An organisational portfolio in the Andhra Pradesh unit of the Congress party seems to be all that Y S Jaganmohan Reddy--son of late chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy--will get for the time being. Halting his aspirations of taking over the mantle from his father, the Congress high command has decided to continue with current Chief Minister K Rosaiah for the time being.
'The Congress is trying to cover up their anti-incumbency by highlighting the Dalit CM factor.'
Dominic Xavier wonders how a rebel leader -- and clearly, Gehlot is one after Sunday's rebellion by his MLA supporters, no matter his assertions to the high command's emissaries that he has no links to the mutiny -- can now lead the national party which so badly needs the adhesive of unity and tender care.
The Congress high command on Saturday assured rebel Uttarakhand leader Harish Rawat that he will get his due but ruled out any change in the post of chief minister. The name of Rawat's wife Renuka is being considered among a few others for Rajya Sabha nomination for the lone vacant seat from the hill state, All India Congress Committee general secretary Chaudhary Birender Singh said.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday held discussions with his cabinet colleagues in the wake of the Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot reportedly issuing him a 'show-cause notice', seen as a precursor to sanctioning his prosecution in the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment 'scam'.
A Vokkaliga seer on Thursday publicly urged Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to step down and make way for his deputy D K Shivakumar, amid a power tussle within the ruling Congress.
Two former MLAs Neeraj Basoya and Nasseb Singh resigned from the primary membership of the party putting the party's Lok Sabha preparations in doubt.
One-line resolutions from states authorising the Congress high command to decide candidates in elections could be a thing of the past with Rahul Gandhi set to tone up the functioning of the party.
An MP from Baharampur since 1999 and the reigning Pradesh Congress president of West Bengal, this was perhaps Chowdhury's toughest electoral challenge which came in the form Pathan, the non-resident TMC candidate.
EPS has had its way on most things, alliance-wise. A week earlier, he reiterated that he would not re-admit OPS and Sasikala Natarajan back in the party. It was a message not just to detractors in the AIADMK. It was even more so for the BJP leadership in Delhi. Even more important for the AIADMK was their demand for accepting EPS as the chief ministerial candidate of any alliance that the party would form, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a jolt to the ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh, state party chief and Mandi MP Pratibha Singh on Wednesday announced that she has decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections as the ground situation was "not favourable" and workers were disheartened.
Defence Minister A K Antony, who has been briefing the Congress high command about the steps to be taken to create the state of Telangana, has stated that the party needs to make its intentions clear for the people of Andhra Pradesh.
In a blow to the Congress in poll bound Kerala, Senior leader P C Chacko on Wednesday announced his resignation from the party, alleging group interest in deciding party candidates for the assembly elections.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
A party without a 'high command' would be 'anarchy,' he said.
Amid protests in Hyderabad, a high-level meeting is likely to be convened in New Delhi to lay out a road map for the formation of Telangana.
Let there be no doubt that Modi in these 24 years so far has reshaped politics and governance considerably, if not completely, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author, Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Chhatrapati Yadav, the MLA from Khagaria Sadar, has shot off a letter to Congress high command, demanding that he be considered, by virtue of his caste, for a berth in the new cabinet headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Even before the first votes are counted in Maharashtra, fissures have emerged within the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on who will head the next government. Both camps are claiming the chief minister's post, with constituents in both camps laying claim over the chief minister's post. The MVA, consisting of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), and the Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, have expressed confidence that their respective alliance will form the next government after votes are counted on Saturday. While a majority of exit polls have predicted that Mahayuti will retain power, a few have favored the MVA.
A political crisis involving the ruling All India NR Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition is brewing in the union territory with a section of saffron party MLAs expressing displeasure against the government over issues including corruption, and have knocked on the doors of the national leadership with a plea to set things right before they 'become worse'.
The Congress has been hit by rebellion and a three way split in Karnataka.
Group rivalry in the Kerala Congress unit has intensified further as the political mission of chief minister Oommen Chandy to induct Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ramesh Chennithala into the cabinet has failed.
The hastily convened all-party meeting by Chief Minister K Rosaiah on Monday evening concluded without any conclusion being made on the confusion about the Congress' stand on the demand for a separate state of Telangana.
Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Tuesday reiterated that upcoming assembly elections will be his last electoral battle, but he will remain active in Karnataka politics.
'Nobody understands Gehlot's politics.' 'The Congress high command should wake up.'
On whether injustice has been done to Dalits by not giving a DCM post to the community, he said the people, especially the Dalit community, have huge expectations.
As the All India Congress Committee Plenary session started in New Delhi, the party rank and file hoped that the Congress high command would be able to clear up the mess surrounding the party in the wake of the various scams surrounding it.
The Congress may have reviewed its poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, but unease is growing in the party in crucial states such as Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which had returned spectacular results in the last two Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress leadership is caught in a peculiar situation and wants to find a middle path to the issue, party sources said.
The top Congress leadership has not accepted Navjot Singh Sidhu's resignation and adopting a wait and watch policy.
As part of efforts to mollify the dissatisfied ministers, the chief minister has despatched ministers Aanam Ramanarayana Reddy and Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy for talks with the rebellious ministers.
Their joining is likely to come as a big boost to the BJP in Haryana with a few months remaining for the polls.
He expressed confidence he and Pilot would work together after they agreed on a truce before the party high command.
The decision was taken to foil the attempts made by Chief Minister Mayawati to further split the party.
'They mean business, but business as usual is unacceptable to them'
As the son of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YSR Reddy, Jaganmohan Reddy enjoyed tremendous clout in the state and a good amount of respect in New Delhi. But only nine months after his father's sudden demise, young MP from Kadapa is fast becoming a man with no friends.
The chief minister said nobody should make political calculations, based on this crisis.
