"I was told by people it was good," Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday remarked over Rahul Gandhi's first speech in the Budget session in which he made a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government on farmers' issue.
Yashpal Arya and his son, along with their supporters, joined the Congress in the presence of senior party leaders Harish Rawat, K C Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala in New Delhi.
He expressed confidence he and Pilot would work together after they agreed on a truce before the party high command.
The CPI-M's allegations were termed a political conspiracy by the opposition Congress which accused the Left party of stooping low to target its political opponents.
In an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana, the party said that while on the one hand the Bharatiya Janata Party has already started preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is in dire straits.
'There may be some planted stories here or there, people trying to create manufactured controversies but the party is fully united. We will make sure the yatra is even more successful than it has been in other states'
The alliance adopted a resolution to this effect and said its theme for the elections will be "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India, (India will unite, India will win)".
A majority of Congress leaders said the party will face desertions if Rahul Gandhi does not remain the leader.
"The meeting was very fruitful and we all are very happy with the outcome. I could not attend the press conference after the conclave as I had to come back to Patna. My effort is to unite all opposition parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and now things are taking shape," the Janata Dal-United leader said.
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
'Shivakumar is an andhbhakt of Congress ideology and principles.'
There is no mention of Kolar, the second seat from where senior party leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, wants to contest, in addition to Varuna, where his name is already cleared.
Congress leaders will also visit the families of the over 700 farmers who died during the agitation and will organise candle marches and rallies to pray for the departed souls.
Party leaders, sources said, maintained that Congress cannot afford to have a new leader at the helm for rebuilding the organisation at this juncture and that the responsibility for the defeat is collective and not individual.
The discussions are mostly one-on-one, party insiders said on Thursday, a day of many meetings.
The Congress has pinned its hopes on many of the old-timers and also given representation to some new faces in its first list of candidates announced for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled next month.
He said his party will continue to fight the "worst sentiments" the prime minister represents.
Senior Congress leaders Venugopal, Ajay Maken and Ashok Gehlot had on Wednesday took stock of the preparations for the Chintan Shivir.
The Congress leadership is caught in a peculiar situation and wants to find a middle path to the issue, party sources said.
As part of the efforts to bring several opposition parties together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Pawar met Kharge on Thursday evening.
Over the past week, Rahul Gandhi has replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa, and brought in young leaders as secretaries. These changes are unlikely to be a one-time exercise and poll-bound states would get the primary attention.
Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram suffered a fracture in his left rib after he was pushed away by Delhi Police during the party's protest in support of Rahul Gandhi who was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the National Herald case, said the party on Monday.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday said he was yet to receive minister T S Singh Deo's resignation from the panchayat department and that he learnt about the latter's move through media.
Opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bharat Rashtra Party and Samajwadi Party, came together in a show of unity on Thursday and accused the Modi government of getting the second half of the budget session washed out, while asserting that if this attitude continues, the country will move towards a "dictatorship".
Gandhi, who is on a whirlwind two-day tour of Kerala as part of Lok Sabha poll campaign and is contesting from Wayanad besides his family bastion Amethi, took time off his hectic schedule to pay obeisance at the famed Thirunelli temple near the stream.
On the eve of the meeting hosted by it, the Congress clarified that it will oppose the ordinance on Delhi services in Parliament, a key condition put by the AAP to attend the talks.
Amid his power tussle with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Pilot has announced that he will be among the people and Congress workers in various districts of Rajasthan between January 16 and 20.
Congress leaders and workers were also detained on Wednesday after they staged protests outside the ED office and the party headquarters in New Delhi.
With the tweet, Gandhi also tagged a video of him urging the government to listen to students and take a decision only after reaching a consensus.
Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi read out the Preamble to the Constitution of India as part of the 'Satyagraha of Unity' protest.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra will be hearing the petition filed by NGO Manipur Tribal Forum.
'I have never seen a common man tapping a chief minister on the shoulder and giving him his petition, like needing money for a child admitted in a hospital.'
With this, the Cabinet will reach its full strength of 34.
The Congress, who has presently become a "leaderless" party, has also been facing multiple shocks at the state levels.
Thackeray said people should be aware of how religious issues are raked up to distract their attention from core issues.
As trends indicated a comfortable win for the grand old party in Himachal Pradesh, Shukla said the party was happy that it is getting an opportunity to form the government in the state and asserted that the party will do everything to fulfill the 10 guarantees made to the people of the state and would provide better governance to people.
Sources said the leadership of the government going forward, if Gehlot is elected as party chief, is likely to be on the meeting agenda.
Marking a vertical split in the Nationalist Congress Party, its senior leader Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government as deputy chief minister on Sunday.
The Congress on Sunday wrote to the Rashtrapati Bhavan seeking an appointment with President Ram Nath Kovind for a 7-member party delegation led by Rahul Gandhi to meet him and present a detailed memorandum of facts in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri incident that claimed the lives of eight people earlier this month.
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