Y S Sharmila's message to voters in Kadapa is brief: 'I am YSR's daughter, my brother Jagan has ruined Andhra, vote for me, vote for Congress.' A Ganesh Nadar listens in.
Former Congress MLA from Barnala, Kewal Dhillon, and former Shiormani Akali Dal MLAs Sarup Chand Singla and Mohinder Kaur Josh also joined the BJP.
'Akhilesh Yadav made voters think why is the BJP asking for 400 paar.' 'They understood his words and believed the BJP wanted 400 paar only to demolish the Constitution and end reservations.'
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the BJP is consistently losing ground, which is why "the PM's love for Muslim League has resurfaced".
It is a double century with a difference for the cricketer turned politician, who is the lead campaigner for the Opposition Mahagathbandhan in the state.
In his poll rallies, Modi framed Pitroda's comments in his wider onslaught against the Congress, asserting that they have exposed its hidden agenda and that the party has become so removed from the country's social and family values that it wants to legally rob people of their assets and lifelong savings they want to bequeath to their children.
The party renominated Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram seat.
He claimed even the media is debarred from entering the secretariat and reaching out to the chief minister and thus changes need to be made in the governance model in Odisha.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
While 39 members of the all-important panel are general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state and 13 special invitees.
While Dilip Tirkey is the ruling Biju Janata Dal candidate for the Sundergarh (ST) Lok Sabha constituency, his junior and former India hockey captain, Prabodh Tirkey is the Congress candidate from the Talsara (ST) assembly segment also in Sundergarh district.
Gandhi said farmers asked him during his Bharat Jodo and Bharat Jodo Nyay yatras about why they were not getting the benefit of loan waivers like billionaire industrialists or MSP (minimum support price) for farm produce.
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Kharge claimed that though the BJP says the corrupt must be put in jails, when leaders facing corruption charges join the saffron party, they are "put on the lap" and sent to Rajya Sabha or assembly.
The National Testing Agency, under fire over the lapses in the conduct of NEET and UGC-NET, is gearing up to conduct on Sunday a retest for the medical entrance exam for 1,563 candidates who were earlier awarded grace marks to make up for the loss of time at six centres.
'They know the people of Karnataka will not accept it.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday claimed that the Congress and Samajwadi Party will run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take 'tuition' from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath 'where to run bulldozers'.
Rahul openly said he did not favour the 'high command' system in his party. Undoubtedly the Congress would have hounded any other partyman for such a brutally honest and politically-incorrect statement. But when Rahul Gandhi -- the rising force of Congress party -- speaks, you are forced to listen.
The chorus for Rahul Gandhi playing a greater role in the Congress grew louder on Monday with party General Secretary Digvijaya Singh demanding that he be given "decisive" responsibility and a senior leader making a strong pitch for projecting him as the prime ministerial candidate in the next polls.
His statement evoked sharp reaction from opposition parties.
The Congresssaid BJP veterans Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishan Advani never did this, but PM Modi by doing so is "demeaning" the high office he holds.
'Who are Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti to issue certificates?'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday suggested that if the Congress comes to power, it would redistribute wealth of people to Muslims and cited former PM Manmohan Singh's remark that the minority community had the first claim on the country's resources.
'Modiji has a vision for the country, not just to fight the elections but about achieving certain goals for the country.' 'Congress does not even have a vision for 25 days.'
In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said when the elections are over, people will only remember him as the PM who indulged in 'divisive and communal speeches filled with lies' to avoid an inevitable defeat.
Amid the row over Congress leader Sam Pitroda's remarks, the party on Wednesday asserted that it has no plans whatsoever to introduce an inheritance tax and cited former Union minister Jayant Sinha's remarks to allege that it is the Modi government that wanted to do so.
According to the officials, the three-storey coaching institute, surrounded by residential and commercial establishments, had permission to use the basement as a store room, but it was being used as library in violation of the rules.
The Central Bureau of Investigation's arrest of senior Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal -- a loyalist of party supremo Mamata Banerjee -- in the alleged cattle smuggling scam on Thursday threatens his three-decade-long political career, which has been marked by controversies and strong-arm tactics.
'We put the seed of BJP's ideology in Jammu, watered it, nurtured it for four decades and when it was time to reap the fruits of those efforts, the fruits are being sold out to the very same people who worked hard to uproot this tree.' 'Shockingly, our own people are letting this happen and nobody from Delhi bothers to even listen to us.'
One more rape case has been registered against Janata Dal-Secular MP and Lok Sabha poll candidate from Hassan Prajwal Revanna, taking the number of cases pertaining to the alleged sexual abuse of several women to three, police sources said.
Topics like 'Boycott China', 'Go China' and 'Go Chinese Go' have been trending on Twitter.
Congress general secretary Bhanwar Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said there is no truth in the speculation of senior party leader Kamal Nath joining the Bharatiya Janata Party and claimed such talks were a creation of the media and the saffron party.
The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.
His five-year rule saw the Babri Masjid demolition, the rise of the saffron forces and also the country being placed firmly on a new economic path, away from the Nehru years of public sector socialism.
More than 48 lakh candidates appeared in the examination conducted on February 17 and 18 across the state.
The former Union minister had suffered a stroke in 2008 and was hospitalised since then.
Addressing a huge rally in Maharashtra's Nagpur on the occasion of the Congress' 139th foundation day, he said unemployment in the country has reached its highest point in the last 40 years.
This is a brief background of the new Cabinet Ministers.
In fresh escalation of political violence in poll-bound Kerala, a 28-year-old Youth Congress worker was hacked to death allegedly by Democratic Youth Federation of India workers at Evoor in Alapuzha on Tuesday even as the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India - Marxist workers clashed in Thiruvananthapuram district leaving at least 30 injured.