'He has got all the criteria that are good for running an NGO.' 'He is always doing charitable things.' 'To be a political leader you must have cunning to go for the seal.'
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was back in action on Saturday after he met farmers over land bill in Delhi, a day before the party's big kisan rally.
The Congress' central election authority on Thursday issued a notification for the All India Congress Committee president polls, setting the ball rolling for electing the successor to the longest-serving party chief Sonia Gandhi.
Ramesh said the substance of Modi's speech is 'mostly bogus' but is presented in a very convincing manner.
The new Congress president is building a core team of youngsters while waiting for his mother's coterie to retire, reports R Rajagopalan.
The Congress on Sunday named Baghel, a five-time MLA from Patan, to head the state Congress Legislature Party. Baghel, who took charge as Congress state president Congress after the 2013 assembly polls, was credited for the massive victory of the party in the recent assembly polls where Congress won 68 seats in the 90-member House.
Revenge he will exact from a party he had led with great aplomb until the Gandhi siblings stepped in and, in order to show who was the boss, flung him aside, observes Virendra Kapoor.
In one of his longest speeches, All India Congress Committee vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday tore into the Bharatiya Janata Party's poll manifesto. The BJP's manifesto was released on April 7 when the first phase polling of Lok Sabha 2014 had already begun. Shahnawaz Akhtar reports
Gandhi had decided not to celebrate her birthday because of rape incidents and assaults on women in the country.
After following Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the party's official Twitter handle, he began following senior leaders P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot, Ajay Maken, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and CP Joshi from this month.
The BJP may be ready and waiting to pounce on another key state of the Hindi heartland, but it is the Congress's holy trinity that issued them an invitation to the beheading, notes Sunil Sethi.
Fifteen ministers took the oath in Rajasthan on Sunday in a cabinet expansion that included 12 new faces, fulfilling a key demand of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot whose rebellion last year shook the state's Congress government.
Ashok Gehlot can never be a challenger to the first son of the Congress party. The Scindias and Pilots will be Rahul's rivals should the party's fortunes revive, says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'It was disappointing on two counts. One is on the leadership issue and second is how the Congress must win elections.'
Fearing defeat in the upcoming high-pressure polls, state Congress chiefs are reluctant to fight from their constituencies, eye a shift. Anita Katyal reports
In a shake up ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan resigned on Saturday from the Union Council of Ministers and more may be in line for being drafted into party work.
The BJP hit back, saying Gehlot has failed to run the government and is frustrated and making unreasonable allegations.
The grand old party faces the onerous task of rebuilding its moribund organisation, which is struggling to overcome a leadership crisis and regain credibility with the voters.
Some analysts also pointed out that "outsourcing" political management to regional satraps such as Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana may have proven counterproductive and micromanagement by the Gandhi family was needed.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will meet the Congress high command in New Delhi on Wednesday amid suspense over whether he will file nomination for the post of party president, sources in Jaipur said.
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The Congress works more but is not good at marketing itself, unlike opposition parties, believes party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who have extended support to the Congress to form the government in the state, were not present.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said democracy in the country will function in accordance with the Constitution and echo the voice of the people, who will reject the BJP's 'conspiracy of deceit and deception'.
Scindia's departure from the Congress also raises question marks about delayed decision-making and status quo in the Congress.
Admitting that the party was at crossroads and there were shortcomings both in the organisation and the United Progressive Alliance government, former Union Minister Sachin Pilot on Monday said "changes will happen soon" to put in place a 21st-century Congress.
Singh, who headed the UPA coalition government between 2004 and 2014, turned 88 on Saturday.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday dismissed Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys' remarks that disclosure of the names of black money account holders can embarrass Congress amid speculation that the list could include a former United Progressive Alliance minister.
Why are states important to win for national parties? What is the significance of local power? That was what we should have a look at because the Congress has been squeezed out of power in more states today than it has ever been in history.
"There was 90 percent blockage in one of his coronary arteries and one stent was placed successfully. He is absolutely fine," Dr Sudhir Bhandari, principal of the SMS medical college, told reporters.
Congress rivals have put factionalism aside for now. The party is betting on a series of well-received welfare schemes to return to power
Congress members don't want Rahul Gandhi back as party chief. But the problem is that Sonia Gandhi won't have anyone other than her son to take over the Family Firm, notes Virendra Kapoor.
The BJP candidates are on the winning trail, outdoing their opponents with thumping leads. Shahnawaz Akhtar reports.
A rotating chief ministership as a way to appease factions can work only if there is a credible guarantor, explains Aditi Phadnis.
Congress observers for Rajasthan on Tuesday recommended disciplinary action against three key loyalists of Ashok Gehlot but did not seek any action against the chief minister, as the party scampered to resolve the crisis that has cast a shadow on the election of the party president.
Whatever the outcome of the assembly election in Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot is firmly ensconced in the Congress inner circle.
The opinion poll has said that if the assembly polls are held now, the Congress is likely to win 142 seats in Rajasthan against the BJP's 56.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
'Sachin Pilot once calculated that with a million Indians flooding the labour market every month, only an additional 12 million jobs annually could keep unemployment at the same level.' 'That's chickenfeed for the functionaries who cram my e-mail inbox every day with such a constant flow of job offers that trying to empty it is like trying to drink dry the horn connected to the ocean in Norse mythology,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Priyanka did draw huge crowds and eventually all of those ended up voting for the Samajwadi Party.' 'The voters today are smart enough to vote for the party which they know is going to win or they know this party will come second, but no way will they vote for a party which will come third or fourth.'
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