'I told Rahul: "You have to become president. Taalne se nahin hoga (you can't avoid the responsibility any longer)".' 'Rahul said: "I will think about it".'
'That would be very bad for them and suicidal for both the Gandhis and the Congress party.'
Singh, a former Punjab chief minister and a sitting MP, at the same time said that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi can step into Sonia's shoes if she feels that time has come for her to go and that she is "tired" of being at the helm of the party since 1997.
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.
The party office in Lucknow buzzed with activity as enthusiastic Congress workers gathered outside the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee building, even before she returned from an overnight stay in Jaipur.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram is Congress nominee from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha while senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
Coming down heavily on the Mayawati government, the Congress on Monday termed as "ridiculous" the controversial resolution passed by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly for splitting the state into four parts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
"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.
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.
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 situation is worse in the Gandhi family pocket borough -- Amethi and Raebareli.
'When I said the Gandhi family had to step aside, it was because we have consistently seen that the public has not accepted them.'
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi along with the five other Congress MPs from Uttar Pradesh will visit violence-hit Sambhal on Wednesday, party's state unit chief Ajay Rai said.
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.
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.
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 Meerut Conspiracy Case was aimed at curbing communist influence in India. However, it fueled nationwide sympathy, shaping the course of leftist politics in the country.
Local residents have stressed that land acquisition for rehabilitation must be completed promptly, as it has been delayed after estate owners challenged it in the Kerala high court.
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.
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.
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.
Parliamentary proceedings were disrupted for the third consecutive day in the Winter Session as opposition parties continued their protests over the Adani issue and violence in Manipur and Sambhal. Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned within minutes of convening, despite appeals from the Chair to engage in productive dialogue and refrain from disruption. The opposition members raised slogans demanding action against the perpetrators of violence in Sambhal, and sought discussions on allegations of irregularities against the Adani Group and the violence in Manipur.
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.
Congress's chief ministerial face Sheila Dikshit offered to step aside in favour of a young Akhilesh Yadav.
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.
The Congress, which wanted to contest as many as 121 seats, has reportedly now settled for 105 seats.
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.
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.
'It is an existential crisis. We cannot recover lost ground through social media. We need to forge alliances and reshape our ideological contours.'
Rahul Gandhi said both Rae Bareli and Wayanad "will get two MPs".
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