The ex-CM said he had the honesty to face the protesters. He said the government should hold a dialogue with locals before coming up with any project.
By conventional yardsticks, Das was an audacious choice by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP president Amit Shah, like Devendra Fadnavis was in Maharashtra and Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana. Will his choice pay off in the elections next month?
The second phase of polling began Saturday morning on 20 constituencies in Jharkhand, which votes in five phases to elect 81 members of the legislative assembly.
Marandi returned to the BJP after 14 years and the party now wants him to lead the state unit. But a generation of new leaders isn't familiar with him, explains Radhika Ramaseshan.
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
Although conventional political wisdom would decree that the construction of a 'magnificent' Ram temple at his 'birth-place' would bring the BJP a big yield of votes in the prospective elections, its leaders know by now that the mandir must not exist in isolation in its game plan, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Sources close to Yadav said he had conveyed to Kumar his view that he was not keen on continuing after leading the party for 10 years and that a new person should be put in command.
Polling will take place amidst tight security in 13 Maoist-affected constituencies in the first phase of 5-stage elections to the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly on Tuesday.
Sources said the Congress, which has 19 legislators in the Bihar assembly, will go by what the Rashtriya Janata Dal decides and its presence will help strengthen the coalition.
'Shinde and Fadnavis have different working styles and certainly there is a crack that has come between them.'
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
From June 6 to 8, the party will reach out to minorities under the programme-- 'Interacting with Minorities'.
The Sena and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray labelled each other gaddar (traitor) after Shinde's rebellion split their original party last year, while Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis publicly asserted he had exacted revenge on Thackeray for his betrayal.
Besides the four ministerial berths, the Congress has also sought the post of Speaker of the state assembly, but Kumar is not keen on giving that, sources said.
The Congress chief reiterated that Rs 30,000 crore was "wrongfully" given to Anil Ambani in the purchase of Rafale fighter planes.
Although the back-fence talk was that the AJSU would return to the BJP if the Jharkhand verdict was inconclusive, the AJSU's Deosharan Bhagat rejected the hearsay. 'Jharkhand was born out of a long agitation and we were one of the agitators. We won't allow people's hopes to die with short-term compromises. Our slogan is our rule, our government,' he said. Another Sena and Mahato as another Uddhav Thackeray, asks Radhika Ramaseshan.
Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha appear to be inching closer towards forming an alternative government in Jharkhand which has been under President's Rule imposed after fall of the Arjun Munda government on January 8.
The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
Saradha scam accused Matang Sinh, who was recently arrested by the CBI, too will continue to enjoy Z-plus security.
'The Maratha versus OBC friction will increase. A huge chunk of the Shiv Sena's social base consists of OBCs.' Dhaval Kulkarni reports.
Thackeray accused the Eknath Shinde-led government of being ideologically bankrupt.
Pushing efforts to firm up a Third Front, top leaders of the Janata Dal-United, Left and the Janta Dal-Secular met in New Delhi on Monday and decided to convene a meeting of 11 parties after the end of the current Parliament session to give concrete shape to a non-Congress and non-BJP alternative.
NCP president Sharad Pawar said Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will decide the fate of Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who is facing corruption allegations by former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh.
Uddhav claimed that splits were engineered in many parties using central agencies and arrests were made illegally.
'Yeh dil maange more' seems to be mantra for over two dozen former chief ministers of various states who are contesting upcoming Lok Sabha elections on different party tickets.
Stating that the Third Front has no policy or commitment, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday termed the 'alternative' combination of parties as a "parking slot."
Thousands of farmers from across Maharashtra reached Mumbai on Sunday evening to participate in a rally at the state capital on Monday against the Centre's three new farm laws.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday said Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar was trying to save the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in view of allegations of corruption levelled by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh against state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.
'Rahul Gandhi was given the impression that if the seat was given to me, then the alliance would be broken in all 40 seats.'
'Yogi Adityanath is working for one caste only and suppressing the others,' Bihar Minister and NDA ally Mukesh Sahni tells M I Khan.
Where do the big guns stand as counting underway for the Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand elections?
P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal were among the 41 winners declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
They also threatened to suspend work for an "indefinite" period if their demands are not met.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and other leaders claimed the countdown for the ouster of the BJP and its allies from power in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls had begun.
'It is clear that Prashant Kishor will be nowhere near repeating his earlier massive wins.' 'Nonetheless, he deserves at least two cheers for having the guts to take on such a challenging task.'
Nitish Kumar's unanimous election to the top post at the party's National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
The Uttar Pradesh by-election will be the real test for the Modi government. By-election results are not a referendum on Modi but the time has come to analyse whether the Modi government is succeeding in assuring people that the promises it made would be fulfilled, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
A day after the death of Territorial Army's first woman jawan in Jalpaiguri, the police on Wednesday managed to tide over the protests of adivasi organisations and send her body for post mortem.
Besides salaries and arrears, the employees are seeking regularisation of contract-based employees and unification of the three corporations.
The announcement to end the stir, which began on January 27 to press for payment of their dues, was made by the Swatantra Mazdoor Vikas Sanyukt Morcha -- an umbrella body of 38 unions of sanitation workers and class IV employees of East and North Delhi Municipal corporations.
