'The BJP alliance needs to handle the Maratha quota issue skilfully and address its root cause, which is agrarian distress. Then there is stalled industrialisation. If these issues are addressed, caste fault lines would wither away. But, this is next to impossible in a short span of three-four months.'
Putrajeevak Beej, the medicine from Baba Ramdev's pharmacy, promises the delivery of a male child.
The MLAs who have been expelled for six years are Sanjay Pratap Jayaswal (Basti district), Madhuri Verma (Bahraich), Vijay Dube (Kushinagar), Mohammed Muslim (Tiloi-Amethi), Dil Nawaz Khan (Bulandshahar) and Nawab Kasim Ali Khan (Rampur).
Lack of numbers would upstage it in Rajya Sabha
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that the Opposition is suffering from "selective amnesia" as during the Congress-led UPA rule, the winter session was held in December in 2008 and 2013.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Friday challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest Lok Sabha polls in the Kashmir Valley, saying he will quit politics if the national party's candidates do not lose their security deposits.
Raising the matter during Zero Hour, Azad said everyone knew Mallya "could flee any day" and the investigating agencies should have seized his passport and taken steps to restrict his movement.
The meeting comes in the backdrop of the shock resignation of party veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday and his letter to party president Sonia Gandhi in which he lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for 'demolishing the party's entire consultative mechanism'.
The government on Monday categorically ruled out resignation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over allegations of corruption in Delhi cricket body DDCA which he headed till 2013, as Congress member disrupted proceedings of Rajya Sabha.
Narendra Modi was both conciliatory and mocking towards the Opposition, particularly Congress, during his hour long reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address in the Upper House.
The winter session of Parliament normally starts from last week of November or first week of December.
Sixteen former ministers of the United Progressive Alliance government are staying unauthorised in government bungalows for over a month now and have been served eviction notices, the Lok Sabha was told on Wednesday.
Vadra posted the remark on Facebook as the Congress came out in defence of Vadra and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of practising political vendetta.
In a major boost to the Congress in Varanasi -- where it is fighting an uphill battle against Bharatiya Janata Party's Narendra Modi and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal -- Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal has announced its support for the Congress with an aim to defeat Narendra Modi.
The vice president met Leader of the party in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, P Chidambaram and Deputy Leader of the party in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma, among others and discussed various points regarding the key tax reform legislation.
The two Houses would now meet on December 27 as there would be no sitting on December 24 and December 26 in view of Christmas.
The party also demanded the formation of a commission of inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge on the clashes between Dalit groups and supporters of right-wing Hindu organisations during the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Bhima-Koregaon battle in Pune that left a man dead on January 1.
While BJP members moved into aisles shouting slogans and demanding an apology from Azad, Congress members too rushed into the Well raising slogans demanding an apology from the prime minister.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said the core values of diversity, tolerance and plurality of Indian civilisation must be kept in mind and cannot be wasted, in remarks that come against the backdrop of the Dadri lynching over rumours of beef eating.
As the debate over the issue of leadership raged, another group of leaders put their weight behind the Gandhi family on Sunday, calling for Sonia Gandhi to stay or Rahul Gandhi to take charge again.
Congress on Sunday expressed surprise over the Modi government's "inability" to rein in affiliates of Sangh Parivar "brewing communal hatred and mistrust" for electoral gains.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi could only manage 244 votes.
Five army personnel were killed and six injured on Monday when terrorists ambushed their vehicle in the remote Machedi area of Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, officials said.
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.
The meeting also includes some of Sonia Gandhi's close associates and is the first effort by the Congress leadership for a reproachment with those who raised questions over the leadership.
'Several leaders leaving the party in quick succession tell us that something is very wrong with the oldest party'
Some senior Congress leaders, including Kapil Sibal and Shashi Tharoor, met at their senior colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad's house in New Delhi on Monday evening after the Congress Working Committee debated their letter to the party's interim chief Sonia Gandhi seeking urgent organisational reforms.
Reaching out to the opposition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday sought its cooperation in the passage of GST bill even as it asserted that government will be targeted over developments in Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir during Parliament's Monsoon Session starting on Monday.
The priority of Central Information Commission will be to check vexatious petitions and mounting backlog of cases, its new chief Vijai Sharma said in New Delhi on Wednesday.
High drama played out at the nearly seven-hour Congress Working Committee meeting with sources saying that Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the letter writers and some leaders found it to be insinuating that it was written in cahoots with the BJP.
The session will begin with the address of the President to the joint sitting of the two Houses on Friday morning followed by the presentation of the Union Budget on February 1.
Those familiar with intricate Kashmir politics do not rule out further delay in the assembly elections. Primarily, because the BJP having 'invested' so much for so long in Kashmir would try its best to wait a little longer if only to secure the 'gains' it believes to have achieved after its deafening action on August 5, 2019, points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
It was after a gap of two decades that saw such an occasion where MPs of the upper house enthralled their fellow colleagues at a dinner hosted by Chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu for 72 retiring members.
Rajya Sabha was adjourned twice during Question Hour on Monday as the Congress created uproar saying there were inconsistencies in government statements on the World Trade Organisation though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asserted there was no contradiction.
At a time when the Congress is perhaps facing its toughest electoral challenge and senior leaders are opting out of the race one by one, the party has at least succeeded in fielding tough candidates in two Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab. Anita Katyal reports.
Modi said Vajpayee would remain an inspiration and said the outpouring of emotions following his death despite his being away from public life for over a decade due to illness, shows his greatness.
The ruling National Conference-Congress coalition in Jammu and Kashmir received a severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections as the coalition could not win even a single seat of the 6 in the state.
The meeting of Congress's highest decision-making body is expected to be at a very 'high voltage' as Sonia's resignation will not be accepted by the CWC members.
Harivansh, a Janata Dal-United MP, is likely to get the support of 126 members in the Upper House, which has an effective strength of 244 MPs, sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party said.
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