In a stinging attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, Shiv Sena member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Sunday said it wouldn't be surprising if the Enforcement Directorate issues summons against former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the National Herald newspaper case and paste the notice on his memorial.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
'Sonia is trying to become a politician again. Will she succeed?'
Leaders of 24 non-BJP parties have been invited for the meet on June 17 and 18, the first edition of which saw the participation of 15 parties.
The nation on Saturday remembered Mahatma Gandhi on his 68th death anniversary with President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the country in paying homage to the Father of the Nation.
In a major organisational rejig ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Saturday appointed Avinash Pande the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, replacing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while Sachin Pilot was made the general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh.
"I am putting efforts to get the Opposition together. I am not in the race to become the prime minister as I am not contesting the next (Lok Sabha) election," he told reporters.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
Both the BJP leaders asserted that Gandhi's disqualification was a natural outcome of the law as the Supreme Court has made it clear that a lawmaker stands disqualified from the time of his conviction.
As they kickstarted campaigning for the October 15 Assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi on Saturday traded fire with the former attacking the Congress regime for having done "little" in the last 60 years and she likening him to "empty vessels" making noise.
That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
In a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he said, in the recent past he has been finding himself 'lacking in passion', while his own performance has been 'listless and perfunctory'.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
The two-day deliberations, which will be held at Grand Hyatt in the suburbs, will begin in the evening of August 31 and from 10am on September 1. The meeting will be followed by a press conference, Raut informed.
"We will keep an eye on the situation in Maharashtra. Congress and NCP leaders will hold further talks on the future course of action," he added.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to A G Perarivalan, serving life sentence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
However, he pointed out that the manner in which Smriti Irani was taking the name of President in the House was not proper and in consonance with the status and position of the President.
The BJP stalwart's body was later brought to his residence at Kailash Colony.
Seeking to blunt Bharatiya Janata Party's efforts to 'appropriate' legacy of Ambedkar, Sonia said, "Congress had given Dr Ambedkar his dues by appointing him as chairman of the Draft Committee of Constitution."
Given the 2024 general elections, it is unlikely that the allegations around electoral bonds, raised by the Opposition, will disappear easily or with a shrug of the BJP's shoulders and fabled 56-inch chest, argues Shyam G Menon.
Those responsible for protecting MPs have failed in their constitutional duties, said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Singh met the party MP from Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday after collecting nomination papers for the polls.
The election process of the Congress president that was to end by September 20 is likely to be delayed by a few weeks with the party focused on the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' and some state units not completing the formalities, sources said on Thursday.
In her condolence message for Patel, who served as her political secretary for years and was the All India Congress Committee treasurer, party chief Sonia Gandhi said, 'In Shri Ahmed Patel, I have lost a colleague, whose entire life was dedicated to the Congress Party.'
Reacting to the development, BJP IT department head Amit Malviya said in a tweet, "Rahul Gandhi may have survived this one but for how long?"
The Congress units in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the only two states where the party is in government on its own, have passed resolutions that Gandhi be made the party's president.
The opposition alliance that will take on the ruling National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and an 11-member committee will be set up for coordination, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced after a meeting of the parties in Bengaluru.
He further added that the people of India respect different languages, religion, food and customs which varies from region to region. "That's the India that I believe in, where everybody has a place and everybody compromises little bit," he said.
The Congress president was angry with Tharoor over the leak of his views against party's stalling tactics in Parliament in the media.
Congress observers for Rajasthan on Tuesday recommended disciplinary action against three party leaders, including two ministers, for the crisis in the state, but did not seek any action against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
Party sources said Gandhi is likely to be the sole candidate for the post and is 'deemed to be the next party chief on Dec 5.
Later, Pratibha Singh said she and her son Vikramaditya Singh have received a joint invitation and she is yet to take a call on attending the consecration ceremony at Ayodhya on January 22.
Reacting to the grand old Congress party's decline to the 'pran-pratishtha' ceremony invitations of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya, Digvijaya said that the ruling party had turned the event into a BJP and VHP event.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned twice in the post-lunch period on Thursday as a war of words broke out between the treasury and opposition benches, triggered by Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi's spat with the Bharatiya Janata Party's Ravneet Singh Bittu.
Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pankaja Munde on Friday said she was planning to take a break for "one or two months" as she was anguished at her integrity being questioned time and again.
'Election funding needs a little more transparency.'
Sources said the issues to be raised during the monsoon session of Parliament starting July 19 were discussed at a meeting of the Congress parliamentary strategy group on Wednesday, which was chaired by party chief Sonia Gandhi and attended by former prime minister Manmohan Singh and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
'In some quarters it has been suggested that there will be an 'official candidate' backed by the leadership but on the contrary, it has been repeatedly stressed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in my conversations with them over the last two weeks that the Nehru-Gandhi family welcomes these elections'
In 1998, the Congress asked her mother to campaign. 'We had a family discussion. We explained to our mother that you will be used, you will be discarded once you are done with the campaign.' 'A few days later I got a call from my mother. She said, "I have decided to campaign".' 'We were stunned. Why was she doing this?' Payal Mohanka listens in.
'Where he used to sit bored, sulky and fiddling with his cell phone in the Lok Sabha (and was often missing during key debates) he is now noisy, aggressive and ready to lead his flock into the well of the House,' says Sunil Sethi.
