Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is seriously ill for the past two years, and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who did not canvas in the Bihar polls due to objections from ally Janata Dal-United, figure in the Bharatiya Janata Party's list of election campaigners.
The outfit's chief also took the English press to task for apparently keeping the Gujarat riots 'alive'.
Hoping to sway the electorate with the charisma of former prime minister and senior party leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday issued an appeal from the ailing leader to the voters of Maharashtra and Haryana to vote for the party.
"There is a need to apply balm to the wounds of Kashmiri people," she said.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
He was in Mumbai to flag off the Deccan Odyssey, via video conferencing from the Darbar Hall of the Raj Bhavan.
As the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mounted pressure on Bharatiya Janata Party president Lal Kishenchand Advani to resign, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Sunday came out in support of Advani, saying he could continue in both posts.
"The pneumonia is under control with the prognosis being good. Gradually his oxygenation (amount of oxygen in blood purified by the lungs) level has shown improvement and there is no spread of pneumonia," Head of AIIMS Cardiac Thoracic Vascular Sciences Department Sampath Kumar said. The 84-year-old leader was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday last with complaints of fever and chest congestion. Doctors later found that he was suffering from pneumonia.
To consider Pervez Musharraf a real force for peace is an absurdity, declares Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The Congress on Monday gave a clean chit to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and spiritual preacher Deoraha Baba, whose names figure in the list of those found culpable by the Liberhan Commission, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. "Vajpayee's name was not in the conspiracy (to demolish Babri mosque). His name was only in one of the lists," Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.
The condition of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences following respiratory infection and fever, was stable on Wednesday. The 84-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party leader was admitted to AIIMS on Tuesday night. He is being given appropriate treatment to deal with complaints of fever and respiratory infection, Dr Sharma said. Vajpayee is also suffering from hypertension and diabetes, he added.
Highlighting India's achievements in the field of information technology, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday suggested an "effective alliance" between India and China in the IT sector.
Vajpayee, now chairman of the BJP Parliamentary Party, said he and his party colleagues will play the role of a constructive opposition, raising important issues in the interest of the people in Parliament.
The actor is as entertaining at press conferences as he is in the movies, and he keeps the proceedings light -- and fun -- and Hitesh Harisinghani/ Rediff.com and Afsar Dayatar/ Rediff.com capture them.
He was responding to a suggestion made by Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav in the Lok Sabha.
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, is fully conscious and is breathing on his own, a senior doctor said on Sunday. "He is breathing on his own and he is fully conscious," Dr Sampath Kumar, chief of the Cardio Thoracic Vascular Sciences Department at the hospital, said. Vajpayee's basic parameters like heart, kidney, liver and blood pressure were normal and he had recovered from pneumonia.
The prime minister said the atmosphere is changing in the state.
"He [Vajpayee] did not do anything effective. I had sent him letters. I had talked to him directly," Narayanan said in a freewheeling interview to Congress MLA P T Thomas carried in a recent issue of Malayalam magazine Manava Samskriti.
Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj expressed disappointment over former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee not getting the Bharat Ratna this year, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party was expecting it. She also said the sanctity of these awards should be maintained as even some failures have been conferred with the honour.
The two leaders will be in NY to attend the UN General Assembly session.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been receiving invitations for functions scheduled much after the Lok Sabha polls, which showed the 'entire world believes his return to power is inevitable'.
This comes on the eve of the crucial Bharatiya Janata Party Parliamentary Board meeting on Sunday.
Mohite is expected to replace Heavy Industries Minister Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, who has resigned on the directive of his party chief Bal Thackeray.
His meeting with Vajpayee was described as a 'courtesy call'. Manmohan Singh called on the President to inform him about the Cabinet decision to request him to address both Houses of Parliament on June 7.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday questioned the character of the opposition alliance, saying its true face was seen when it indulged in corruption to save its governments.
His political career began with his involvement in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and he later became a member of the Shiv Sena.
'There is a song that fits my father. It is from the Dev Anand film Hum Dono, which goes Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya...'
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is likely to be discharged tomorrow from AIIMS as doctors have today declared him fit to go home after 26 days of stay at the Intensive Care Unit.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
The last Bharat Ratna award was conferred upon Pranab Mukherjee in 2019 and was posthumously awarded to Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika and Nanaji Deshmukh. The award was not given to anyone between 2020 and 2023.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The golden run of "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Oscars and A R Rahman's double win brought smiles on the face of ailing former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who watched the awards at the AIIMS' ICU and even gestured to the staff to have a look at the television.
Modi to receive Lokmanya Tilak National Award, constituted by Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust in 1983, to honour the legacy of Lokmanya Tilak
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
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