'Overnight, with zero qualification whatsoever for the responsibility of prime ministership, Priyanka is being projected as an alternative to Narendra Damodardas Modi!' says Nazarwala who predicted Mayawati's win in the 2007 UP elections, forecast her rout in the 2012 polls, and called right the 2017 UP assembly election result.
A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva -- all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Prayagraj to Varanasi.
To a question on whether deciding against contesting in the constituency would send a wrong signal, she said, "No I don't think so... I had said from the start that I will do what my party says...my party decided this and I am happy to follow the instructions."
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
Will Priyanka contest against Modi in Varanasi? Will Rahul also contest from Karnataka? Rasheed Kidwai -- Sonia Gandhi and the Congress party's biographer -- reveals what is churning in the Congress.
The Congress rebels are seeking to install a person of their choice as the new chief minister of the state.
For Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who continues the Gandhi family legacy of active politics that began several generations ago, the formal entry into politics was two decades in the making.
Priyanka Gandhi asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will remain silent on the matter.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary in charge of western Uttar Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, will accompany her.
'He has emerged as a formidable leader who cannot be ignored anymore, who cannot be mocked.'
The confidence of investors is "shaken" and the foundation of economic investment has "cracked", she said in a tweet in Hindi with the hashtag 'BJP bad for business'.
Speaking at a function in Varanasi on the occasion of Ravidas Jayanti, she urged the audience to take the teachings of the saint to the masses. "He (Sant Ravidas) had dreamt of a society, where there is no discrimination and where every person is respected. You all should take forward his teachings to the masses, especially at a time, when there is so much violence and hatred in the society. His teachings are need of the hour," Priyanka Gandhi said.
The Congress on Monday categorically denied media reports that party chief Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Vadra will campaign for the party in the 2014 general elections, and said this news has been floated to divert attention from the Madhya Pradesh temple tragedy.
Targeting Narendra Modi, Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday warned against the concentration of power in one person.
While Congress leader Sam Pitroda says it was Priyanka's own decision, party spokesperson Rajiv Shukla says it was Rahul's call.
The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh said the people of Amethi and Rae Bareli have self-respect and they do not beg from anyone.
Priyanka Gandhi urged people to stand with the farmers' struggle and to take the movement to the villages.
Gandhi dismissed as an "eyewash" the probe into what she called as Ayodhya land 'scam' in areas around the proposed Ram temple while Mayawati demanded that the state government cancel the land deals if the allegations in a media report on the issue are true.
In the wake of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra predicting Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh's Chouhan's exit from the top post following the year-end assembly polls, the latter asked people at a rally whether he should become the CM again or not.
'If the Congress loses this time, Rahul Gandhi will not look back at Amethi ever again.'
'The government has been anti our civilisational values.' 'My fear would be that they erode that some more to have their way and to consolidate their power.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
'Is it not a fact that all good leaders in the Congress have left the party?'
'He is such a big defence expert that he alone decided that the Rafale aircraft will be manufactured by a company that has never built one ever'
It is in power on its own only in three states -- Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana -- with a big question mark on whether it can even stake claim to be head of the INDIA bloc.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tennis star Sania Mirza and actor Priyanka Chopra are among the probable contenders named by the Time magazine for its annual list of the most influential people in the world.
A screening of the Web series, The Night Manager, was held in Mumbai, and several film folk turned up to watch it.
Congress leaders are confident that Priyanka would act as a catalyst for the party and boost the sagging morale of cadres to put up a spirited fight against the BJP and also the SP-BSP pre-poll alliance which had already shut its door on the Congress, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The party, however, did not say exactly when the Congress general secretary received the message.
Anger cannot be an end in itself to Rahul Gandhi's politics -- it must instead catalyse a new political strategy, argues Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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Addressing a 'nukkad sabha' in favour of Congress nominee Rakesh Sachan in Fatehpur, the Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh said, "The issue of patriotism is raised whenever elections come, but the real questions on farmers, unemployed, women safety are left behind."
24 hours was all it took for the Congress to overturn its decision to boycott the TV debates on the exit poll results. Sudhir Bisht offers an explanation.
Rahul Gandhi also fell down in the melee after police tried to stop him and his supporters from proceeding on the Yamuna Expressway.
Stressing that every question paper has been "accounted for", the NTA said that purported images of the question paper circulating on social media have no relation with the actual paper.
Can compassion, common courtesy or an 'emotional connect' win seats in the harsh realpolitik of UP, a state riddled with divisions of caste and religion, and confronted with a seemingly impregnable BSP-SP alliance? asks Sunil Sethi.
She also said the country's economy is in a "bad state" and there is a "severe slowdown", to which the Congress has been drawing the government's attention, and the Centre must do something about it.
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