As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
In the event that like in the 17th Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi again gets locked out of the House, the Congress needs a second-in-command who will keep the momentum going inside Parliament, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Many in the party feel it has played a critical role in boosting the Congress' electoral fortunes in the state and its impact is there for everyone to see.
The Opposition on Tuesday termed the Union Budget as a 'kursi bachao budget' driven by political compulsions and claimed that it ignored opposition-ruled states in a bid to 'appease' Bharatiya Janata Party's allies.
Leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have decided to raise the NEET issue in both houses of Parliament on Friday and members will give notices in this regard, sources have said.
Babaria said he offered his resignation to the high command soon after the result of the Haryana assembly polls came out last week but no decision has been communicated to him over the matter.
The Lok Sabha is set to witness a fierce debate on the no-confidence motion against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government on Tuesday with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, whose membership was restored following a Supreme Court direction, likely to be the lead speaker of the opposition bloc INDIA.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi must apologise and take back all his remarks against late Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar before entering Maharashtra, Bharatiya Janata Party state chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said in Nagpur on Friday.
Senior Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, are accompanying Rahul Gandhi to the court.
Sources said MPs of the opposition alliance in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will meet to chalk out their joint strategy for the session from September 18 to 22.
Congress leader Pawan Khera on Sunday apologised for his tapasya tweet after not getting a Rajya Sabha nomination from his party last year, saying he did so in "selfishness" but has realised his mistake drawing inspiration from Rahul Gandhi who "shuns power" and continues his 'tapasya'.
The Congress steering committee on Friday approved several amendments to the party constitution, one of which is to give permanent membership to former prime ministers and former party presidents in the all-powerful working committee.
The Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra re-entered Haryana on Thursday evening from Uttar Pradesh but he left for Delhi to meet his ailing mother Sonia Gandhi and will return next morning, a senior Congress leader said.
Separately, the poll panel also issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, asking him to respond to the complaints filed by the BJP against him and the main opposition party's senior leader Rahul Gandhi regarding their remarks.
The Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is also "failing legally" after a Gujarat court verdict on Thursday held him guilty in a 2019 criminal defamation case.
Ganguly joined the BJP in New Delhi at the party headquarters in the presence of several other party leaders, including its national media department in-charge Anil Baluni.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The final round of voting for the Jharkhand Assembly elections is taking place on Wednesday, with the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition seeking to retain power while the BJP-led NDA aims to take control. The election will decide the fate of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his wife, and several other candidates. Key issues during the campaign included alleged infiltration from Bangladesh, corruption, and Hindutva.
The Congress slammed Ravi Shankar Prasad, accusing him of distorting, twisting and lying "with a straight face".
Prime Minister Narendra D Modi on Tuesday paid floral tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at the Statue of Unity at Ekta Nagar in Gujarat's Narmada on the birth anniversary of the country's first home minister which is celebrated as National Unity Day. In New Delhi, Congress MPs Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi paid homage to Indira Gandhi on the 39th anniversary of the late prime minister's assassination.
Gourav Vallabh joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday hours after he quit the Congress, saying he can neither raise anti-Sanatan slogans nor abuse "wealth creators" day in and day out and was joining the ruling party due to his support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's agenda of "Viksit Bharat".
Several top Congress leaders including party general secretary organisation K C Venugopal, Sachin Pilot, Randeep Surjewala and Shashi Tharoor, wished the former party chief on her birthday.
The Congress on Sunday called for fixing accountability over the death of three IAS aspirants due to waterlogging in a building in Delhi with Rahul Gandhi asserting that common people are paying the price for irresponsibility of institutions at every level.
Several opposition leaders hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party following the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi as an MP on Friday, alleging the ruling party was involved in vindictive politics, and said it was a new low for democracy.
The committee, of which Mukul Wasnik is the convener and has former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel as well as Mohan Prakash and Salman Khurshid in it, held final talks and suggested the way forward to the party leadership.
Scenes from the Opposition leaders' dinner meeting, in Bengaluru on Monday, July 17, 2023.
The Congress on Thursday said former party chief Rahul Gandhi will file an appeal against a Gujarat court verdict holding him guilty in a 2019 criminal defamation case, and alleged that the government was after him for speaking the truth and bringing to light its 'misdeeds'.
A meeting of Opposition parties, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will be held in Patna on June 23, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
The Election Commission Wednesday directed the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to refrain from making speeches on religious and communal lines, and opposition Congress from potentially divisive statements on the socioeconomic composition of the armed forces.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
The BJP's nationwide vote share saw its steepest decline in Rajasthan, falling by 9.23% from 2019, resulting in the loss of 11 seats.
Reserve Bank of India's former governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday joined Rahul Gandhi during the Congress-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Rajasthan.
What some of our leaders were up to on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
However, in 950 booths, voting will end at 4 pm, though people standing in the queue at that time will be able to exercise their franchise.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who set off a national debate when he walked the Bharat Jodo Yatra in a T-shirt in north India's cold winter, donned a pheran to ward off Kashmir's bone-freezing chill on Monday.
Curfew was relaxed in three Imphal Valley districts on Tuesday and the suspension on broadband internet lifted with conditions, even as Chief Minister N Biren Singh blamed the Congress for the present crisis in Manipur and NDA MLAs called for a "mass operation" against militants responsible for the killing of six women and children. Peaceful rallies were also staged across the state, with hundreds taking to the streets with empty coffins in Churachandpur district, demanding justice for those killed in a gunfight with the security forces in Jiribam, and members of various civil society organisations bringing out a procession in Imphal West district to protest the reimposition of AFSPA in parts of the state.
'Rahul Gandhi is going to turn 54 and in India political leaders peak when they are around 60.' 'This 'bhai-behen ki jodi' has done a wonderful job for the Congress.' 'Priyanka Gandhi was a very effective campaigner.'
Asked how many seats the Congress would fight on, Singh said they would be flexible in seat sharing.
The winter session will begin on December 7 and will last until December 29.
Anti-Congress regional parties may have felt the possible impact of Rahul's South-North yatra, pending a second East-West padayatra, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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