The sources said the Congress is the binding force for the opposition bloc and the stronger the Congress emerges the better for the alliance.
Yuri Alemao, Altone D'costa and advocate Carlos Alvares Ferreira, the three Congress MLAs who didn't join the eight of their former party men in jumping ship speak up about their decisions and their motivations to stay with the 137-year-old Congress.
It has taken Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi a month to recover from the poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh, inflicted on his party by his own partymen. A month later, he has decided that he should get to the bottom of the UP mystery.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Every Congress leader in UP and the rest of India is calling me and thanking me that finally someone spoke about this JNU gang ruling the Congress party in UP.'
There is an impression within the Tamil Nadu BJP -- although no one is airing it -- that over-exposure for Narendra Modi over the past months may work against party candidates, as they have triggered a near-continuous social media debate on his achievements and failures, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The back-to-back statements of three Indira Gandhi loyalists -- R K Dhawan, Vasant Sathe and C K Jafar Sherief (the former questioning the advisors of Rahul Gandhi and the direction of his politics and the other two wanting Priyanka Gandhi to come into the mainstream of Congress politics) -- is being seen as a reflection of the concern gripping the senior guard in the Congress over the functioning of the party as well as the fate of the upcoming UP elections.
Congress leaders say that after the huge drubbing received by the party in Bihar, this is just the beginning of what is in store.
Sonia Gandhi is cracking the whip on errant party MPs. She has made it clear that the strategy of confrontation with the government and disruption of Parliament proceedings will continue.
Former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal's Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat is up for grabs. And there are quite a few in the reckoning. Anita Katyal reports
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
As Congress launched its 11-day padayatra seeking early implementation of the Mekedatu drinking water project on Sunday, Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar stirred troubled waters for himself as three FIRs have been filed against him on allegations of flouting COVID-19 norms.
Lobbying on the Hill is time consuming and cumbersome, but very effective to influence US government policies, asserts Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy in Washington, DC after the 1998 nuclear tests and during the Kargil War.
'The prime minister is talking to his Chachaji and he is crying in the PM's lap, it was such an emotional scene.'
We look back at the many leaders who took contention with Rahul Gandhi in the recent past.
'With Trump, the relationship was very transactional, whereas with President Biden it is very structured.'
'The sudden arrests and detentions of all Working Committee members led to mass satyagraha.' 'I found myself helpless as the source of my income, from which I sent a portion to my parents in the village, had suddenly stopped.'
Launching our new Election Gupshup series: Congress pulls out its Brahmastra to dent the Modi mystique.
'There is anger against Rahul and this will become obvious in the days ahead.' 'He tried to run the party like a corporate.' 'He has been successful in wiping out the party from large parts of the country.' Within the Congress party there is extreme anger at Rahul Gandhi's style of politics.
"What is Rahul Gandhi up to?" was the question doing the rounds in Lucknow after the Congress general secretary appeared at the city's Amausi airport on Wednesday afternoon.
Slogans like 'Vande Mataram', 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' and 'Modi, Modi' went up the air amid a mood of cheer.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi also decided to convene a 'Chintan Shivir', a brainstorming session from May 13-15 in Udaipur.
In a decision that will come as a breath of fresh air to a large number of embattled Congressmen, the party leadership in a change of strategy has decided to play aggressive and defend party leaders charged with graft rather than sacrifice them one after the other as was happening till now.
Gandhi said party people should move about in villages and know the problems faced by common people throughout the year, not just during elections.
They also slammed the "violent rhetoric" against India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu and said free speech does not mean a license to incite violence or vandalise property.
'Politics is a game of public perception and my father felt that by his long disappearances, Rahul Gandhi was losing the battle of perception.'
The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
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.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra sat on a hunger strike on Monday after being detained in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district while she was en route to Lakhimpur Kheri, her party said.
The meeting, slated for 1300 hours, could not commence on time and was delayed by over half an hour.
With trends projecting a defeat for the Congress in both Maharashtra and Haryana, a group of party workers gathered outside the All India Congress Committe office in New Delhi demanding that Priyanka Gandhi join active politics.
'The Congress is not pragmatic about politics or about people.' 'Rahul's intention is good, but good intention does not win you elections.'
Ahead of starting the much-hyped 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attended a prayer meeting at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial in Sriperumbudur on Wednesday.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party managed to notch up a morale-boosting win on its 'Mission Northeast' on Thursday by retaining Tripura emphatically, despite anti-incumbency and newcomer Tipra Motha playing spoilers to its party, while also piggy-backing to power in Nagaland on Neiphiu Rio-led NDPP's shoulder.
Raising serious objections against the manner in which the entire Anna Hazare episode was handled by the Congress leadership during the absence of its President Sonia Gandhi, a Congress member of Parliament from Uttar Pradesh has shot off a letter to party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, urging him to get the whole affair investigated by a panel of seasoned Congressmen.
The former Union minister and Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Wednesday said that the party needs revival and which is possible with collective efforts.
"Congressmen must remain prepared for a long struggle to strengthen the party in Uttar Pradesh in which youth would have to play a major role," he said at a function held to mark the conclusion of the training camp of presidents of nyay panchayat in Amethi.
'It will be better if the 'family' desists from giving 'advice and guidance' lest it should be seen as a backseat driver which had placed a puppet at the top,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The BJP and the AIADMK are unable to sort out ideological differences, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
United States Congressman Joe Crowley, who is the co-chair of Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, has launched a major effort among lawmakers asking the department of justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track the hate crimes committed against Sikhs, Hindus and Arab Americans.
