Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Shatrughan Sinha on Tuesday shocked party leaders and workers alike when he stated, "Modi ke liye Delhi abhi dur hai" (Delhi is still far for Modi).
In a bid to end the impasse inParliament, the government reached out to the Bharatiya Janata Party saying it was ready for a discussion on 2-G spectrum issue and a Supreme Court-monitored CBI probe but rejected the demand for a JPC, which failed to cut ice with the main opposition.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Lal Kishenchand Advani has convened a meeting of National Democratic Alliance chief ministers on Saturday to hold talks with them and evolve a strategy to counter the Congress campaign in next year's Lok Sabha elections. The meeting will begin at 11 am in the morning and continue after lunch.
Congress spokesman Manish Tewari has expressed concern about the agreement between Pakistan and Taliban about the implementation of Shariat laws in the Swat region. Tewari was speaking at a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Samridh Bharat, Surakhshit Bharat (prosperous India, safer India) is the theme slogan of the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party's multi-crore media campaign for the coming Lok Sabha elections that is scheduled to be finalised by the party's prime ministerial candidate, L K Advani, by the month-end.
"We all know that we lost Rajasthan and Delhi due to our self goals. Those who were behind this self goal should understand that they may have damaged the party to some extent, but they have made huge damages for themselves," Advani said in his concluding address at the National Council.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader M Venkaiah Naidu has said that the party will discuss the strategy for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections at its national council meeting at Nagpur from February 6 to 8. Naidu, who was in Vijayawada to review arrangements for Vijaya Sankalp Yatra, a public meeting to be addressed by the party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Wednesday, told mediapersons that 8,000 party functionaries from all over the country would participate.
Asked if it would not result in UPA disintegrating, Dwivedi snapped back: "Of course, there is UPA. But UPA does not fight elections. It is the political parties in UPA which contest elections."
Congress Member of Parliament Jagdambika Pal, who served as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for three days in 1998, had to face an awkward moment on Monday during the debate on the Liberhan Commission's report in the House, when the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party pointed out that the report listed him as a karsevak.Pal was the first Congress leader to speak during the Lok Sabha debate on the report, which indicts top BJP leaders L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Speaker referred to the Home Ministry the matter related to Sanjeev Saxena, alleged aide of Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close aide of senior BJP leader L K Advani, and Suhail Hindustani, a day after the parliamentary inquiry committee said there was need for further investigation into the roles played by them.
The gory memories of the 2001 Parliament attack came alive at a function to mark the martyrdom of the security personnel who laid down their lives to save the symbol of Indian democracy.Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition LK Advani, chairperson of United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi and other senior leaders of various political parties offered floral tributes.
Addressing a public rally in Sabroom in poll-bound Tripura, Shah said that the Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist had put the Ram Mandir issue in the jurisdiction of the court for long, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for it after the Supreme Court's order.
Vajpayee's picture is now displayed on the last page along with those of party's idealogue Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, who were on the second page of the 2014 manifesto.
'The BJP will be the single largest party in the next Lok Sabha, the only one party with a three digit tally.'
Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh at the end of the three-day long Chintan Baithak blamed the Third Front for playing spoil sport and dividing the vote bank of the opposition parties, thereby helping the Congress to win the elections.
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.
Asserting that Pakistan should be given a 'categorical response', Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh said Saeed's release posed a 'grave threat to India's security'.
Hurt over denial of ticket, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh is likely to resign from the party on Sunday.
With important leaders raising questions over the way the party was going about in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha debacle, the Bharatiya Janata Party will have a two-day meeting of its national executive in New Delhi from Saturday, which is expected to witness fierce debate on the causes of the defeat and discuss ways for its revival.
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.
Describing Ottavio Quattrochhi as "no different a fugitive" than underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Leader of the Opposition Lal Kishenchand Advani asked Singh, who was present in the House, why the government was having a "soft corner" for the Italian.
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The meeting saw Opposition agreeing to undertake orderly behaviour in the House and in turn Chatterjee withdrawing the controversial reference of the MPs, mostly from the BJP- led National Democratic Alliance, to the Committee, sources said. An announcement on the issue is expected when the House reassembles at 14.00 hours. "Wait till two," the Speaker said, when reporters asked him about the outcome of the meeting.
Talking tough, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said its alliance with the Shiv Sena for the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra cannot proceed if the latter wants to back Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar for the prime ministerial post.
President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of office and secrecy to Naidu.
Here are the key figures among the 32 accused in the Babri mosque demolition case who were on Wednesday acquitted by a special CBI court in Lucknow of all charges.
Responding to Leader of Opposition Lal Kishenchand Advani's demand for a decision before Wednesday, the anniversary of the attack, Patil said no deadline had been set in such cases earlier.
Opposition National Democratic Alliance leaders on Monday urged Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee not to allow the government conduct official business in Parliament amid din, barring compelling circumstances.
Sonia Gandhi and L K Advani are faced with a lot of political headache ahead of the Lok Sabha polls with their allies trying to extract maximum seats in the seat-sharing talks. Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party have become the favourite punching bags for allies wanting to extract maximum seats from their rival groups being led by the two national parties.
It was astonishing that the statement of a 86 year old leader, virtually retired and who by his own admission is not even in the party, should create so much turbulence in the BJP. From the way the party reacted, it seemed as if he was about to snatch away the PMship from Advani, says Neerja Chowdhury
Time is running out for a hapless UPA govt over the Telangana bill, and the latest observation by the Rajya Sabha secretariat -- that the bill has financial implications and so must be introduced and passed in the Lok Sabha first -- has only worsened the crisis for the ruling alliance. Anita Katyal reports.
Unfazed by BJP's rebuff, former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat today said he would definitely contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election if his health permitted.
Nitish Kumar's unanimous election to the top post at the party's National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of double standards."When the Ahmedabad serial blasts case was allegedly cracked, the chief minister of Gujarat and leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani did not waste a second in calling press conferences, both in Ahmedabad and Delhi, to pat themselves on the back. The BJP will have to answer as to why it is trying to suppress the investigations into the Modasa blasts? he said.
'Politics is not a post for retired people to enjoy.'
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
On the eve of the Trust motion, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon briefed most of the UPA speakers, including Rahul Gandhi, on the intricate details of nuclear deal to prepare them well for the debate.
"We have strong reservations about the impact of Indo-US nuclear deal on foreign policy aspects but for us the top priority is to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party and L K Advani from coming to power. That is the why the MIM has decided to support the UPA government," Asad Owaisi told a press conference in Hyderabad.
Uttrakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri has resigned more than a month after Bharatiya Janata Party's rout in the Lok Sabha election in the state and mounting dissidence against him.
