Nearly half of the MPs elected in the 2019 general elections in India were first-timers.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
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.
A BSP functionary said it was a "planned murder" and claimed there was an "intelligence failure." Therefore, the central agency should probe the case.
With the election campaign in Karnataka witnessing a bitter war of words between the BJP and the Congress, both the parties rushed to the Election Commission, seeking ban on electioneering by top leaders of the other side.
Electoral setbacks and thwarted ambition can have an unpredictable effect on leaders,, observes Aditi Phadnis.
While Kharge is considered the firm favourite with his perceived proximity to the Gandhis and a large number of senior leaders backing him, Tharoor has pitched himself as the candidate of change.
Among the other promises made by the party are purchase of wheat and paddy at Rs 2,500 per quintal and Rs 400 per quintal for sugarcane.
Meanwhile, the Congress said that that it is ready to go it alone in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.
Priyanka Gandhi gets into rigorous damage control mode in wake of her party's eroding popularity ahead of the polls, reports Renu Mittal
The G-23 group seems to have expanded with several senior Congressmen attending Wednesday's meeting.
Ghulam Nabi Azad's resignation from the Congress on Friday marked the most high-profile exit of one of the "Group of 23" (G-23) leaders, who had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi two years ago for a "collective and inclusive leadership" in the organisation, exposing the faultlines in the grand old party.
The party's top leadership, which is now looking for a replacement for Gandhi, will have a new team once the new Congress chief is appointed and some more resignations are likely to pour in till then.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said there are courts to ensure that criminals get the harshest punishment but 'playing with law and order only gives birth to anarchy'.
Asked about him sticking with the Congress since he got the parliamentary polls ticket from Moradabad in 2009, he said loyalty is very important to him since the beginning.
A total of seven candidates have filed papers for the elections, for which the date for filing nominations ended on Friday.
In an apparent message to the G23, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said she is a full-time, hands-on party president and there is no need for leaders to speak to her through the media.
Amid escalating tensions with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, the Congress on Saturday said it was open to the idea of a United Progressive Alliance coordination committee to bring greater cohesion within the alliance. At the same time, it dismissed suggestions that the Congress was scared of Trinamool entering the poll fray in Uttar Pradesh or any other state.
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
About 20 Punjab Congress leaders met in Ludhiana on Tuesday, with some of them batting for a key role for Navjot Singh Sidhu, the former state party unit chief who was among the participants.
The curious onlookers that greet the candidates are, however, unaware about the importance of history. They are just there to catch a glimpse of 'Rani Ma' Amrita Roy or Mahua Moitra.
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
Controversial Punjabi singer Sidhu Mussewala, who joined the Congress sometime ago will contest from Mansa and actor Sonu Sood's sister Malvika Sood from Moga.
The seat equation for the opposition alliance will become a matter of debate as UP Congress state president Ajay Rai mentioned that Congress is prepared for all 80 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and is ready to contest on all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
From the 'group of 23' leaders, who had written letter to Gandhi seeking Congress' overhaul, Azad and Sharma continue to be regular members of the CWC,
Priyanka also lauded her mother, calling her the bravest woman for overcoming huge difficulties during her record 19-year tenure as the Congress chief.
Called "Babuji", the former chief minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh and former Governor of Uttar Pradesh in the post-Babri Masjid demolition era was considered as a people's man and was accessible to all.
Vora was admitted to the Escorts Hospital in Okhla a few days ago with a urinary infection. He also had a lung infection and was put on ventilator support, his family said.
Party's state unit chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat were also detained along with the workers during the protests.
The seat-sharing issue is being discussed with the central leadership, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule told PTI.
The Congress party's first list of 194 Lok Sabha candidates released on Saturday night has no major surprises. Anita Katyal reports
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the farm laws, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday urged him not to share the stage with Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra during the directors general of police conference in Lucknow keeping in mind farmers' interest.
In the letter, they said as members of the committee, it is their moral and constitutional responsibility to discuss this matter with utmost urgency and the required sincerity.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
Pradhan has stated that the message in question was not sent by him, and he wasn't given an opportunity to explain himself.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Visiting Uttar Pradesh for the first time after Congress' debacle in the recent Assembly polls, Rahul Gandhi was on Monday flooded with complaints that groupism, poor candidate selection and neglect of grassroot level workers were mainly responsible.
The Congress cannot do without the Gandhi-Nehru family, and they ensure the unity of the party. The Congress experimented with a Narasimha Rao and went back to the family. Sonia Gandhi neither faces a threat to her leadership nor a prospect of a split, which her mother-in-law had to contend with. But she will have to show a resoluteness she displayed in early 2004 if the party is to revitalise
Ramesh, however, said it was too early to talk about all this right now as the Congress' first priority was the upcoming elections in Karnataka and the string of state polls this year.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
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