Senior party leaders stressed that no one except the Gandhi family can hold the party together, the party will disintegrate and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should be given command after 2024.
Gandhi also hailed as 'an important idea' the party's decisions to give more representation to the youth and empower them, and added that there should be a 'healthy mix of youngsters and seniors'.
'Congress leaders don't believe in themselves and in the potential of the party.' 'Unless they have faith in themselves, only then will the public have faith in them.'
State Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu said that in 2013-14, the state had received Rs 50 crore for police modernisation from the Centre. The allocation has come down to Rs 20 crore right now.
Sources said the leadership of the government going forward, if Gehlot is elected as party chief, is likely to be on the meeting agenda.
Sharma will have to report before the investigating officer at 11 am.
By targeting the BJP's Ram temple agenda, Upendra Kushwaha has hinted that his days within the NDA are all but over.
A police complaint was lodged on Sunday against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev and others for allegedly violating wildlife protection laws during their jeep safari after dusk in the Kaziranga Nation Park the previous day.
Senior leader P Chidambaram whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending from Maharashtra is under consideration from Tamil Nadu as the Congress is all set to get the support of alliance partner the DMK. The G-23 leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Vivek Tankha, are also said to be in contention.
Tharoor also said the Congress must decentralise authority and truly empower the grassroots office-bearers of the party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's action against its two members for their controversial comments against Prophet Mohammed cap a series of statements from its top brass and also Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat that sought to distance their organisations from shrill and combative religious rhetoric, even as it has brought to fore the conflict within their wide sphere of support.
Several ministers, including Parsadi Lal Meena, B D Kalla, Mamta Bhupesh and some independents like Suresh Tak, are present at the hotel in the lake city.
RLSP leaders feel insulted after getting no response from the BJP on their demand for a 'respectful seat sharing formula' for the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
Talking to reporters in Bhopal, Kharge said he believes in collective leadership and if elected president, will consult party leaders Sonia Gandhi as well as Rahul Gandhi on organisational matters.
Speaking to the media, Gehlot, who is in Kerala to take part in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, said, "I said earlier that I will request him (Rahul Gandhi) to accept this post when all the Congress Committees are passing resolutions in this regard. He made it clear that no one from the Gandhi family will become the next chief. He said he has decided this due to some reasons, a non-Gandhi family member will become the party chief."
"We will introspect into the reasons for our loss and will rededicate ourselves to the service of the people with greater vigour", Gandhi said in a statement.
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
Pant, a 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently secretary in the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways.
The electoral contest would take place between Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, and voting will take place on October 17 in every state capital through secret ballot.
Rahul Gandhi is the future leader of the Congress but the question of their prime ministerial candidate will be decided at an appropriate time, party General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said on Tuesday amid talk that the Congress vice president would be named as the face of their Lok Sabha poll campaign at the All India Congress Committee meeting next month.
In Karnataka, the BJP lost the elections because of multiple poles of power, a problem the central leadership could not sort out in time. Could the same happen to the Congress in Rajasthan? asks Aditi Phadnis.
'Even if not me, there are other deserving candidates from Maharashtra in the Congress who should have been given the Rajya Sabha ticket.'
To highlight alleged misgovernance by the present regime, its first nationwide campaign ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Sibal, whose exit from the Congress is another jolt for the electorally battered party, went to the Uttar Pradesh assembly premises to file his papers with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Ram Gopal Yadav and other senior leaders.
Top Congress leaders are learnt to be discussing the current political situation.
The Congress expects Rahul Gandhi to take over as its chief this year, Jairam Ramesh said on Monday.
Some analysts also pointed out that "outsourcing" political management to regional satraps such as Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana may have proven counterproductive and micromanagement by the Gandhi family was needed.
'When I said the Gandhi family had to step aside, it was because we have consistently seen that the public has not accepted them.'
A party leader, who is known to be close to Rahul, said he would be elevated "sooner than you think".
Asked about his remarks at the Udaipur chintan shivir earlier this year that the Congress' connect with the people had been broken, Gandhi insisted that he had stated that the connect had weakened.
Any adverse electoral fallout in Thrikkakara by-poll may have an impact on Rahul Gandhi because this falls in the state he represents as a member of Parliament and KC Venugopal because it is his home state, reports Shine Jacob.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
As Mallikarjun Kharge won the Congress president poll, his electoral rival Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said the 'democratic contest' has galvanised vibrancy at all levels and has prompted a healthy and constructive discussion on change, which will serve the party in good stead in the future.
The Opposition party asked whether the prime minister will take responsibility for the 'deadliest rail tragedy' of this century.
During an interactive session at the 'Ideas for India' conference in London on Friday, Gandhi not only mounted a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party government but also extended an olive branch to regional parties who he had angered with his comment that they were not capable of taking on the saffron party for want of ideology.
Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have refused to meet Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha.
Party leaders list three clear positive outcomes -- an activated Congress which has hit the ground running leaving the past inertia behind, an interactive top brass which is directly engaging the people, and a mobilised organisation which was dormant for many years.
The Congress' central election authority on Thursday issued a notification for the All India Congress Committee president polls, setting the ball rolling for electing the successor to the longest-serving party chief Sonia Gandhi.
His sudden sabbatical to reflect upon the future course of the party may be a prelude to his elevation as Congress president.
