Priyanka Gandhi was earlier actively involved in key decision making in the party along with her mother and brother, including the selection of new chief ministers for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh recently.
Sources said the Congress leadership is also in talks with AAP leaders and senior leaders within the party are trying to convince Delhi Congress leaders for an alliance.
'That would be very bad for them and suicidal for both the Gandhis and the Congress party.'
Pandey's retirement comes days before the Election Commission is to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls.
Making a veiled attack on the Mayawati government, Congress General Rahul Gandhi said an "elephant" in Lucknow was eating away all the money sent by the Centre for the poor in Uttar Pradesh.
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.
Fadnavis further said it was too early to comment on a foreign or Bangladeshi link to the riots as the probe is underway.
Alleging negligence in the construction of the temple, Das claimed that there was also no arrangement for the drainage of rainwater from the temple premises after the showers on Saturday midnight.
The situation is worse in the Gandhi family pocket borough -- Amethi and Raebareli.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Friday met All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi and invited him for two functions in Uttar Pradesh. The meeting comes in the backdrop of the senior leader's article in a newspaper criticising Home Minister P Chidambaram's approach to tackle the Naxal issue. It is, however, understood that Singh, who was the chief minister of united Madhya Pradesh (of which Chhattisgarh was a part) also explained the Naxal situation.
The Congress needs to reorganise itself at the grassroots, infuse younger blood, and have more boots on the ground. Just offering freebies is not the answer anymore. Leadership matters, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The Congress on Wednesday filed a police complaint over the recent statements of leaders belonging to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) targeting Rahul Gandhi.
'Resigning as president of Wrestling Federation of India is not a big deal for me, but I will not resign as a criminal.'
Congress leader Vaibhav Walia said Rawat's remarks were not just an insult to the father of the nation but also an insult to the country.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that Uttar Pradesh is a "victim of short sighted politics" but refrained from blaming its Chief Minister Mayawati for it.
There are also views within a section of the party that a turnaround in Uttar Pradesh is possible only if either of the Gandhis -- Priyanka or Rahul -- takes the lead in the state polls.
The controversy has sparked reactions across states. The famous Mankameshwar temple in Uttar Pradesh has now banned offerings of 'prasad' bought by devotees from outside and said they can offer homemade 'prasad' or fruits.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress has decided to crack the whip on those who have been demanding for Priyanka Gandhi's entry into active politics and asking her to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
'When I said the Gandhi family had to step aside, it was because we have consistently seen that the public has not accepted them.'
In a letter to Kharge, Khan said he will not campaign for party candidates for the remaining phases of the Lok Sabha polls and is also resigning from the state Congress campaign committee.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
The withdrawal of land for the proposed rail coach factory in All India Congress Committee chairperson Sonia Gandhi's parliamentary constituency on Monday elicited strong resentment among people against the Uttar Pradesh government.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
"I sometimes think of leaving it, but the chief minister's post doesn't leave me," Ashok Gehlot famously said earlier this year, in part as a signal to the Congress top brass not to pick someone else for the job if the party wins the assembly polls.
All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Ghulam Nabi Azad said the party would not react immediately and would come out with a detailed reaction in Lucknow on Sunday.
Congress's chief ministerial face Sheila Dikshit offered to step aside in favour of a young Akhilesh Yadav.
The Congress, which wanted to contest as many as 121 seats, has reportedly now settled for 105 seats.
A day after being reprimanded, Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma on Thursday said he felt "humiliated" and threatened to quit the Congress if he was stopped from "fighting" against Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Police have launched a probe into the killing of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique from different angles, including a possible contract killing, business rivalry or threat over a slum rehabilitation project, officials said on Sunday.
At its Jaipur meeting, the BJP will focus on this year's assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh while the Congress's Chintan Shivir in Udaipur will discuss how it can resurrect itself.
Priyanka Gandhi gets into rigorous damage control mode in wake of her party's eroding popularity ahead of the polls, reports Renu Mittal
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
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.
'Mamata needs to address the anger and resentment among various sections of the Hindu community because low-scale communal violence has always paid richer electoral dividends for the BJP.'
As Mallikarjun Kharge won the Congress president poll, his electoral rival Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said the 'democratic contest' has galvanised vibrancy at all levels and has prompted a healthy and constructive discussion on change, which will serve the party in good stead in the future.
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Congress said that that it is ready to go it alone in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.
He also said the governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BSP and the SP that have ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 32 years, when Congress was not in power, failed to live up to the expectations of the people and the Congress was set for a comeback in the state.
