The Congress on Sunday said it will give a "good fight" to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi on Varanasi seat and did not rule out fielding an outsider.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
Is Modi trampling upon senior BJP colleagues while taking decisions? How come Team Modi underestimated the political action-reaction when they were upsetting and uprooting the BJP's founding fathers L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in the ticket distribution process?
"I am not allowed to speak in the Rajya Sabha often. Should I say it is because I am a Dalit?" he asked.
Anger cannot be an end in itself to Rahul Gandhi's politics -- it must instead catalyse a new political strategy, argues Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Senior Congress leader Rashid Alvi on Monday joined the party men who have offered to contest against Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.
Its workers are on their toes to win over the voters once again, with idea of 'Amrit Kaal'.
Escalating his attack on the Election Commission, Narendra Modi questioned the poll body's neutrality over denial of permission for a public meeting at a venue of his choice in Varanasi even as appealed to party workers to maintain peace while protesting the move.
Narendra Modi's candidature from Varanasi will help the Bharatiya Janata Party gain more seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh as well as neighbouring Bihar and lay the foundation for a National Democratic Alliance government, his close aide Amit Shah said on Monday.
12 of the 20 MPs with the highest winning margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have not been re-nominated by their parties for the 2024 general elections.
This comes after Gandhi on Tuesday replied to the Lok Sabha Secretariat's notice to vacate his official bungalow, and said he will abide by the notice.
'If we want real democracy, the economy itself will need to be democratised.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
INDIA bloc leaders will protest at Jantar Mantar Friday against suspension of MPs and nationwide protests will also be held in all district headquarters against the government's "immoral and illegal" behaviour of this government, the Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha said.
Literally testing the waters in the politically crucial state, Priyanka Gandhi, who is in charge of eastern UP for the party, travelled about 100 kilometres on the Ganga over three days, ending Wednesday in Varanasi.
As voting got underway in this high-profile Lok Sabha constituency, AAP candidate Arvind Kejriwal said his direct fight was with Bharatiya Janata Party's Narendra Modi and Congress' Ajay Rai was nowhere in the contest.
He held two massive roadshows in Rajasthan and one in Madhya Pradesh and his entries in many of rally venues were marked by a drive through cheering supporters.
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.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Thursday faced the wrath of Bharatiya Janata Party workers protesting against price hike while he was waiting to board a Delhi-bound train at Mugalsarai railway station near Varanasi.
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.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com visited many polling booths in Varanasi on polling day. This is what he discovered.
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.
Congress's UP chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit and Ghulam Babi Azad will also be present in the roadshow.
Even as both the ruling Samajwadi Party and its bte noire, the Bahujan Samaj Party may swear in the name of secularism, neither of the two critical players in Uttar Pradesh politics is willing to go for a united nominee against their common political foe, Narendra Modi, who seemed cocking a snook at them from Varanasi. Sharat Pradhan reports
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Friday said the Election Commission should take suo moto cognisance of the manner in which Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi filed his nomination from Varanasi at the time when the sixth phase of polling was being held all over the country, including Uttar Pradesh.
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.
Those who denounced the letter writers in the "Group of 23" like Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan have interestingly found places in the panels announced by Gandhi on Sunday evening.
'Since the last ten days our own people were spreading canards and propaganada against me and my family.' 'I was upset by this behaviour and I decided that I should not contest this Lok Sabha election.'
The Allahabad high court on Friday issued a notice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a petition challenging his election from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said if the people of Varanasi defeat Narendra Modi in the elections then no one will make him the next prime minister.
The Varanasi mayor has issued orders making it mandatory for every municipal corporation member to sing 'Vande Mataram' and 'Jana Gana Mana' after a Bharatiya Janata Party corporator's proposal for singing the songs triggered protests by Congress and Samajwadi Party members.
The fight between Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for supremacy in this temple town has divided students of IIT, Varanasi into two camps who will campaign for their chosen candidate in their own ways.
Two key Hindu religious leaders will campaign against Narendra Modi in the holy city of Varanasi from where the BJP's prime ministerial candidate is contesting the Lok Sabha election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
The BJP is the preferred choice because it offers what the Mughals and later British offered in their time: A stable polity and an environment in which business could function, explains T N Ninan.
As the Prime Minister hit the campaign trail in his Lok Sabha constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Varanasi on Saturday charged the administration with "selectively" pulling down its posters in the name of implementing the poll code.
Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday announced his decision to take on Narendra Modi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in this temple city while appealing for support to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate.
The prime minister will be part of the launch of several development initiatives on his birthday.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
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