According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A private complaint was filed in a Hyderabad court seeking direction to police to register a case against AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi.
Backing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's elevation in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday said that Hindutva was the only way to bring about change in the country.
"Whose country is Germany?...It is a country of Germans, Britain is a country of Britishers, America is a country of Americans, and in the same way Hindustan is a country of Hindus. It does not mean that Hindustan is not the country of other people," Bhagwat said.
Speaking at the RSS's annual Vijayadashami rally in Nagpur which was broadcast online and attended 50 swayamsevaks (volunteers) due to the COVID-19 guidelines, Bhagwat said when the Sangh says Hindustan is 'Hindu Rashtra', it does not have any political or power-centered concept in its mind.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Thursday met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Chief Mohan Bhagwat at the Sangh founthead office in New Delhi to discuss the recent developments in the party, including the elevation of Narendra Modi as Election Campaign Committee head and the Janata Dal-United's decision to quit the national Democratic Alliance.
"I do not answer hypothetical, speculative questions... This is purely imaginary at the moment," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters.
The goings-on at the three-day Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh conclave, which is being attended by 390 delegates, are shrouded in secrecy.
'Someone who has lost a dear one to Covid; that person is not going to forget and will not vote for the BJP.'
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
The Rajya Sabha chairman asked him to authenticate his assertions and refused to accept newspaper clippings that the Congress leader showed to buttress his points.
Bhagwat referred to Gandhi's writings in Harijan in which he had declared himself a "fanatic Sanatani Hindu".
Mohan Bhagwat said the temple would be constructed in the same grandeur as it existed before, using the "same stones" under the guidance of those who were the flag-bearers of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement for the last 25 years.
Addressing a lecture series 'Positivity Unlimited', Bhagwat said the country should stay united and work as a team in these testing times, instead of pointing fingers at each other.
The 93-year-old leader was admitted to the hospital on June 11.
Using the Mahabharat reference as a leitmotif, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed that an atmosphere of fear prevails all around with a group of six trapping the entire country in a 'chakravyuh' he promised would be broken by the INDIA bloc.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
RSS on Thursday made a series of tweets quoting Bhagwat on the issue.
"Debate is just an excuse, the real target of the RSS-BJP is social justice," Priyanka Gandhi said.
The RSS has decided that this year the festive occasion will only be addressed by RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat and not by chief guests.
'I'm sure the central government must have been thinking over the technicalities, that how to pave the way for construction of the temple.'
Modi's tweet comes after Shankaracharya Swaroopanand Saraswati objected to the slogan being used in favour of BP's PM candidate
He arrived at the RSS headquarters in Mahal area in Nagpur around 9.25 pm and left after one and a half hours.
"The RSS runs nearly 60,000 daily shakhas (branches) across the country and 97.5 per cent shakhas have started functioning again after the easing of COVID-19 related restrictions," joint general secretary Manmohan Vaidya said.
"There is no place for Hindus in the world except India," sources said quoting Bhagawat.
'A government which is so inefficient, what hope of justice can we have from them?' RSS leader Indresh Kumar tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore.
Even if someone did something wrong, do not consider everyone guilty. Some people want to misuse it, the RSS chief said in an apparent reference to incidents involving Tablighi Jamaat members after it centre in Delhi emerged as a major coronavirus hotspot.
Terming the ordinance promulgated by the Union cabinet to implement the Food Security Bill as a "cruel joke" on democracy, Bharatiya Janat Party President Rajnath Singh said that his party would not oppose the passage of the bill in Parliament but seek amendments to it.
A day after Narendra Modi's long meeting with top Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sevak brass, BJP president Rajnath Singh on Sunday met senior Sangh leaders at the RSS office in New Delhi.
What were our political leaders up to on the weekend?
The Bharatiya Janata Party's action against its two members for their controversial comments against Prophet Mohammed cap a series of statements from its top brass and also Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat that sought to distance their organisations from shrill and combative religious rhetoric, even as it has brought to fore the conflict within their wide sphere of support.
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend.
'No one is propagating RSS ideology as a government officer.'
'In its history, the RSS has never seen success as it is seeing now. And it wants to extend their base.'
A new idol of Ram Lalla sculpted by Mysuru-based Arun Yogiraj has been selected for installation at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, temple trust's general secretary Champat Rai said on Monday.
Sources say even some senior pracharaks are in the race to bag top positions in the government.
Former President A P J Abdul Kalam had once cancelled his visit to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters in Nagpur for an event after friends warned him that he would be labelled as an "RSS sympathiser", claims a new book, Kalam: The Untold Story.
"It is necessary for all to oppose this together," RSS spokesperson Sunil Ambekar said.
In his nearly 80-minute long speech on the first day of the three-day conclave, Bhagwat also asserted that RSS is "most democratic" and not dictatorial, insisting that it neither imposes its ideology nor remote-controls its various affiliates, apparently rejecting criticism that the Bharatiya Janata Party is controlled by it.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat discussed reasons behind the BJP dismal performance in Delhi.
