Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Pyarelal Khandelwal died in New Delhi on Tuesday, following a cardiac arrest at AIIMS.
Adding to the BJP's fears, former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat met senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Friday.
Pranab Mukherjee Gulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel will liaise on behalf of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, while Gujarat Chief Miniser Narendra Modi, Jaswant Singh, S Gurumurthy and Cho Ramaswamy are the pointsmen for Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate L K Advani.
'Lateral entrants', a term coined for non-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers, are in for tough days ahead in the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the wake of recent wrangling in the BJP, followed by the exit of senior leaders like Jaswant Singh and L K Advani's aide Sudheendra Kulkarni, the party has decided to clip the feathers of 'lateral' entrants. It literally implies that the members, who are non-swayamsevaks, will no more be able to enjoy power and clout.
Party sources said the course of action against Shourie could be decided against the backdrop of the swift action taken against Jaswant Singh who was expelled last week. "The party has taken note of the utterances of Mr Shourie. It shall be responded to appropriately after discussions," BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said in New Delhi.
BJP's former mascot Jaswant Singh, for long, could do no wrong and was fiercely defended even when he was caught on camera dozing in Parliament or indulging in feudal and obscurantist customs like offering opium in his cupped palm to his loyalists. But an infantile desire to play Herodotus has done him in.
Raje is expected to meet party chief Rajnath Singh and L K Advani, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in New Delhi on August 22, soon after they return from the ongoing chintan baithak (brainstorming session) in Shimla.
Brawn triumphed over brain last week as the Bharatiya Janata Party announced, after "consultations" with "foreign policy experts", that it was for a "muscular" foreign policy so that "nobody thinks they can mess with India".
Former foreign minister in the Atal Bihari government Jaswant Singh said that if voted to power the National Democratic Alliance would continue the process of holding dialogue with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue and simuatenously engage the All Party Hurriyat Conference as was done during Vajpayee's tenure as prime minister.
The stage was on Friday set for a stormy Bharatiya Janata Party national executive meeting in New Delhi on Saturday, with senior leader Arun Shourie joining others in demanding an open discussion on the party's Lok Sabha poll debacle that has turned the party into a badly divided house.
Reacting to the Interim Budget 2009-10 on Monday, the Bhartiya Janata Party claimed that the United Progressive Alliance government had failed to live up to the promises it made to the nation under its common minimum programme.
In a bid to stop the party leaders' infighting in public, Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Saturday issued a gag order on its leaders and functionaries from talking to media, formally or informally.
Sensing an impending storm at its crucial meeting on June 20 to discuss its poor show in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to set up an in-house committee to analyse the reasons for its electoral defeat.The decision to set up the committee is expected to be finalised at the party's 'core committee' meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. Besides party President Rajnath Singh and Opposition leader L K Advani, senior leaders will also attend.
When Advani shook hands, the prime minister did not come out his seat. While Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav hugged Advani for a second, Lalu Prasad too came out of his seat to greet Advani, but did not hug him.
It is also considering to hike FDI cap for public sector from 20 per cent to 49 per cent
Jaswant Singh's book has raised a fresh controversy on who was responsible for the Partition of India. Some think it was Mohammed Ali Jinnah; others say Jawharlal Nehru/Sardar Patel. The truth is that the seeds for Partition were sown at least 80 before Partition actually happened.
Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former aide of Leader of Opposition L K Advani, on Saturday defended the former on the issue of the cash-for-vote scam that rocked the proceedings in Parliament in July 2008.Kulkarni's defence of Advani came a day after expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh fired a fresh salvo at octogenarian leader, accusing him of being at the centre of the cash-for-votes scam drama enacted in the Lok Sabha last year.
'The culture of the BJP has changed and the party too has changed with this new culture. 'The BJP is having bad political management, bad man management, personal management and inter-personal relationships.' 'Therefore, people like me are not in the BJP.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to announce the names of its candidates for over 150 Lok Sabha seats on Thursday.
There was no law that prevented the government from presenting a sixth full Budget, or something similar to it.
