'We don't have to go abroad for anything.' 'Anyone who thinks we have a lot to learn from the US needs to have his head examined.' 'We are in a new era.'
CPI-M calls her bid 'desperate attempt to save herself'.
Convert the Haryana result into a blessing in disguise; make the calamity into an opportunity. Maharashtra was always the big ticket game in town; MVA must win it. The Congress should shift headquarters to Mumbai for the entire month. Show urgency and a hunger to win, asserts Sanjay Jha.
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.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
Polling will take place in 3,328 polling booths, out of which 1,100 are sensitive and 28 are categorised as critical.
Both the parties were not represented at the opposition meeting that decided on fielding Alva as their consensus candidate, but Pawar had said that he is in touch with both TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as AAP convener and Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Rahul Gandhi's focus will be on his Nyay Yatra, rather than the INDIA bloc's election campaign, leading to speculation among allies that the Congress leader is already looking at the Opposition's fight beyond May 2024.
The outspoken Lok Sabha member from Patna Sahib, in a no-holds-barred assault on the Modi government, said its ministers were a "bunch of sycophants" 90 per cent of whom were hardly known to people.
Earlier this week, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi held a series of meetings, including with Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Janata Dal-United president Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan.
The upcoming Opposition meet in Patna scheduled for next week will not discuss a possible prime ministerial candidate and will focus on deciding the common agenda for the parties to work on in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
Elections should be fought on the basis of issues, not on the basis of personalities contesting them, Communist Party of India - Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury has said.
They said the picture did not feature any 'life support system like a ventilator' and it was reassuring that their Thalaivar (leader) was recuperating well.
There is a strong possibility of opposition parties coming together to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday, stressing that he has had good talks with them and many will join hands gradually.
According to the sources, the meeting will be held at 10 am on Thursday in the chamber of Rajya Sabha LoP.
Abhay Chautala said that Banerjee has told him that she had some preoccupation on that day and she will depute a senior leader of her party for the event while Thackeray told him that if he is unable to attend due to some reasons he will send a senior leader for the event.
Gandhi came along with Mukherjee and while the former president left after sometime, the Congress chief offered to drop him back but Mukherjee politely refused.
The leaders attacked the BJP, accusing it of trying to create "Hindu-Muslim disturbances" to benefit politically and making false claims and promises.
The original suggestion was to call it 'Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance', but the word 'democratic' was replaced with 'developmental' after Kumar and Yechury raised some objections saying it sounded too similar to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), sources said.
The two leaders, who pleaded not guilty, will now face trial during which the court would record their statements and that of the complainant and other witnesses.
According to sources, Naidu and Kejriwal discussed the scenario after the election results are declared and what role their parties, the Telugu Desam Party and the AAP would play in government formation if such a situation rises.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Wednesday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla flagging alerts received by several opposition leaders about 'state-sponsored' attacks on their iPhones, and urged him to provide them protection to continue doing their duties.
Gandhi's name was the only name discussed when 18 opposition parties met to decide on their candidate for the vice presidential poll, the sources said.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
'Naidu understands electoral calculus, that the regional parties are yet to gain confidence in Rahul as a vote-catcher,' points out R Rajagopalan.
Since the formation of the CPI-M, following a split in the Communist Party of India in 1964, the party never drew a blank in the state in Lok Sabha elections.
All political parties were asked at the dinner meeting on Monday night to suggest names for the alliance and the same would be discussed and consensus would be arrived at during the deliberations.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha will be the consensus presidential candidate of several opposition parties, including the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The demonetisation has caused untold miseries to the ordinary people, Yechury said.
Veteran Communist leader and former Chief Minister of Kerala, V S Achuthanandan turned 98 on Wednesday.
'If unity is not going to be based on values and principles, how will we achieve it?'
'Forcing the development of an indigenous vaccine as a cure for COVID-19, bypassing all health & safety norms, to be announced by PM Modi on Independence Day is fraught with horrendous human costs'
Gandhi alleged that scores were being settled in the country with anyone who raised his voice against the ruling dispensation.
'Mrinal jethu gave a new perspective to Indian Cinema.'
A students' march against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad on Saturday featured issues beyond free speech, with "simmering discontent" against the Narendra Modi government finding expression through colours, posters and poetry.
Kejriwal said that the ordinance must be defeated collectively in Parliament where it is likely to come up for voting as a law in the forthcoming session.
Addressing the protesters, opposition leaders attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal-United1 and demanded stringent punishment against those involved in such heinous crimes.
Opposition parties on Thursday continued their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over inauguration of the new Parliament building and accused him of being 'megalomaniac' and the government of being 'arrogant'.
