That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
The Bharatiya Janata Party has set its sights on winning an 'unprecedented majority' in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking key organisational leaders to work towards boosting the party's vote share by 10 per cent, sources said.
Voting for the 13th assembly election in Rajasthan on Thursday commenced at 0800 hrs in all the 42,212 polling booths amid unprecedented security cover.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and some of his cabinet colleagues, including Shanti Dhariwal, figure in the list of 63 Congress candidates for the forthcoming assembly polls, announced by the All India Congress Committee.
KCR will continue as caretaker chief minister until the new government is formed.
At places in the border districts of Barmer and Jaisalmer, people walked miles through the desert to cast their votes.
Gehlot said there is no such tradition in the party to offer posts to any leader in order to pacify him.
Vasundhara Raje, who led the Bharatiya Janata Paty to a landslide victory in the Rajasthan assembly polls, was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister for the second time, in the presence of Narendra Modi and other top party leaders.
Asserting that the Congress government in the state will not only complete its five years but will also win the next assembly elections, Gehlot again accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of conspiring to topple his government at any cost.
The gravity of the incident which happened in Parliament should not be underestimated, the prime minister said
The FIR was registered on Saturday based on a complaint filed by Congress leader and former MLA Surendra Singh Jadawat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed 14 rallies in Madhya Pradesh during campaigning for polls and reached out to young voters by reminding them of the failures of previous Congress governments on various fronts as he doubled down on development of all sections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took a swipe at critics, saying they may remain happy with their arrogance, lies, pessimism and ignorance but people should be beware of their divisive agenda as an old habit of 70 years cannot go away so easily.
AICC General Secretary and Congress's chief campaigner in Rajasthan Ashok Ghelot said that the voters had cast their votes against 'Chief Minster Raje's rule of terror' and not the Mumbai attacks.
Yadav, who returned from the national capital on Thursday after a trip that lasted three days, asserted that there was "nothing new" in the summons, even as he alleged that the central agencies were acting as per the directions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Delhi's ruling party is all set to tackle the Parliamentary polls in the desert state, says Shahnawaz Akhtar
This is not the general election 'semi-final'. The element of anti-Congress sentiment is important, but not crucial. In at least three of the four states, the swing has mostly been caused by localised factors, says Mihir S Sharma
Gujrat Titans will be striving for much needed consistency when they meet Delhi Capitals in an Indian Premier League match in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
Ashok Gehlot, widely seen as the Congress's ruling family's nominee for the Congress president's post, bunged a spanner in the works when his MLA supporters submitted their resignations on Sunday night to assembly Speaker C P Joshi.
What about Uttar Pradesh Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat and Bihar? Mamata asked.
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
Noting that the assembly election results being very disappointing is an understatement, the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson urged party MPs to channel their disappointment into positivity for next year's general elections.
The MHA was told by the Rajasthan government that a special police team has been constituted to arrest all those involved in the lynching.
The move comes a day after the government called a special session of Parliament between September 18 and 22, the agenda for which is under wraps.
Defending Union minister Nihalchand Meghwal who has been issued a notice by a Jaipur court in a sexual assault case, Bharatiya Janata Party's Rajasthan unit on Thursday said there was no question of his resignation as it was a conspiracy by Congress leaders.
The Congress leadership is caught in a peculiar situation and wants to find a middle path to the issue, party sources said.
Populism gains momentum during election periods, and this trend is evident in at least four states: Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said Narendra Modi should be referred to as a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and not as the prime minister in the saffron party's campaign as he is a 'caretaker PM'.
BJP state president Satish Poonia said there was some confusion regarding the Jan Aakrosh Yatra which has been cleared now and the Jan Aakrosh Sabhas (meetings) will take place as per the schedule.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said both Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot were "assets to the party", the CM on Tuesday suggested that the matter rests there.
The EC reminded Gandhi that the Model Code of Conduct prohibits leaders from making unverified allegations against political rivals.
Accompanied by five party workers, Raje filed the papers at collectorate of Jhalawar, Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Gaurav Bajaj told PTI on phone.
'It is an existential crisis. We cannot recover lost ground through social media. We need to forge alliances and reshape our ideological contours.'
A day after a group of Congress MLAs met Sachin Pilot, another party legislator on Friday expressed support for the dissident leader as trouble brewed again in Rajasthan's ruling party.
A group of 45 Rajasthan BJP MLAs supporting Vasundhara Raje today met party president Rajnath Singh in a bid to pressurise him against the high command's decision to remove her from the post of leader of opposition in the assembly.
Ashok Gehlot has proved that a strong state leader can challenge the Congress high command.
The party's decision to announce the first list of candidates so early underlines the significance it has attached to five state elections, the last round of assembly contest before the all-important Lok Sabha polls.
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said on Saturday that the responsibility for the Bharatiya Janata Party's debacle in the general elections has to be fixed from the top.Raje refused to step down as Leader of Opposition in the Rajasthan assembly on the directive of the party high command and made it clear that she alone couldn't be blamed for the party's poor performance in the state.The BJP central leadership holds Raje responsible.
