"I am fighting a big battle to save my country from the corrupt. That is why they are behind bars today and not getting bail even from the Supreme Court," Modi said.
'Nobody is speaking up for Muslims today.' 'Secular parties too have calmed down because they feel this will hurt the Hindu vote (bank).' 'In this scenario, where does a Muslim go?'
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Three battalions of the Border Security Force comprising more than 3,000 personnel will move across the border from Odisha to Chhattisgarh and an equal number of Indo-Tibetan Border Police units will further move into the Naxal stronghold of Abujhmad as part of a strategy to intensify anti-Maoist operations in their last bastions, official sources said.
During the operation, members of the proscribed People's Liberation Front of India opened fire at approaching security personnel and the law enforcers retaliated, he said.
'If we want real democracy, the economy itself will need to be democratised.'
The four-day-old Arjun Munda government in Jharkhand won the trust vote in the 82-member Assembly by 15 votes.Forty five members voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition and 30 against.
Even as the Centre stayed the Jharkhand government's move to promote tourism at the Parasnath hills after protests by Jains, tribals jumped into the fray staking a claim to the land and asking for it to be freed.
Days after Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was booed by the BJP activists during a rally attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren too faced a similar situation when hundreds of BJP supporters jeered at him and shouted anti-government slogans on Thursday.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
A top Maoist leader, allegedly involved in the killing of five policemen and subversive activities ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, was arrested on Thursday in Latehar district of Jharkhand.
Jains fear Sammed Shikharji will be defiled by the influx of tourists.
Ekka, who is embroiled in the controversy for allegedly signing official documents at a private place, was removed from the post following Bharatiya Janata Party's allegation of his conniving with middlemen.
The bandh, which began at post midnight on Wednesday is in protest against the reported arrest of Maoist cadres in neighbouring Odisha.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha on Saturday decided to field its candidate in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls, a party leader said.
Hansda's name will be proposed when JMM supremo Shibu Soren meets UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi shortly, the JMM central committee decided on Thursday night, party sources said. "My name has been added to the list as I am the only woman MLA in JMM and a four-time MLA," Hansda told media persons.
This is a one-sided electoral understanding without taking the RJD into confidence, party's national spokesman Sanjay Paswan said.
Senior Janata Dal-United leader Dhananjay Singh pitched for Opposition unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and said party workers in Uttar Pradesh want Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to contest the elections from the state's Phulpur constituency.
Congress has been non-committal about joining the government headed by Koda, who is an independent MLA.
Optimistic over forming a new government in Jharkand, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is all set to stake a claim for government formation, with Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav vowing to install him as chief minister at all costs.Requiring a majority of 41 for the 81-member House, the JMM has 17 MLAs and guaranteed support of Congress, RJD and NCP.Four independents have pledged support to Soren and the JMM is lobbying to get the backing of at least 3 independents.
According to sources in Bhandaria police station, about 50 Maoists waiting for the police party triggered the blast around 11 am.
Given the dismal show of the Congress in the recently concluded assembly polls and the JMM eating into its vote bank, the possibility of Congress MLAs switching sides is not bleak, reports R Krishna Das.
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
Old-timers seem not impressed with the idea of dropping from the RJD poster its jailed supremo who is acknowledged, across party lines, as the biggest crowd puller ever seen in Bihar's poitical arena.
Amidst tight security, polling for the Tamar assembly constituency began on Monday morning.Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren is among the 15 candidates contesting for the seat, which had fallen vacant after Janata Dal - United legislature party leader Ramesh Singh Munda was killed by suspected Maoists on July 9 last year.The results will be announced on January 8.
'Kejriwal could have easily deputed someone to step in as chief minister, but being the authoritative and self-centered personality that he is, he chose not to do it.' 'If the AAP loses Delhi, where it has a huge majority, the only one to blame would be Kejriwal,' asserts Ramesh Menon.
They raised slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party and the central agencies.
One of the deceased was identified as Cherla local organisation squad commander Rajesh while the identity of the other was being ascertained, the police added.
The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.
A third complaint was filed against Maharashtra Navanirman Sena president Raj Thackeray in Jharkhand in connection with the violence by the party's activists on Hindi-speaking candidates of railway recruitment examination in Mumbai.
The arrest, the first of a sitting chief minister, came hours after the Delhi high court refused to grant protection to the AAP national convenor from any coercive action by the agency.
The Communist Party of India - Maoists on Monday warned the Jharkhand government to stop all search operations in Ghorabandha area for the abducted Block Development Officer from Monday night and fulfill their demands if it wants the safe release of the officer. Rakeshji, spokesman of CPI-Maoist- Bengal-Orissa-Jharkhand Border Regional Committee, said over the phone, "We will not take responsibility of the abducted BDO's safety if police action is not stopped."
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
Besides the MLAs, there were two other people in the SUV, which carried a board mentioning "MLA Jamtara Jharkhand" along with the Congress' election symbol, police said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader attacked the Congress for according Rahul Gandhi a "special treatment" following his conviction in a defamation case and accused the party of pressuring the judiciary, and doing everything possible to stay relevant.
His five-year rule saw the Babri Masjid demolition, the rise of the saffron forces and also the country being placed firmly on a new economic path, away from the Nehru years of public sector socialism.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