Among other dignitaries who paid tributes toSavarkar were Sushma Swaraj, S S Ahluwalia, V K Malhotra, Shri Santosh Kumar Gangawar, Maya Singh, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, members of Parliament and many former members of Parliament. Lok Sabha Secretary-General P D T Achary and Rajya Sabha Secretary-General V K Agnihotri, also paid floral tributes at the portrait of Savarkar.
Leader of Opposition L K Advani is upset with the developments in the Bharatiya Janata Party, on the event of the national executive to be held in New Delhi shortly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has convened a meeting of the party's core committee to discuss the resignation of senior Maharashtra leader Gopinath Munde. Senior leaders including L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley are expected to participate in the meeting.The BJP leadership had called Munde and Maharashtra BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to Delhi. Gadkari had arrived in New Delhi and Munde was expected to arrive late on Monday.
Raking up the snoopgate scandal allegedly involving Narendra Modi, the Congress on Monday wondered if women of the country would like to have a person like Modi in their households, who is known for his "anti-women attitude".
Aggressive campaigning and the existing 'Modi wave' and a lack of will on part of the Congress has put the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan far ahead of others. The party is comfortably placed in 21 out of the 25 seats, and they have been able to do this because of maintaining the same tempo that enabled them to defeat the Congress badly in December's assembly elections. P B Chandra reports
An all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the Mumbai terror strikes on Sunday night saw sharp differences on the issue of a tough anti-terror POTA-like law with BJP making a strong demand for such a law and the United Progressive Alliance opposing it tooth and nail.
The National Democratic Alliance had offered to extend outside support to the United National Progressive Alliance's prime ministerial candidate in 2007, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh has revealed.The NDA had made the offer to the UNPA during the presidential polls last year, the senior BJP leader told mediapersons in New Delhi on Saturday.The former finance minister also warned that the country was "hurtling towards an economic emergency" under the UPA govt.
Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Jaswant Singh made a demand for a probe by a House Committee into the Rs 7,800 crore (Rs 78 billion) fraud.
With the Indo-US nuclear deal already turning into a major headache for the government, the BJP on Monday asked the Congress to take a clear stand on the issue instead of blaming others.
Jaswant Singh, a 35 year-old vegetable seller, sprinkled kerosene on his body and set himself ablaze at his shop in the presence of dozens of people while chanting Bum bum bholay in Gagwal village of Kathua district, official sources said in Jammu.
Charging the finance minister with leaving an off-budget fiscal overhang of Rs 300,000 crore (Rs 3,000 billion), which could wreck the country's economy, Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday demanded resignation of P Chidambaram to escape "dismissal". Singh warned that the country was heading for the worst kind of food inflation and the off-budget subsidy on fertiliser and petroleum would leave a serious dent on the government finances.
Shekhawat was accompanied by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other NDA leaders.
K P S Gill, former director general of Punjab police, has refuted allegations against him in a 125-page human rights report in which he was accused of personally questioning human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.
Under persistent attack on the Kandahar hostage issue, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Wednesday sought to make the Congress an equal partner for the blame, saying the decision to release three terrorists was taken at an all-party meeting in which Manmohan Singh had participated as the Leader of Opposition.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Wednesday claimed that Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir had been allowed to visit Jammu and Kashmir as a United Nations rapporteur and questioned the clearance for it."Are we seeking reciprocal arrangements from Pakistan government for such visits by Indian human rights activists," Jaswant Singh, Leader of Opposition in the Upper House, said while replying to a debate on the President's address.
The highest winning margin was registered by BJP candidate Subhash Chandra Baheria in Bhilwara who defeated Congress candidate Ram Pal Sharma with a margin of 6,12,000 votes.
India's finance ministers have played a crucial role in framing policies and initiating reforms to boost the economy.
PM Singh who is acutely underplaying his "achievement" of getting the extraordinary nuclear agreement with US is all set to make history and he is well aware of the fact that opposition parties, whether they hate it or love it, have to live with it.
Rare government records pertaining to events leading to abolition of privileges of erstwhile rulers of Indian states appear to be missing from the National Archives.
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