At least a dozen rallies are expected to follow in the coming days, party sources said.
'Rahul Gandhi is raising the issue of a caste census though his party has been doing injustice on this front from the 1950s.'
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
With a significant number of Opposition leaders present at the swearing-in ceremony of the Congress government in Karnataka, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Opposition unity requires much more than optics of this nature and stressed the need for meeting of minds, a common agenda and sacrificing partisan interests.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
The last electoral contest for the top post of the party took place in 2000 when Jitendra Prasada had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.
Today, with the Lok Sabha polls only months away, any inter-state dispute over the Cauvery water dispute has the potential to take more political turns than otherwise, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Yeddyurappa lacks the Karnataka BJP's unqualified support and Shah knows that.
With a decision on the Telangana issue imminent, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the situation in Andhra Pradesh is peaceful.
The 58-year-old leader will expand his council of ministers after the trust vote on Friday which he is expected to win without any hiccups.
The first of the two-phase urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh will take place on Thursday, a major poll battle in the politically crucial state ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The result in Gujarat was not as grand as the saffron party had expected as the party did not even cross its 2012 tally.
The BJP's challenge is whether it can again deflate a Congress, which now looks reinvigorated and has adopted sharper messaging around its 'guarantees', and several regional parties, especially in Bihar, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
Polling is underway to elect 119 members of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, with voters queuing up to exercise their franchise amid tight security on Thursday.
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.
Gandhi also said the idea of 'One Nation, One Election' was aimed at distracting from real issues of the people.
Gandhi said the Chouhan government had not even spared gods, referring to winds on May 28 damaging six idols in the Ujjain's Mahakal Lok corridor, the first phase of which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October last year.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who have extended support to the Congress to form the government in the state, were not present.
With the general election campaign less than six months away, the BJP has more to think about than it had on the eve of 2019. It's the states that will be robbing BJP strategists of their sleep at this point, not the Lok Sabha, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days, even as the ruling BJP has been striving to break the 38-year-old pattern of alternating governments and retain its southern citadel.
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YSR Congress President Y S Jaganmohan Reddy said that he would undertake an indefinite fast in Hyderabad from on Saturday against the Centre's decision to divide Andhra Pradesh.
The strengthening of regional outfits may weaken the grand old party's chances of leading a joint opposition front for the 2019 general elections.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said she declined the offer of the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest elections pleading that she did not have the 'kind of funds' required for fighting the Lok Sabha polls.
The lack of clarity on who is next in line, when the time comes, as indeed it will one day some day, reflects poorly on the management of the world's largest political party. It scarcely need be said that a squabble between the contenders, Shah and Yogi, is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Opposition, notes Krishna Prasad.
Chidambaram also stressed that there were lessons to be learnt by the Congress from the Gujarat loss, saying there is no such thing as a "silent" campaign in a hard-fought election.
Congress is the only other horse in the race for national power, never mind how distant. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know better than to take the Congress lightly, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'In Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan, he is far more popular than the defeated chief ministers,' notes Karan Thapar.
Family members of the dead also staged a demonstration at the hospital and alleged there was a shorten of oxygen and raised slogans.
The Gujarat government had carried out fake encounters only to raise Chief Minister Narendra Modi's profile so that he becomes a "hero" in the eyes of people who believe acts of terror are done by Muslims, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has alleged.
In switching over, Nitish has sent out a message that if he could not now become the NDA's PM, then he would need to stay on as CM at the very least, which a third term for Modi would not let him have, N Sathiya Moorthy points out.
The Congress leadership has also asked its leaders not to make any public statements on sensitive issues.
The Congress on Saturday wrote to the Election Commission seeking action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his 'Congress shielded terrorism for vote bank' remark and said he has crossed the 'lakshman rekha'.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday, September 7, 2023.
A map showing the current political scenario of the country
The chief minister and his wife Kamlesh Thakur presented a cheque of Rs 51 lakh to chief secretary Prabodh Saxena at their official residence in Shimla.
The Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Friday made a pitch for unity among opposition parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, stating that the Bharatiya Janata Party can be defeated if all key leaders of these political outfits keep aside their ego and stick to their current stance of not keen on becoming the next prime minister.
Janardhana Reddy said he has not launched it with the objective of becoming CM right away in 2023.
BJP sources suggest that the upcoming elections will likely revolve around the renewed enthusiasm for the temple unless another theme with religious and nationalist undertones emerges.
Kerala Chief Minister and CPI-M leader Pinarayi Vijayan, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, West Bengal CM and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, and Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy lent support to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government's fight with the Centre.
'Are we so ready to believe that in this country whose virtues we constantly shout from the rooftops, there is no single person -- other than Modi -- in a minimum of 272 elected MPs with the talent and ability to lead this country?' asks Prem Panicker.
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