No one from the Gandhi family was present at the All India Congress Committee headquarters when the leaders filed their nominations for the election.
Nearly Rs 258 crore was incurred on 38 foreign visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi between May 2022 and December 2024, according to data shared by the government.
The Congress on Thursday raised the issue of Enforcement Directorate action and police gherao of its party office and the residences of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, with Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge saying in the Rajya Sabha that he has been summoned by the ED at a time when Parliament is in session.
The party has issued a three-line whip to all its MPs in the Lok Sabha to ensure their presence, the sources added.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday expressed apprehension that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections would be the last opportunity for the people to save democracy, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi might prefer dictatorship in case his party wins the upcoming polls.
In the prevailing difficult circumstances, the Congress is the only party that can provide capable and decisive leadership to the country, Kharge asserted.
Kharge also urged voters to take pride in the fact that he as a bhoomi putra of Karnataka had been made All India Congress Committee president, and sought a win for the Congress in that name.
The opposition leaders are expected to meet at Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge's office in the Parliament complex around 10 am, sources said.
'Why should Khargeji work against the Gandhis for the sake of proving his independence?'
The idea that India is the world's largest democracy is a complete lie, Rahul Gandhi alleged.
Sonia Gandhi had tested positive for COVID-19 in early June as well.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi had invited leaders of four political parties for a meeting on Monday morning convened by Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal to discuss and resolve the stalemate over the suspension of MPs.
The opposition party, however, said the four eminent Congress MPs and leaders who have been included at the instance of the Modi government will, of course, go with the delegations and make their contributions.
'If the Congress gets to form the government in 2024, then Sonia Gandhi by virtue of being CPP chairperson will have the authority to decide who will be the prime minister and not Kharge.'
INDIA bloc leaders will protest at Jantar Mantar Friday against suspension of MPs and nationwide protests will also be held in all district headquarters against the government's "immoral and illegal" behaviour of this government, the Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha said.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday expunged the references made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to Sonia Gandhi in the House on July 28.
The AAP will field candidates from the South Delhi, West Delhi, North West Delhi and New Delhi seats, while the Congress will contest from the Chandni Chowk, East Delhi and North East Delhi constituencies, the sources in the Aam Aadmi Party said.
Kharge said that the BJP is trying to misuse his 'Ravan' remarks for electoral gains in Gujarat.
BJP and RSS leaders are once again pushing to remove the words 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Constitution's Preamble, showing a deeper effort to change India's identity from a diverse, multi-religious republic to a Hindu-first nation, even though they don't have the numbers in Parliament to officially change the Constitution, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the BJP-RSS of carrying out a "well-planned conspiracy" against national heroes and said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's ideology was contrary to the RSS' ideas. He defended the relationship between Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, saying they were "two sides of the same coin". He also criticized the BJP-RSS for their alleged attempts to appropriate the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.
Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended the swearing in ceremony, while former AICC President Sonia Gandhi was absent. Chief Ministers of Congress ruled states Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Sukhvinder Singh Sukku (Himachal Pradesh) and several top party leaders were also in attendance.
Nationalist Congress Party-SP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday turned 84 and celebrated his birthday with members of his family and well-wishers, including estranged nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
The minister said the government was committed to ensuring the right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Constitution.
They said the meeting was necessitated after "some differences" cropped up in seat-sharing arrangement during the talks between the local leadership of the parties.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged that former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has links to an organisation financed by the George Soros Foundation, which has reportedly supported the idea of an independent Kashmir. The party claims this connection demonstrates foreign influence in Indian internal affairs. This comes after BJP's claims of US involvement in destabilizing India, which the US has denied. The BJP also accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of collaborating with the Soros-funded OCCRP to damage India's economy and reputation. The allegations have drawn criticism from the US embassy and the opposition Congress.
This will be the first time that the Congress, since its ouster from power in 2014, will get the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It failed to get the position in the past 10 years as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House, both in 2014 and 2019.
Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar sought views of leaders of various political parties on ways to curb disruptions in the House at a meeting held on Sunday on the eve of the start of the second phase of the Budget session.
Manmohan Singh came to vote in the Rajya Sabha on a wheelchair to help strengthen democracy, Modi said.
Another meeting convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday with the floor leaders of the INDIA constituents in Parliament will, however, go ahead according to its schedule to formulate the opposition strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
An alliance between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress in Delhi and in different states, including Gujarat and Haryana, for the Lok Sabha polls may be officially announced on Saturday, sources in the AAP said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday took the Congress to the cleaners over making the 2024 general elections about the protection of the Constitution, saying Indians voted on the plank only once when they threw out the Indira Gandhi government in 1977 after the Emergency.
The Congress announced on Thursday that it would not field candidates in the nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh where bypolls are being held and would support Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) nominees.
The principal opposition party though appeared content securing 99 of the 543 seats in the 2024 national elections as against its all-time low of 44 in 2014 and then 52 in 2019.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked the Congress over party president Mallikarjun Kharge's recent remark on Lord Ram and Lord Shiva, and accused the opposition party of trying to divide Hindus for its appeasement politics.
Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi state convener Gopal Rai on Thursday said his party's alliance with the Congress was only for the Lok Sabha elections and hinted that the ruling party in the city will go solo in next year's assembly polls in Delhi.
Following his disqualification as a member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi may have to vacate his official bungalow in Lutyens' Delhi within a month if he does not get relief from a higher court in the criminal defamation case, an official said on Friday.
The leaders met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi in the presence of general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and Telangana Congress chief A Revanth Reddy.
With his three-week temporary bail for poll campaign ending, Aam Aadmi Party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be back in Tihar Jail on Sunday as a court here put off till June 5 its order on his plea seeking interim bail on medical grounds.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday did not attend the public meeting addressed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Maharashtra's Sangli district, where the latter also unveiled the statue of late Maharashtra minister Patangrao Kadam.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a chargesheet in the Associated Journals Limited-Young Indian-National Herald money-laundering case, seeking confiscation of assets worth Rs 661 crore and appending statements of Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The agency has accused the Gandhis of orchestrating a conspiracy to illegally obtain the underlying assets of AJL by the beneficial owners of YI (Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi). Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have denied any wrongdoing and said the takeover of Associated Journals Limited (AJL) by Young Indian (YI) was not for commercial purposes. The Congress has slammed the chargesheet, alleging that the ED action against its leaders shows panic and moral bankruptcy of the "despotic" government, while the BJP has continued to call out the role of the Gandhi family in the matter.
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