Pakistan's surprise for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Why is President Mukherjee homesick? Did India's home minister make children cry? All this and more in this week's Dilli Gupshup.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday claimed he has the support of party workers from across the country for his bid to fight the AICC president polls.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that the home ministry's decision to cancel the FCRA licences of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust for alleged violation of laws has "exposed" their corruption.
Indira Gandhi valued Rahul Gandhi's 'grit and determination' and often considered him mature enough to be taken into confidence on subjects she avoided discussing even with his parents when he was barely 14, according to a new book.
Attacking the Modi government, Sonia said it has sought to erode our institutions.
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 Congress steering committee on Friday approved several amendments to the party constitution, one of which is to give permanent membership to former prime ministers and former party presidents in the all-powerful working committee.
An anonymous letter threatening to kill Rahul Gandhi at an election meeting in Puducherry has been received by a senior Congress leader V Narayanasamy.
He claimed that out of 90 secretaries of the government of India, only three are from the Other Backward Classes and control only five per cent of the Budget, which he said was an "insult" to the backward classes.
In an apparent move to send out a message of austerity, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul on Friday took a bus ride along with other leaders to Surajkund in Haryana where the party is going to hold a brainstorming session.
'Can he remain ignorant by saying he was 13 years old?' 'That means Rahul Gandhi must not talk on any subject in this country that precedes his adulthood.' 'He should remain unaware of history and knowledge of anything that has happened.'
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
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.
Stung by the frontal attack launched by the top Congress leadership against her, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has hit out at both Congress President Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul.
The opposition parties on Sunday slammed the move to hire public servants through lateral entry, claiming it will snatch reservations from SCs, STs and OBCs, but the Bharatiya Janata Party hit back stating the National Democratic Alliance government was bringing transparency to this mode of recruitment started by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.
The highlight of the five-hour meeting, which ended with a plan to hold a 'chintan shivir' at the earliest opportunity to chalk the Congress' future strategy, was a demand by Sonia Gandhi's loyalists that Rahul Gandhi should assume the party leadership again.
'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.
As Congress President Sonia Gandhi turns 70, here's recalling her extraordinary life in pictures.
Azad said it was a good meeting with the Congress president with the discussion centred on how to prepare and fight unitedly the forthcoming assembly polls to take on rival parties.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's highest decision-making body, will hold a virtual meeting on Sunday to approve the exact schedule of dates for the election of the Congress president.
Ahead of a likely organisational and government reshuffle in Punjab, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday met poll strategist Prashant Kishor at his residence.
The duo is unlikely to visit the neighbouring parliamentary constituency of Amethi, from where Congress president Rahul Gandhi lost the Lok Sabha polls.
Court summons for Congress President Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi have clearly made the party extremely jittery. But Subramanian Swamy, the man who dragged them to court, believes he has hit gold.
Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi read out the Preamble to the Constitution of India as part of the 'Satyagraha of Unity' protest.
"The Congress had once raised the slogan 'India is Indira and Indira is India'. They are now taking the country back to the same period," BJP deputy leader in Lok Sabha V K Malhotra said.
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.
When events like these take place, it is easy for the BJP to portray the Gandhis as latter-day versions of the Borgias or Medicis, who toy with their nobles and promote favourites, points out Vir Sanghvi.
The Union government has ordered the complete withdrawal of the counter-terrorist commando force NSG from VIP security duties and handing over its nine "high-risk" VIPs to the CRPF by next month, official sources said Wednesday.
Congress sources told ANI on the condition of anonymity that 'Rahul Gandhi left the country on May 19 to participate in various public programs in London that were held on May 20 to May 23. Since then, he has not returned to India'.
Modi said that Congress' tally in the Lok Sabha polls will be an "all-time low"
The Congress on Saturday accused the Centre of insulting Dr Manmohan Singh, the country's first Sikh prime minister, by carrying out his last rites at the Nigambodh Ghat instead of a designated spot that could later become his memorial.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi paid glowing tributes to the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in Hyderabad on Friday.
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.
It was a spectacle of bonhomie in the Central Hall of Parliament as Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted his political adversary Rahul Gandhi warmly grabbing his hand, while Congress President Sonia Gandhi chatted intermittently with BJP veteran L K Advani.
Wearing black clothes, Congress leaders hit the streets on Friday to protest against price rise and unemployment with a host of them, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, being detained by police amid dramatic standoffs outside Parliament and the All India Congress Committee headquarters in New Delhi.
'I appeal to Sachin Pilot and all his fellow MLAs to join today's Legislature Party meeting'
Rahul Gandhi is no Sonia Gandhi or Indira Gandhi to revive the party but the Congress president too needs to share the blame for the current state of affairs and the party's debacle, says Saroj Nagi.
Chauhan, a former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, said political parties governed by dynasty, family and caste politics were defeated everywhere including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the general elections.
She noted that the democracy was at peril under the Modi government and alleged that it was misusing and abusing its mandate in the "most dangerous" fashion, the sources said.
What some of our leaders were up to this week.
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