest rival from the Jannayak Janata Party for the high-stakes Jind bypoll in Haryana.
'The tide started to turn against the BJD when V K Pandian toured the districts gathering people's grievances last year.'
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Justice Siddharth Mridul perused the status report filed by the CBI with regard to the present health condition of Chautala and also the medical documents filed by the Indian National Lok Dal chief while extending his interim bail, which was to expire on Thursday.
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
One more rape case has been registered against Janata Dal-Secular MP and Lok Sabha poll candidate from Hassan Prajwal Revanna, taking the number of cases pertaining to the alleged sexual abuse of several women to three, police sources said.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Some Lok Sabha candidates in Haryana, which has the country's lowest sex ratio, are facing a strange demand from bachelor voters -- "get us brides in return for our votes".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
Fielding a strong joint opposition candidate from Varanasi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was among the proposals discussed at the fourth meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), sources said.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
A suitable non-Congress candidate from a regional party could help influence even some of the NDA allies like the Shiv Sena and the Janata Dal-United to vote for a consensus Opposition candidate, reports Archis Mohan.
According to the sources, the meeting will be held at 10 am on Thursday in the chamber of Rajya Sabha LoP.
The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Delhi was one of courtesy
Gupta, along with some other leaders, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri and the party's national general secretary Vinod Tawde.
The meeting of the 14-member all-important panel of the opposition will take place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on September 13 evening.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will get a 'decisive mandate' in the Lok Sabha polls and may take even less than 48 hours to decide on its prime ministerial pick, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday, asserting that it stands to reason that the party which gets the maximum seats in the alliance will be a 'natural claimant' for its leadership.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
The 33-year-old Prajwal was the National Democratic Alliance candidate in the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, which went to polls on April 26.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
'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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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.
"It is very unfortunate that a party which was formed on a promise of alternative politics, on the promise of practising transparency, accountability, internal democracy and not resorting to power politics broke all promises. It became like an ordinary conventional political party," said Bhushan.
The BJP and the Nishad Party will contest the upcoming assembly polls together in Uttar Pradesh and will work towards forming the next government in the state, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.