'This is a very sexist, narrow minded way of pre-judging a woman. A foolish carry-forward of the old "All models are dumb bimbos" adage.' Shobhaa De jumps to Smriti Irani's defence.
The BJP, which romped to power in 2019 on the back of an unequivocal mandate from UP, winning 62 of its 80 seats, was cut to size this time and had to be content with only 33 seats.
"We are going to have a meeting with our partners tomorrow. These questions will be raised and answered there," Gandhi told a press conference in New Delhi when asked if the Congress and its allies will approach parties that are part of the National Democratic Alliance to try and form a government.
FHe is the only one among 17 ministers from the outgoing council of ministers who lost the Lok Sabha polls to be reappointed minister.
Union ministers Virendra Kumar, Kiren Rijiju and Anurag Singh Thakur have been included in the rejigged Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, according to a notification issued by the Cabinet Secretariate last night.
Riding a scooter, Union minister Smriti Irani led a rally of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday as she campaigned for the upcoming West Bengal elections in the South 24 Parganas district.
Sources said Rahul Gandhi is likely to contest from Rae Bareli, but a final call is yet to be taken by the first family of the Congress.
Priyanka Gandhi in large part was at the centre of the Congress's action, giving a number of enduring images from this election campaign.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
Reacting sharply to Congress leader Ajay Maken's comments on Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani's educational qualifications, senior Cabinet colleague Uma Bharti on Wednesday targeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
On balance, RG contesting from Raebareli instead of Amethi isn't the masterstroke the party's adherents are touting it to be, but neither is it the blunder the BJP and its tame media is framing it as, points out Prem Panicker.
Union minister Smriti Irani reacted furiously to the Congress leader's barb at the prime minister over the Rafale purchase and the tense situation in Manipur.
The wrestlers said they are surprised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi felicitates them and clicks pictures with them when they win medals but now he has turned a blind eye to their plight.
Several BJP voters say the Ram temple sentiment may give the ruling party a fillip but are also aware of the herculean task at hand and concede that it is a daunting electoral contest for Dinesh Singh, who lost to Sonia Gandhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) gave a huge blow to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance by winning 43 seats out of total 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh, as per the Election Commission.
As many as 28 out of 41 sitting women MPs, including Sonia Gandhi, Hema Malini and Kirron Kher, retained their seats in Lok Sabha.
If Rahul's yatra makes a political statement from the other side of the aisle and Shah Rukh's success underlines a more relaxed popular mood, Mr Modi and Mr Bhagwat's cues to their followers are coming from another place, observes Shekhar Gupta.
"My heart is full of pain and anger," he told reporters in his remarks ahead of Parliament's Monsoon Session, amid his criticism by opposition parties for not speaking on the ethnic violence in the north east state.
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
Entertainers can be good politicians if they treat the citizens as the audience, and treat their job like a live show, and work hard to make sure the audience likes them, asserts Sandeep Goyal.
'I would rather have an HRD minister who concentrates on her job rather than bicker on Twitter.'
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners Samajwadi Party and Congress on Wednesday announced a tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with UP's main opposition party leaving 17 out of the 80 seats in the state for the ally.
Dressed in colourful attire, members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday got their group photograph clicked in the old Parliament building, hours before legislative proceedings shift to the new Parliament House.
In the event that like in the 17th Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi again gets locked out of the House, the Congress needs a second-in-command who will keep the momentum going inside Parliament, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday sought the response of Union Minister Smriti Irani on a plea by microblogging site Twitter seeking certain clarifications in the court's earlier order by which it had directed social media giants to remove web links allegedly containing objectionable material against the BJP leader and her daughter.
The BJP sharpened its attack on the AAP after its Gujarat chief Gopal Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for 'abusing' her.
Is blood thicker than party loyalty for Varun Gandhi?
With Bidhuri expressing regret, sources said, the committee was likely to bring closure to the matter and send its report to the speaker.
'While other parties generally need support directly from their central leadership to get influencers or celebrities to endorse their party, the work of identifying and contacting such influencers has been decentralised to state and district level IT cells to get more engagement in the BJP.'
The Indian National Congress is in no way connected with the businesses of Dheeraj Sahu, MP. Only he can explain, Congress general secretary in-charge communications, Jairam Ramesh said.
Billionaire philanthropist George Soros believes the turmoil at Gautam Adani's business empire may weaken Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hold on the government -- a statement which was strongly countered by BJP as an attack on Indian democracy.
India's favourite bahu chats with Rediff readers.
Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls.
The government on Wednesday rejected the Congress demand for resignation of Union ministers Sushma Swaraj and Smriti Irani over 'Lalitgate' and 'fake degree' controversies, saying "our ministers do not do all that their (the United Progress Alliance) ministers used to do".
It also includes Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP leader Manoj Tiwari and MP home minister Narottam Mishra.
Speaking to reporters at the Gujarat BJP headquarters, the Union textiles and women and child development minister hit out at Gandhi over his comment that the Congress, if voted to power, would scrap the contentious legislations.
The Congress on Thursday slammed the Centre after a May 4 video of two women being paraded naked in Manipur surfaced, with party president Mallikarjun Kharge accusing the Narendra Modi government of turning democracy into 'mobocracy'.
Choudhary also posted on his Twitter account, a letter written by Union minister for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya to Irani using "dear", and accused her of "double standards" on this count.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
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