'I don't want to give any headline to the media as at present my focus is on the Bharat Jodo Yatra'
The go-ahead given to prosecute Arundhati Roy would be seen by supporters of freedom of speech as an announcement that the Right-Wing doesn't feel humbled by the results of the elections, argues Shyam G Menon.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Ending his 52-year-long association with the party, P V Balachandran, a member of the KPCC executive committee, said both majority and minority communities are moving away from the Congress and the people would not stand with a party which has lost its direction.
The opposition also made it clear that they have taken over the state-wide protest against SilverLine and would continue the agitation till the government withdraws from the initiative which they termed as "destructive" for the southern state.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Friday sought to quell the suggestions of its rift with the Bharatiya Janata Party and that Mohan Bhagwat's recent critical references related to the Lok Sabha polls were aimed at the ruling party, insisting that such claims are just speculation meant to create confusion.
'Only when you are close to the party, will you understand what the BJP stands for.'
'One is happy. The moment one starts criticising the BJP, ED, IT and CBI comes to one's house.'
The consent is akin to a blanket nod for the agency to probe scheduled offences specified in the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DPSE) Act, 1946.
'While the Congressmen were fighting, the LDF was quietly doing its job, perhaps bringing in results in the lives of the people.' 'Pinarayi Vijayan and several ministers in his cabinet believed that the government should do real business, which is not to fight with the UDF but govern.'
Veteran Communist leader and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan, one of the most popular and crowd-puller leaders in the history of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in the state, turned 100 on Friday.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a setback to the Congress in Kerala, senior party leader K Sudhakaran on Thursday said he would not contest against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Dharmadom constituency in northern Kannur district.
'The path of militant Hindutva that the BJP's national leadership chose as its main electoral plank literally dug the grave for the party in Kerala,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
Meanwhile, allegations and counter claims continued on polling day as well, with Chandy's son -- Chandy Oommen -- claiming that his father and their family had been hounded for over 20 years.
'Barring Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the BJP will may make inroads in Karnataka, Andhra and Telangana in 2024.'
Irani said the show of strength by the Congress is aimed at putting pressure on the probe agency, and asserted that nobody is above the law "even Rahul Gandhi".
At one point of time Sunanda Pushkar said she wanted to speak to Sonia Gandhi about her problem, a Congress leader from Kerala tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa.
If a 15 seconds-long mic problem merits a case being registered, then the police risk an avalanche of complaints of similar and greater gravity, seeking their intervention, notes Shyam G Menon.
'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.' 'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
IMD issued red alerts for Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Idukki districts.
Celebrities and politicians made a beeline for polling stations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as both the states go to the polls on Monday.
The hill shrine had been witnessing protests by devotees and right wing groups against the government's decision to implement the September 28 Supreme Court verdict, permitting women of all age groups to offer prayers at the temple.
Tharoor said that every 'Ram bhakt' was not a Bharatiya Janata party supporter and he saw no reason why he or the grand old party should relinquish Lord Ram to the saffron party.
Voting for by-elections to seven assembly constituencies of six states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tripura, West Bengal, and Jharkhand, started on Tuesday at 7 am.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
In a major organisational rejig ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Saturday appointed Avinash Pande the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, replacing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while Sachin Pilot was made the general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged on Friday that China was preparing for war and the Indian government is sleeping over it and trying to ignore the threat.
Antony, along with his wife Elizabeth, reached Chandy's residence in Thiruvananthapuram to bid adieu to his trusted lieutenant during trying times of their decades-long political career.
'It is a political failure, and not a medical failure.'
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
Singh has questioned the reliability of the EVMs on more than one occasion following the Congress' defeat in the recent assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Congress candidate R Selvaraj defeated the CPI-M's F Lawrence by a comfortable margin of 6,334 votes in the June 4 bypoll whose outcome has come as a morale-booster to the one-year old Oommen Chandy ministry. Selvaraj had resigned as CPI-M member of the assembly in March this year citing serious differences with the party leadership, causing the byelection, before joining Congress
Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor will face-off in an electoral contest on Monday for the post of All India Congress Committee chief, as the party gets set to have a non-Gandhi president in over 24 years.
No one from the Gandhi family was present at the All India Congress Committee headquarters when the leaders filed their nominations for the election.
The Left government in Kerala on Thursday withdrew a handbook for police personnel on duty at the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala after the Bharatiya Janata Party raised a hue and cry over a mention in the book that all pilgrims can enter the temple.
He was disqualified as Lok Sabha member on January 25, days after a sessions court at Kavaratti had convicted him and three others on charges of attempting to murder P Salih and sentenced all the three to rigourous imprisonment for 10 years.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress on Sunday were set to share the honours in the Lok Sabha and assembly bye-elections in 13 states.
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