Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Congress president Sonia Gandhi may be poles apart on most counts, but they seem to be acting in a strikingly similar manner when it comes to fixing responsibility for the debacle of their respective parties in the recently concluded LokSabha poll. Sharat Pradhan reports
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.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi greeted Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on his 71st birthday inside the Lok Sabha on Monday, minutes before it resumed session.
Even as suspense continues over alliance between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has said his party would not field candidates against the United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
Most leaders agreed for early finalisation of poll plans for 2024 stressing that there was no time left with them and mere meetings would not help.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
Women politicians bring to politics and policy a sensitivity that most of their male counterparts, at least until a generation back, lacked.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
She has advised External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to meet ex-Congressman K Natwar Singh, who is an acknowledged hand at diplomacy.
Sheila urged Rahul to clear the air over a pre-poll alliance with AAP so that there is no confusion among the party cadres.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
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.
The alliance would announce a coordination committee, which could be of 11 members from principal opposition parties.
The Congress had won over 400 seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha election after which Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister.
The Congress and the Samajwadi party continued their search for an agreement on sharing of seats from Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls at a meeting between their top leaders on Sunday, but the gap between Congress demand for 25 seats and SP's offer of 15 remained unbridged.
Like Nitish, Mamata and KCR have prime ministerial ambitions, but, unlike Nitish who has established a rapport with Sonia, both Mamata and KCR are cold towards the Congress president, points out Virendra Kapoor.
Sonia Gandhi's iftar was meant to be a powerful show of unity of Opposition parties to take on the Modi Sarkar, but that was not to be...
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
Sonia's possible visit assumes significance as it comes ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in Delhi on Tuesday night for consultations with United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday on the issue of the Presidential poll nominee of the UPA, amid intense speculation on Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's candidature for the post.
Union minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi asked officials in her Lok Sabha constituency of Pilibhit to follow the example of Sonia in order to check corruption in the education department.
The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed petitions by Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra against the income tax department's decision to transfer their assessments to the Central Circle, which is mandated to check tax evasion, instead of an ordinary assessment in a matter related to fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi will have the final say on the selection of the next President of the country and the Rashtriya Janata Dal will go along with her choice for the top post, its chief Lalu Prasad said.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
Here are 8 factors to watch out for, says psephologist Yogendra Yadav.
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.
The seats held by the non-BJP parties in the state are Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Sambhal, Raebareli, Ghosi, Lalganj, Jaunpur, Ambedkarnagar, Ghazipur, Shravasti, Mainpuri, Saharanpur and Nagina. Of these, Raebareli is held by Sonia Gandhi of the Congress.
Amid strains in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi alliance over Rahul Gandhi's strident criticism of V D Savarkar, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has stepped in to play the peacemaker by conveying the Shiv Sena's concerns on the issue to the Congress leadership.
Arun Jaitley's laud-worthy effort... Revealed! The new 'best friends' in politics... Akhilesh Yadav's big dilemma... All this and more in this week's Dilli Gupshup.
Only vegetarian dishes were served at the official dinner held at a state-run five-star hotel.
Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav died in Medanta hospital of Gurugram on Monday. He was 82.
The discussions are mostly one-on-one, party insiders said on Thursday, a day of many meetings.
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
What were our political leaders up to on the weekend?
The Janata Dal-United president was, however, dismissive of any such suggestion and told reporters after the meeting that "too much was being read into" the meeting which, he insisted, was a usual interaction between the prime minister and a chief minister.
BJP leader Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav accusing them of indulging in vote bank politics and "misleading" Muslims in the name of secularism.
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
Yadav alleged that the intelligence bureau was being used for the purpose.
Shah said the 'friendship' between Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the deal, and Congress' top leadership is 'time tested and deep'.
What some of our leaders were up to on Wednesday, October 19.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances