The Unnao police booked Sengar under various sections of the IPC and provisions of the POCSO Act, but said the CBI will take a decision about his arrest.
'According to a powerful section of the Congress the vote was anti-Congress, anti-dynasty and pro-Modi, in that order. They say Modi won because he represented and completely played upon "Bhartiyata".' 'Sonia is being accused, privately, of protecting her son at the cost of the party's interest.' 'For the first time ever, 24 Akbar Road, the Congress headquarters, is assessing the "neeyat (intent)" of the Gandhi Parivar, which has never happened before.' A Rediff Correspondent lifts the veil off the churning within the Congress party in the wake of the party's rout in the election.
n an exclusive interview with Rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad analysed the political scenario in his home-state Bihar, admitting that political equations have changed after the Bharatiya Janata Party forged alliances with Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha.
The film faces opposition from fringe Rajput groups, who allege that it distorts history and show Queen Padmavati in "poor light".
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
Blaming Akhilesh Yadav for "sleeping over" the demand for justice by a "beti" in the rape case against Gayatri Prajapati, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the voters in Uttar Pradesh have got an opportunity to perform the pind daan (last rites) of their "tormentors".
After rows over water usage at its plants in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, it is now the turn of its Gujarat factory.
'The BJP has taken too much of credit for sweeping urban local elections.' 'It is true in the mayor segment. But in the smaller cities, semi-urban and rural areas, the BJP has done badly and so have the other parties.' 'Nobody can claim they have swept the elections.' 'What Mayawati failed miserably to do in the assembly election, she has managed to gain that in this election.'
Many in the Bharatiya Janata Party feel that internal democracy in the party is being stifled
After a series of defeats since 2012, the results of the recent panchayat polls are being seen by her as a tide changer for the upcoming UP assembly elections
A Ganesh Nadar's tales from the campaign trail.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Dharmendra Kumar Singh explains the importance of getting 28 percent of the vote in Uttar Pradesh, which is witnessing a five-cornered contest.
The ruling party's decision to serve 'disqualification' notice to three party MLAs when polling for four more assembly by-elections are due for May 19 may have been taken to keep the flock together post-results, rather than seek to lose more than already, but it has sent out alarming signals in a state ruled till recently by an Iron Lady, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'He totally gets the Gandhis...' 'If anything, he pays too much attention to the Gandhis.' 'I feel that in places like UP, where the Congress doesn't matter, he often spends time blasting the Gandhis.'
'The BJP used to be a party of decent, Hindu, middle-class people. Today, it is a party of goons. At the ground level, goons beat you up and at the senior level, the intellectuals justify the beating up.' 'On May 13, one boy sent me an SMS at 2.35 am: "Mayank sir, only five seats, what will happen?" There will be a lot of these idealist kids who want that quick transformation that may not happen. We will have to mentor them. We will have to explain to them that nations cannot be changed like that.' Aam Aadmi Party leader Mayank Gandhi, on the lessons the party has learnt from Election 2014.
'Like 2014, 2017 was also Modi's election.' 'Every voter you met, apart from those who are BJP cadres, everybody said they would vote for Modi, not the BJP.' 'The one and only factor is the Modi juggernaut. He is the one who turned the tide.' 'The wave which he created in 2014, and to maintain it for three years, is a huge task in itself.'
With simmering discontent among volunteers after the rout in the Lok Sabha polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal has announced re-haul of the party structure at the ground level and said he would monitor all the arrangements in Delhi.
'Win or lose, the BJP's Delhi unit is clearly in a mess. Its behaviour offers a textbook example in how not to approach an election.'
The monogrammed pinstripe suit received a fresh bid of Rs 1.41 crore
The media wittingly or otherwise has been a key player in stymying the AAP. It is not so much the rivals, but the media, mostly the television and from its cues, large sections of the print segment, who got the trophy. The political parties, especially BJP and Congress, can now laugh in their sleeves, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
'There will be greater communalisation. He talks about development, but his people tell his critics to go to Pakistan and brand Muslims as 'butchers'. This is the true colour of the BJP.' 'He deliberately does not stop them because that is his real agenda; he wants to make sure that the Hindu votes come to the BJP,' says senior journalist Kalpana Sharma. Ritu Jha/Rediff.com listens in.
'AAP's real value must be measured not by the number of Lok Sabha seats it wins in the election -- which may not exceed 10 or 15 -- and not even by the number of votes it takes from the BJP, but by its ability to deflate Modi's superhuman '56-inch chest' image and the charisma so assiduously manufactured around him by the corporate-controlled media.'
'In Modi's moral majority, words like security become problematic and a moral majority can turn devastatingly inquisitorial. It turns history into a preferred flatland of the nation State challenging cultural diversity in the name of majoritarianism expressed as patriotism. Dissent almost immediately becomes seditious,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
Accusing Congress of "trying to hide in the bunker of secularism", Narendra Modi on Sunday said that it was fighting for its survival with even a 100-seat mark in the new Lok Sabha appearing "an uphill task for it".
Although a fiery speaker and mass leader in her own right, Bharti has to necessarily fall back on what is being repeatedly described as a 'Modi lehar' to wrest this seat from the Congress, observes Anita Katyal
In a gracious, 45-minute victory speech in Vadodara, Modi said the government does not belong to any particular party but to all the people of the country
Incidents of arson, firing and vandalism were reported from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab as protesters agitated against the dilution of the SC/ST Act.
The more mud his opponents fling, the stronger Arvind Kejriwal emerges.
'When Hindus converted through inducements there was no hue and cry, but when reconversions took place, everyone cried foul. If re-conversions are bad, so are conversions.' 'Our government is not getting involved either in conversions or re-conversions. The BJP has nothing to do with it.' Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu in a candid interview.
The much talked about dinner with Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal at Bangalore on Saturday had around 200 people attending it. While the event, according to the AAP, was a fund raiser, many felt that it was an extended version of Kejriwal's speech which they have been hearing all these days.
Ideology and principle are always put to work to camouflage political ambition. Nitish Kumar is a past master at this. His acceptance of the NDA in the first place was aimed at the top spot of Bihar. Then Delhi became the goal, but Narendra Modi's rise as head of the campaign rang alarm bells. So Nitish suddenly remembered secularism, says Jaya Jaitly.
A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man, Manohar Lal Khattar toiled on the ground to build the organisation for last four decades till he was handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lead the first Bharatiya Janata Party government in Haryana.
Why are the 'secular' parties silent about the lynchings on our streets? Are they so busy forging political alliances that they ignore the numerous distortions of Constitutional values?
'Nitish Kumar's government will be at stake. The JD-U is working with a very thin majority, which is a borrowed majority. With just two seats Nitish Kumar has no moral right to stay on,' says Professor Prabhat Ghosh.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump scrambled to make their final pitch to voters in the high-stakes United States presidential polls.
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
'There was an overt campaign and there was a covert campaign. The overt campaign may be development, government, and all this nonsense. But the covert campaign, which Mr Amit Shah was doing, was far more important with the help of RSS cadres. This has been an RSS election. From day one I have been saying, this is not Congress versus the BJP, this is Congress versus the RSS,' says Jairam Ramesh, one of the key strategists of the Congress party.
Targeting the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, the PM said the two never see eye-to-eye on any issue but are now together demanding his removal as he is working to root out blackmoney.