These meetings with Pawar has fuelled speculations about the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a third front against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Trinamool Congress's (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP and former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro has tendered his resignation from the Upper House of Parliament, party sources said on Tuesday.
'The prime minister has not yet expressed anything regarding Manipur. Is Manipur a part of India or not? If it is, why hasn't the Prime Minister of India spoken about it'
Parties have decided to take this action against a government that, a senior leader alleged, has been routinely "insulting the constitution."
The closed-door discussions between Kishor and Pawar at the latter's residence lasted for about one-and-a-half hours, sources said.
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
Future Gaming of lottery king Santiago Martin was the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds at Rs 1,368 crore, of which nearly 37 percent went to the DMK.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha will be the consensus presidential candidate of several opposition parties, including the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Leaders of a number of opposition parties on Tuesday met twice after which they decided to put up a united fight for the post.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Unsure about having the numbers in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and other parties have decided they will create awareness about the "divisive" nature of the proposed legislation, reports Archis Mohan.
Earlier this week, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi held a series of meetings, including with Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Janata Dal-United president Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan.
This is Kishor's first meeting with Pawar after the victory of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Trinamool Congress in the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal respectively. He had helped craft the election strategy for these parties in the assembly elections.
The Bahujan Samaj Party declared that it did not receive any donation above Rs 20,000 during 2021-22 as it has been declaring for the past 16 years, the ADR claimed.
Ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday sought cooperation of all parties for the smooth conduct of proceedings with "decency, dignity and discipline", even as the Opposition demanded discussion on the Agnipath scheme, unemployment and farmers' issues.
Former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, former defence minister AK Antony, senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma also took part in the protest sporting black bands.
Pawar may not be in the Congress and heading a rival party having a love-hate relationship with it. But still he is considered the top Congress leader from Maharashtra, reports Sunil Gatade.
Jaya said she is in Bengal to campaign for the Trinamool Congress as per instructions of her party president Akhilesh Yadav, who has extended support to Mamata Banerjee in the polls.
The Congress, notwithstanding its depleted bench strength, failed to corner the government on a range of crucial issues during the just-concluded Parliament session, says Kavita Chowdhury
Both the parties were not represented at the opposition meeting that decided on fielding Alva as their consensus candidate, but Pawar had said that he is in touch with both TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as AAP convener and Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Consensus emerged on the appointment of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the chairperson of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), while Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar's name was proposed for the convener's post, pending approval of parties absent at the alliance meeting on Saturday, according to sources.
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 vote share of the Congress, which won 11 assembly seats in Goa this time, plunged by nearly five per cent as compared to what it was in the previous election, while the BJP, which retained power in the coastal state, saw a marginal rise in it, the data shared by the Election Commission shows.
The Trinamool Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, have indicated that their party chiefs have better credentials for the post than the newly-elected Congress head, reports Archis Mohan
The Congress remains isolated as the ruling Bharartiya Janata Party wins over majority of its Opposition on the bill that clears the legal hurdle for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to appoint a principal secretary of his choice -- former TRAI chairman Nripendra Misra. Anita Katyal reports
Pawar will not restrict himself to the Rashtrapati Bhavan," the minister from the NCP said.
However, speculation remained rife that the meeting was part of Banerjee's plan to form an opposition front with regional players minus the Congress.
In a new report, the ADR said the BJP declared a total income of Rs 3,623.28 crore during the financial year 2019-20, but spent only 45.57 per cent (Rs 1,651.022 crore) of it.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The income of these parties from "unknown" sources was Rs 689.44 crore, which is 53 per cent of their total income.
As soon as the Question Hour ended, Congress' Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury demanded that a discussion on the 'Indo-China border situation be held', saying late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed a discussion in Lok Sabha on the India-China war in 1962.
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'.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
"Objectively, it is only the Congress that has a footprint, shall we say, in eight to 12 states. So to have healthy democracy in which one party does not steamroll the Opposition, the kind that India experienced from the late 1970s till 2014, to revive that, to restore it, which I believe would be very good for all of us, it would depend a lot on the Congress becoming more competitive," he claimed.
What we have in the Congress is a useful glue to hold a non-cultural, unified Opposition together. That is the sacrifice the Congress must be willing to live with if showing the BJP the door is what the collective Opposition wants, observes Shyam G Menon.
The Association of Democratic Reforms said Goa has set a unique record, which is "unparalleled" in the history of Indian democracy.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Interim Budget on February 1 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections likely to be held in April-May.
Congress workers must feel what their BJP counterparts did in 2009, but that could change.
The BJP on Sunday authorised its president J P Nadda and Union minister Rajnath Singh to hold consultations with different political parties, including those in the opposition, on the president's election, in what is being seen as an outreach by the ruling party to arrive at a consensus on the choice for the top constitutional post.
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