More and more Congressmen are breaking their silence and coming out in the open blaming party vice president Rahul Gandhi for the poll drubbing. Renu Mittal reports.
In earlier elections, the Congress was considered the only major contender for Muslim votes in Gujarat, but this time the main opposition party is facing stiff competition from smaller outfits to get minority electors on its side.
The colourful rally galvanised the BRS workers who shouted slogans hailing the party-led regime's welfare schemes in Telangana and peppy political songs praised Rao's 'national' emergence.
The widening differences between Punjab Congress leaders -- Captain Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu intensified with their wives joining them in the conflict.
The party is finding increasing acceptability in the 18-35 years age group with Rahul Gandhi adding a million followers in the past 2 months and Facebook and Twitter also seeing similar spikes.
The Congress also claimed that the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP was the "B-team" of the BJP in Gujarat.
Long caught between two polarities, Gujarat's electoral field has expanded to include a third party with the Aam Aadmi Party challenging the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as well as the opposition Congress that has lost ground but still has significant presence.
'Vaghela has said he is with the Congress.' 'The controversy that he may switch to the BJP is a creation of that party to create confusion in the Congress.'
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sidhu visited the revered Gurdwara Darbar Sahib and offered prayers and stressed on 'opening of a new friendship chapter' and trade between the two countries, days after India early this week reopened the visa-free Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that 78 party legislators had sought Singh's ouster in a letter to the central leadership and it was not party president Sonia Gandhi who made him quit.
Addressing his rally at Valmiki Nagar, the former Congress president said he was pained to see that Prime Minister Modi's effigy was burnt in Punjab on the occasion of Dusshera, and added that it reflected the 'anger' of youths and farmers.
Sources said Tewari, who has publicly lauded the Agnipath scheme and termed it as a much-needed reform in the armed forces, has taken a stand contrary to that taken by his party.
Fearing defeat in the upcoming high-pressure polls, state Congress chiefs are reluctant to fight from their constituencies, eye a shift. Anita Katyal reports
"The Congress have gone and made promises in Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that they never fulfilled," Rajeev Chandrasekhar claimed.
"Only the Congress and the JD-S are celebrating, people of Karnataka are not," he told reporters.
The leaders attacked the BJP, accusing it of trying to create "Hindu-Muslim disturbances" to benefit politically and making false claims and promises.
Congress leaders and workers continued their protests in several states on Thursday against Rahul Gandhi's questioning by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald money-laundering case with many of them taken into preventive custody including former Union minister Renuka Chowdhury in Hyderabad after she allegedly grabbed the collar of a police official.
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Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
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Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday released its first list of 20 candidates for Lok Sabha elections, pitting Kumar Vishwas from Amethi, Rahul Gandhi's seat, and former banker Meera Sanyal and social activist Medha Patkar from Mumbai.
Though the Congress, AAP and other Opposition parties may have high hopes and some positive takeaways to seize on from the results, it is the BJP which has a big headstart and is firmly in the lead.
'There are too many competent people better suited and poised to take on Modi. The Gandhis are not among them,' argues Harishchandra.
Earlier, only Azad was scheduled to meet Sonia Gandhi.
As the Kejriwal empire spreads, will he be able to keep the momentum going? And will it be at the cost of greater centralisation of authority in the party, asks Aditi Phadnis.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday thanked the people for helping the Aam Aadmi Party "breach the BJP's fortress" in Gujarat and asserted that the party would win the state the next time.
Party chief Rahul Gandhi formed a nine-member Core Group Committee, a 19-member Manifesto Committee and a committee comprising 19 top party leaders who will look after the publicity during the elections.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
"Notwithstanding my personal anguish, I hope this will not cause any damage to the hard-earned peace and development in the state," Singh wrote in his letter to Gandhi
He arrived at the CBI headquarters early in the morning to face the investigation team. The questioning is likely to continue throughout the day with a lunch break, they said.
The ambit of the G-23 grouping increased this time as some more leaders -- Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma -- joined them.
Sule, citing Railway Ministry documents, said the largest number of Shramik Special trains -- 1033 -- were operated from Gujarat, followed by Maharashtra (817) and Punjab (429).
In one state, the BJP sweeps in Modi's name -- and only because of Modi's name. In the other state, Modi's name did not work. Himachal underlines the limitations of Modi's magic, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A teenage girl died while her mother sustained serious injuries after they were allegedly molested and thrown off a moving bus near Moga in Punjab.
'If he loses Gujarat, then he has a major, major, problem coming up in 2024.'
The Congress party's first list of 194 Lok Sabha candidates released on Saturday night has no major surprises. Anita Katyal reports
Kaur, the Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, is the only SAD representative in the Modi government.
The group of 23 leaders, who had written to Gandhi last year seeking an overhaul of the organisation, are also learnt to have objected to his joining the Congress as the matter was discussed among them at a meeting, the sources said.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
Pawar, who had surprised the BJP by forging an unlikely alliance of Congress-Shiv Sena-NCP to form government in Maharashtra after the 2019 assembly elections, has already appealed to opposition parties to keep aside differences and join hands to challenge the Modi juggernaut.
