Stalin is preparing the DMK to go the whole hog in making 'federalism', 'Tamil self-respect' and 'communal cohesiveness' the party's poll plank next year, and package the BJP and its possible allies, as 'divisive' and 'reactionary', predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress and BJP are apprehensive that AAP might eat into their votes among the Patel community, Kshatriyas, a section of minorities, and Dalits, thus delivering a fatal blow in the closely-contested seats. But the local BJP is elated over the entry of AIMIM as there will be a contender for minority votes apart from the Congress in seats like Bhuj and Mandvi, which have considerable Muslim electorate.
The issues listed by Gandhi include Centre-state relations, rise in cases of communal tension, border transgressions by China and the demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to investigate the transactions of the Adani business group in light of several revelations.
The murder of Atiq and his brother and the police encounter with his son have raised many questions about the propriety of how crime is tackled by the Yogi government. But Yogi knows he has the support of the people who are fed up with crime holding the state to ransom for decades, asserts Ramesh Menon.
A video showing the incident involving school teacher, Tripta Tyagi, and the Class 2 boy in Muzaffarnagar has gone viral on social media eliciting strong words from several political parties.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
A delegation of Muslim leaders led by Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi during which she asked them to ensure that secular votes did not split in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Mounting a fresh attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday alleged that for the sake of vote bank politics, it has nurtured, given shelter and surrendered before terror.
'Congress leaders who are making strategy for the Congress to win elections have not even won a class monitor elections.' 'When you have not contested school monitor elections, what will you know about the ground reality?'
Was the decision taken by the Centre on August 5, 2019 to abrogate the provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution, which bestowed a special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, constitutionally valid? The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce its verdict on Monday on a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of the provisions of Article 370.
All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijay Singh on Friday rued that a section of political parties were out to fan communal sentiments over the latest spell of riot in Assam while making an appeal to all sections of people to maintain restraint at this critical juncture so that normalcy could be restored properly in the riot-hit areas.
'I wish him well in whatever he does and I will do so if he enters politics too.'
National Human Rights Commission on Thursday said its burden would increase if the Communal Violence Bill is passed in Parliament in its "present form".
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand to cooperate with the Gujarat Police in connection with a case filed against them over alleged misappropriation of funds.
West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party chief Dilip Ghosh on Saturday said that the party has to fulfil its long-cherished mission of winning the state not only to expand its ideological footprint but also to secure India's eastern borders, which have turned into a 'transit point for terror elements' trying to create unrest in the country.
The unrest in the Sandeshkhali region of West Bengal ballooned into a major political row on Thursday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the saffron camp of fomenting trouble in the area, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Commission for Women (NCW) accused her party Trinamool Congress and the state government of being complicit in crimes against women in the area.
'The state of Gujarat was to my mind 'partisan and over enthusiastic' in the way it dealt with remission applications.'
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
Firing a fresh salvo at Narendra Modi, Aam Aadmi Party National Convener Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said his decision to enter the electoral fray from Varanasi was not a "symbolic gesture" but to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate.
After his friend Amitabh Bachchan became Gujarat's brand ambassador, expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh on Tuesday said Chief Minister Narendra Modi could be "loved or hated but not ignored".
The NCERT has cited 'overlapping' and 'irrelevant' as reasons for dropping those portions from the syllabus.
Banerjee alleged that the BJP was maligning the name of Lord Ram by organising violence during Ram Navami processions.
Just as the umpire's decision is no longer final, what is disdainfully rejected is the age-old dictum that the game should be played and watched in the spirit of the game, sighs Uddalok Bhattacharya.
Janata Dal-United leader Ali Anwar on Sunday said that the Bihari community knows how to get rid of communal forces.
Noting that Gandhi had claimed that armed forces can restore peace in the state within days if allowed, BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wondered if he wanted what his grandmother and then prime minister Indira Gandhi had done by ordering the Air Force to drop bombs in Aizawl in the 1960s.
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
'It has been doing yeoman service for the people of the North East.'
Udupi superintendent of police Hakay Akshay Machhindra too confirmed that the case has been handed over to the CID.
'We have unfortunately created that kind of ecosystem in Canada where these people are very vocal, very violent, very aggressive, and they don't let anybody.... come out against them. They will bully, they will threaten, they will use every possible illegal means... to counter any sanity'
'It will be the end of the Congress after the Lok Sabha election.' 'Many Congressmen and even Communists will move to the BJP.'
The Kerala Story is among a long list of films that invited bans and censorship.
Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu's failure to communicate to the Communist Party of India - Marxist that he would attend the proposed anti-communalism convention on October 30 suggests he is actively considering joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party in a post-poll alliance.
...Is a cultural swaraj under way, wonders Ajit Balakrishnan.
Several Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly have declared cases in which they have been charged with inciting communal tension. The Association for Democratic Reforms in a report gives details of elected representatives with such charges.
"Our party is stronger than the Congress in the state. While the Congress won 40 seats in panchayat polls, we scored a victory in 83 panchayats. AAP got over 40 lakh votes in these polls, where 1600 party candidates contested," Singh, AAP's UP in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday warned the Bharatiya Janata Party not to 'provoke' the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, saying it will not be able to 'bear the consequences' and that his party also knows 'all types of politics', escalating his attack on the saffron party after the arrest of his cabinet colleague V Senthil Balaji.
The Congress accused Yogi Adityanath of withdrawing cases of heinous crimes such as rioting in Muzaffarnagar on religious lines.
"One of the main principles of the Congress has been its commitment to secularism. This is particularly important in Gujarat where communal politics has polarised society and undermined the pluralist and tolerant ethos of our nation," Gandhi said in the latest issue of Congress Sandesh.
"I am ready to fight the money power (of her political opponents), and (central) agencies (which her party alleges has been unleashed on TMC with a political motive), but I will not bow my head," she said.
Against the backdrop of Kerala's appetite for commonsense, it was assumed that this controversy would pass. Respect for rationalism and scientific outlook is strong in the state despite political forces gnawing at it for their own goals, observes Shyam G Menon.
