Why did Karnataka's economic prosperity fail to influence the nature of electoral promises made by political parties in the run-up to the assembly elections? asks A K Bhattacharya.
The rebels have been expelled for six years for anti-party activities; Assam Pradesh Congress committee media cell chairman I P Hazarika said in Guwahati on Monday.
Senior Congress leaders say Sharad Pawar's 'clean chit' to Modi in the Rafale deal is the most recent example of regional parties succumbing to pressure. The Congress is also convinced that Mayawati is being arm-twisted.
Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar, who took oath as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, on Sunday said his party decided to become part of the Eknath Shinde government for the development of the country, and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.
The thumping electoral victory the Congress had dreamt about is now a distant reality, says Vicky Nanjappa
'The BJP used Shinde and Shiv Sena to decimate Uddhav Thackeray, humiliate him by taking away his party as well as party symbol.' 'The Shiv Sena and Eknath Shinde have served their purpose.'
The Congress's new treasurer Ahmed Patel has been meeting industrialists and businessmen. He met one of the biggest industrialists of the country last week, but the assurance of any significant donation was half-hearted from the other end. Business houses aren't exactly queuing up to offer donations, reports Archis Mohan.
The anti-incumbency factor is virtually a non-issue in the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam.
In what could signal the end of its long-standing alliance with the Congress in Goa, the Nationalist Congress Party on Thursday announced its decision to contest both the seats in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Kejriwal said that the ordinance must be defeated collectively in Parliament where it is likely to come up for voting as a law in the forthcoming session.
T S Sudhir speaks to K T Rama Rao, TRS member of legislative assembly and son of party chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, on how the Parkal by-poll result will help the Telangana cause and the bitter political rivalry between his party and the BJP.
Labelled as the semi-final before the big Lok Sabha poll, assembly elections in five states will set the tone for summer of 2019.
Azad said it was a good meeting with the Congress president with the discussion centred on how to prepare and fight unitedly the forthcoming assembly polls to take on rival parties.
On Saturday, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ministers had pulled out from the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre. The DMK had also issued an ultimatum that they were willing to give the Congress 60 seats in the forthcoming assembly elections. If the Congress were to accept this offer then the DMK ministers would withdraw their resignations. If this offer was not accepted the DMK would prefer to give the Congress issue-based support in Parliament.
Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan may soon join the increasing number of celebrities who have become poster boys for political parties in the run-up to the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. The Bigg Boss finalist, who had earlier wished to stay away from politics after claiming to have got similar offers from the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, now seems to have made up his mind about joining politics. The actor has featured in several Bhojpuri and Hindi films.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and some of his cabinet colleagues, including Shanti Dhariwal, figure in the list of 63 Congress candidates for the forthcoming assembly polls, announced by the All India Congress Committee.
Chidambaram also stressed that there were lessons to be learnt by the Congress from the Gujarat loss, saying there is no such thing as a "silent" campaign in a hard-fought election.
Krishna preferred to campaign for the party in the upcoming polls, rather than contest from his constituency Maddur. His re-induction in the party had sent waves of dissent among other leaders, who thought that the party was trying to rope him in as a Chief Ministerial candidate.The party leadership also took a conscious decision to avoid candidates whose relatives rank high in the party hierarchy.
Veteran Congress man and former chief minister of Karnataka Veerappa Moily believes that his party will win a comfortable majority.
Team Anna on Saturday urged Himachal Pradesh locals to vote for neither the Congress nor the Bharatiya Janata party in the forthcoming state assembly elections, saying both the parties are hand-in-gloves with each other in fleecing the innocent people of this hill state.
Actor Sanjay Dutt on Saturday toured Allahabad district, campaigning for the Congress for the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, which he described as "the home I had left a few years ago only to come back". The 53-year-old actor began his electioneering from Meja assembly constituency in the district's trans-Yamuna region, nearly 65 km from Allahabad, where he urged the people to vote for the party that has been out of power in the state for more than two decades.
There is a mild breeze blowing in the Congress party's favour in UP, much to the chagrin of Mayawati, the Bharatiya Janata Party and even Mulayam Singh. That mild breeze is indifferent to everything else in the field. Dame Luck and the mild breeze seem to have teamed up to turn the tables against everyone else in the fray in UP.
The Jat community is itching to end its brief dalliance with the BJP, but it is also upset with the Congress, the party they have traditionally supported, for not giving them their due, reports Archis Mohan.
Rawat through his tweets on Wednesday had expressed anguish at the factionalism in the state unit and noted that thought has been crossing his mind that "it is time to rest".
Notwithstanding the hiccups over seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party , SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday claimed that the two parties will face the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls in 'perfect coordination'.Mulayam told media persons that despite the visible tug-of-war over sharing the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the country's most populous state, all was well between the two parties.
While the Congress is not willing to campaign in Muslim areas, the BJP encourages Muslims to attend its public meetings, reports Archis Mohan.
It was not very easy to leave the family which I built for 20 years but then I got a very warm welcome from the Thackeray family.
At a press conference held in Jammu, the senior Congress leaders announced the party's decision to end its six year alliance with the National Conference, headed by Farooq Abdullah.
Hitting back at Patole, senior NCP leader Pawar wondered whether the Bharatiya Janata Party, too, should accuse the former of backstabbing it as he had quit the saffron party to join the Congress in 2018.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to release Cheetahs in a Madhya Pradesh national park as a 'tactic to divert attention' from the grand old party's 'immensely successful' 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
The colourful rally galvanised the BRS workers who shouted slogans hailing the party-led regime's welfare schemes in Telangana and peppy political songs praised Rao's 'national' emergence.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nitin Gadkari on Saturday alleged that a deal had been brokered between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress by a reputed industrialist in a hotel to "stop the BJP at any cost" from coming to power in Delhi.
The biggest jolt the Congress came in 2019 when a group of its 10 MLAs, led by then leader of opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, left the party together and joined the ruling BJP.
This comes after immense pressure on Zuckerberg from lawmakers, the media and the public after the Facebook founder last week apologised for data breach and said the platform had made "mistakes".
Patel's victory, which came against heavy odds, has given the Congress and the rest of the Opposition the confidence that Modi and Shah weren't invincible.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Saturday said there was no question of a hung Parliament after the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The meeting of the Congress' top decision-making body has been convened after demands from some quarters within the party to discuss important issues, including some defections in the recent past.
The dates of the forthcoming assembly polls in Rajasthan are yet to be announced by the Election Commission, but on the ground, the battle has already begun between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'Never has this happened in the state's political history -- that every class of people is unhappy.'
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