'Politics is a game of public perception and my father felt that by his long disappearances, Rahul Gandhi was losing the battle of perception.'
Lok Sabha secretariat has sought an opinion from the Union law ministry whether the constitution needs to be amended to form a new state. Vicky Nanjappa reports
Top leaders of Opposition parties will brainstorm at a meeting in Patna on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with sources saying that they would look to avoid the prickly leadership question and emphasise on common ground.
Gandhi refused to comment on the tragedy in Morbi where a bridge collapsed leaving more than 130 dead.
In his first response to the issue, Stalin, president of the ruling DMK, said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan (PTR) has already responded to the matter twice.
The bill on separate Telangana could rock the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha beginning Wednesday with several parties asking the government to first get the Vote on Account passed before taking up any other legislation.
The federal agency issued a summons to Vaibhav Gehlot (43) last week, asking him to appear before the investigating officer of the case at its headquarters on A P J Abdul Kalam Road here under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act.
Rahul Gandhi said that instead of getting involved in the Sanatan dharma row, the leaders should focus on the poor and their issues as they have been the party's traditional vote bank, the sources said.
Speaking to newsmen in Hyderabad on Thursday, Singh recalled, "The Congress has never supported anything which BJP has brought in." He lambasted the BJP for its 'double-speak and inconsistency' on the Telangana statehood issue.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday directed former Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy to hand over possession of his government bungalow to the estate officer within six weeks.
'A democracy cannot mean the rule of just two people,' said one audience member, who recalled that he too had chanted 'Modi, Modi' when the PM had visited the USA. Many of those gathered admitted to having been Modi supporters. What had changed them was the growing concentration of power. Jyoti Punwani reports from New York.
Satish Jarkiholi has been appointed the AICC secretary in the new team for Telangana.
Key states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana would go for polls this year, besides states from the North-East.
In the clearest indication that the Congress leadership is moving towards the formation of a separate state of Telangana, the party organised a massive show of strength in Hyderabad on Sunday giving a clarion call in favour of the new state.
Amid signs of increasing bonhomie between her and her Telangana and Tamil Nadu counterparts Rao and Stalin, Banerjee had approached the two on Sunday to set up meetings of opposition chief ministers.
Introducing UCC is a challenging task for any government. The complexities are real and difficult to negotiate as it deals with sensitive religious and cultural sentiments. How can it strike an easy balance between individual rights and community interests?, asks Ramesh Menon.
Kanimozhi had challenged a Madras high court order which had refused to dismiss the petition against her.
Stalin said Rao had not visited Tam for forging alliances.
Having ensured the passage of the Telangana Bill, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's main concern now is to see there is no tension in the state and that the decision is accepted amicably by the people of Seema-Andhra following reports of simmering anger in this region over the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
The 'Group of 23' leaders who participated included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, besides Sibal who hosted the post-birthday dinner for them.
As many as 35 of 53 Nationalist Congress Party MLAs were present at the party meeting convened by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in Mumbai on Wednesday, party sources said.
The sources said the Congress is the binding force for the opposition bloc and the stronger the Congress emerges the better for the alliance.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Addressing the party's national executive, Nadda also reached out to Sikhs, who are in majority in poll-bound Punjab, by listing a number of measures the Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the review of the Goods and Services Tax.
BJP-led NDA has said it will strongly demand that the Telangana Bill be brought in the Winter Session of Parliament and press for debates on issues like internal security, violence against women and subversion of constitutional bodies like JPC on 2G scam.
The assembly bypolls in Bihar and Maharashtra, scheduled for November 3, are set to be the first electoral test of the popularity of the respective state governments after a change in the political alignment.
An emotional Sania Mirza broke down during a television interview on Friday following Telangana BJP leader K Laxman's controversial remark that she is 'Pakistan's daughter-in-law'.
With the Tamil Nadu electorate having given him an unprecedented mandate that had eluded his father the late M Karunanidhi, Stalin has to prove his worth, ensuring at the same time that the Dravidian drag on the AIADMK's side does not open up space for the BJP to make inroads in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
KCR said he had turned down the Left parties' idea of dislodging the ruling BJP at the Centre.
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
Modi garners nearly 37% vote nationally, courtesy West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka and Telangana.
The BJP and TRS took digs at each other over the celebrations marking the annexing of the erstwhile Nizam-ruled Hyderabad state to the Union of India, with the former slamming vote bank politics behind the lack of official commemoration so far while the ruling party warned against communal forces trying to divide the society.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday, December 13.
Radha Mohan Singh appointed in-charge of politically crucial UP. Kailash Vijayvargiya will continue to be the in-charge of West Bengal and he will be assisted by BJP national secretary Arvind Menon and party national IT cell head Amit Malviya.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided it would not adopt the path of appeasement and vote bank politics.
'The central BJP leaders were determined to push Hindutva hard, and it failed.'
'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.' 'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
A provisional order has been issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against the newspaper's publisher Associated Journals Ltd and its holding company Young Indian, the central probe agency said in a statement.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday assured her counterpart from Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, that her party would support him in his fight against the central ordinance to control appointments and transfer of bureaucrats.
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