As Karnataka gears up for D-Day, with most exit poll projections predicting a hung assembly while putting the Congress in the lead, the outcome will boil down to how the battle for some key constituencies play out.
Senior leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh are learnt to be the front-runners to take on the mantle of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.
With the Pradesh Congress committees passing resolution seeking Rahul Gandhi at the helm of All India Congress Committee, party General Secretary, Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday said such measures have no binding effect.
A Delhi court on Tuesday summoned Congress leader D K Shivakumar and others in a money laundering case lodged against him in 2018 after taking cognisance of the charge sheet.
From the morning itself, Congress MLAs made a beeline to Cecil Hotel in Shimla where the party's central observers -- Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda -- were staying.
Kharge also urged voters to take pride in the fact that he as a bhoomi putra of Karnataka had been made All India Congress Committee president, and sought a win for the Congress in that name.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
Raje however, said that "Gehlot's 'praises' is a big conspiracy" against her.
The agitational programmes include the 'Loktantra Bachao Mashal Shanti March' starting from Red Fort on Tuesday and a series of press conferences in 35 major cities across the country on March 28 and 29.
Sibal, a prominent Opposition voice and a former Congress leader, also said that instead of a common minimum programme, the Opposition parties should talk about a 'new vision for India'.
The attack took place after the BJP MP was heard in a video targeting the state's ruling party by making alleged disparaging remarks against Kavitha, also a ruling party MLC.
'I know, you did it all for love,' Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Wednesday in an Instagram tribute showing her mother Sonia Gandhi, who on Wednesday handed the party's reins to a new Congress president, holding a photograph of the late Rajiv Gandhi.
The Delhi Police has denied permission to the Congress for holding a protest in the national capital on Friday, citing that prohibitory orders are in place in New Delhi district, officials said.
Nomination forms for the post of Congress president poll have been collected by Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor and All India Congress Committee (AICC) treasurer Pawan Bansal, but Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has not done so yet, the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said on Tuesday.
Karnataka Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar on Tuesday met party president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi separately and discussed the modalities of government formation in the southern state.
While Kharge is considered the firm favourite with his perceived proximity to the Gandhis and a large number of senior leaders backing him, Tharoor has pitched himself as the candidate of change.
A total of seven candidates have filed papers for the elections, for which the date for filing nominations ended on Friday.
With all eyes on the Congress's next step in Rajasthan after Sachin Pilot's fast in Jaipur on Tuesday, AICC in-charge of state Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Wednesday said he agrees with the issue of corruption taken up by Pilot but the manner in which it was raised was not right.
With the Congress emerging victorious in Himachal Pradesh, state party president Pratibha Singh is considered a key frontrunner for the chief minister's post, closely followed by former party chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and outgoing Congress Legislature Party leader Mukesh Agnihotri.
Miffed over the Congress central leadership nominating poet-politician Imran Pratapgarhi, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, as its candidate from Maharashtra for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls, party functionary Ashish Deshmukh on Tuesday resigned from the post of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary.
The Opposition party asked whether the prime minister will take responsibility for the 'deadliest rail tragedy' of this century.
Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Saturday said he is not completely opposed to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the charges against the Adani group, but a Supreme Court committee will be more useful and effective.
Tharoor also said the Congress must decentralise authority and truly empower the grassroots office-bearers of the party.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
The Congress units in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the only two states where the party is in government on its own, have passed resolutions that Gandhi be made the party's president.
Voting began on Monday in the Congress presidential polls as senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor face-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
With the election campaign in Karnataka witnessing a bitter war of words between the BJP and the Congress, both the parties rushed to the Election Commission, seeking ban on electioneering by top leaders of the other side.
Amid incessant rains, Gandhi resumed the march from Ramban Wednesday morning but inclement weather forced its suspension. The march will now resume on Friday as tomorrow is a rest day.
Gehlot, one of the proposers of Kharge, said Tharoor is also a good man and has good thoughts but he is from the elite class.
The Congress, by and large, focused on local issues in this election and its campaign also was run by state leaders initially.
They said that as Congress MPs, they are concerned about the transparency and fairness of the election process for the president of the party.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi also appointed Harsh Mahajan, Rajender Rana, Pawan Kajal and Vinay Kumar as the new working presidents of the Himachal Pradesh PCC.
'What he says, he does.' 'People say if Khargesahab has said something, it will be set in stone.'
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.
Tanwar, former MP from Sirsa in Haryana, had quit the Congress in 2019.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi was also in Karnataka on Thursday to take part in a programme for the 115th birth anniversary of Sri Shivakumara Swamiji at the Siddaganaga Mutt in Tumakuru.
However, the AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the SC committee has limited terms of reference and 'cannot bring out the deep nexus between' the prime minister and the billionaire businessman.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on Sidhu's latest drama.
In his 'last appeal' to the over 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates who constitute the electoral college to pick the next All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief, Tharoor noted that from his conversations over the last few days he gathered that many of them may have concerns or hesitation about change.
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