Uddhav claimed that splits were engineered in many parties using central agencies and arrests were made illegally.
With the Congress down in the dumps and the BJP juggernaut on a roll, 'secular' parties are attempting to revive the Janata Parivar coalition to fill the vacuum.
Varma sought 'ideological clarity' from Nitish over extending alliance with the BJP beyond Bihar despite having expressed apprehensions 'in private' about the BJP-RSS leading the nation into a 'dangerous space'.
There was considerable disquiet in the Congress after Mukherjee accepted the invitation of the RSS to address its workers at its headquarters in Nagpur.
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.
The senior Congress leader was in a coma since October last year, when he was admitted to AIIMS after he suffered a brain haemorrhage.
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.
The Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment regarding leaders with a criminal background and said that they stand to be disqualified on date of conviction. The number of members of Parliament with a criminal background is 162, which means 30 per cent of those who govern the nation in the Lok Sabha have pending criminal cases.
'Yeh dil maange more' seems to be mantra for over two dozen former chief ministers of various states who are contesting upcoming Lok Sabha elections on different party tickets.
'The people of Jharkhand know that Modi is not going to become chief minister, so why should they vote for the BJP?'
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
While Rahul loyalists were keen that he be given the post, a leader known to be close to him said, "If he does not become the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, then he should quit politics."
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
'No, that is not an abbreviation for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha,' says T V R Shenoy, 'but for J Jayalalithaa-Mamata Banerjee-Mayawati-Mulayam Singh Yadav... If the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, and other regional forces do extremely well, we could be heading for a repetion of the 9th Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) and the 11th Lok Sabha (1996 to 1998), each of which saw multiple prime ministers and neither of which lasted even half of its five-year term.'
'A rag-tag coalition is more insecure and hence, more inclined to reform,' argues Devangshu Datta.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
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.
Yadav vowed to dislodge the government headed by Nitish Kumar, whom Congress leader Avinash Pandey in his address accused of "apharan" (hijacking) of the mandate in the previous elections.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea by 14 political parties led by the Congress alleging arbitrary use of central probe agencies against opposition leaders, asserting that laying down guidelines without facts of a criminal case will be "dangerous".
Didi embarks on her new mission: To unite the Opposition to take on Modi in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, observes Payal Singh Mohanka.
Jammu and Kashmir registered its highest turn-out in assembly elections in the last 25 years with an estimated 65 per cent of voters casting their votes, as the fifth and final phase of polling ended on Saturday. Jharkhand, which also went to the polls along with J&K, broke all previous polling records to witness over 66 per cent of turn-out in the five phases, bettering the previous mark of 54.2 per cent in the 2004 assembly poll.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has convened a meeting of the party's strategy group on September 8, the sources said. Opposition leaders are keen that various like-minded parties should work closely with each other to take on the government in Parliament.
Congress received donations worth over Rs 66 crore and NCP garnered about Rs 14 crore from individuals and business entities in fund contributions of over Rs 20,000 in the last financial year while BJP was among the parties which did not disclose such details to the Election Commission till the November 30 deadline.
Party president Amit Shah tweeted that BJP-ruled states will soon be filing review petition against the SC order and care will be taken to safeguard the rights of the tribals and prevent eviction.
Results coming out of Lok Sabha polls show that parties like Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party and Tamil Nadu's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam managed to corner a large number of votes but failed to convert them into seats, while parties with lesser vote share have got seats to show in their kitty.
According to a document by the Association for Democratic Reforms, the average number of years a case against a member of Parliament or a member of Legislative Assembly is pending is seven years. Vicky Nanjappa reports
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again led the BJP's campaign holding several rallies and stepping up his attack on Opposition parties, particularly the Congress.
The review plea has been filed by ministers from West Bengal (Moloy Ghatak), Jharkhand (Rameshwar Oraon), Rajasthan (Raghu Sharma), Chhattisgarh (Amarjeet Bhagat), Punjab (B S Sidhu) and Maharashtra (Uday Ravindra Sawant).
At a meeting convened by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on a range of issues ahead of Monsoon Session of Parliament, the seven chief ministers unanimously agreed to the need for filing a review petition urging the Supreme Court to reconsider its recent order rejecting the postponement of the competitive exams.
Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan are the other three states to pass a resolution opposing the contentious legislation, reports Archis Mohan.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
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.
Polling will be held in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
The Uttar Pradesh by-election will be the real test for the Modi government. By-election results are not a referendum on Modi but the time has come to analyse whether the Modi government is succeeding in assuring people that the promises it made would be fulfilled, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
Maharashtra police on Tuesday raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for suspected Maoist links. Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad, and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in New Delhi. Subsequently, Rao, Bhardwaj and Farreira were arrested. Although Navalakha was also arrested, the Delhi high court ordered police not to take him out of the national capital at least until Wednesday. According to unconfirmed reports, others whose residences were raided are Susan Abraham, Kranthi Tekula, Father Stan Swamy in Ranchi and Anand Teltumbde in Goa. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year. Here are their brief profiles:
Two crucial bills, forming part of NDA government's reforms agenda, got approval of Parliament within minutes today after a number of non-NDA parties backed the legislations in Rajya Sabha where the ruling coalition is short in numbers.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
