Actor-turned-Bharatiya Janata Party nominee Kirron Kher on Wednesday visited former MP Harmohan Dhawan at the latter's residence in Chandigarh apparently to seek support for her candidature, but failed to win over the sulking leader.
Five-time MLA Parshottam Solanki, who is also known as 'Bhai' among his followers, has been winning Bhavnagar-Rural with a comfortable margin.
He staked everything to ensure the BJP returned to power; and now that it has, he stands to lose a lot, points out Aditi Phadnis.
A stay order could have paved the way for Gandhi's reinstatement as Member of Parliament (MP).
Barring a brief lull in 2008 triggered by her standoff with Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the issue of family entitlement in ticket distribution, the suave and soft-spoken Alva's career has largely been a dream run.
There are three things you never do in a small North East state: Undermine local leaders, divide and rule, push homogenisation, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'I don't need to go out now. I don't have to buy votes. My workers are campaigning for me, visiting villages. I know people in every village and their issues,' says the 78-year-old leader.
As the election approaches, the earthquake survivors and the scientists urge political parties to take note of warning signs before it's too late.
'The BJP has replaced huge portraits of the two BJP leaders from Gujarat with very small portraits of many leaders from Bihar. Much is being read into this changed tactic of hoardings and banners,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought response from the Centre and the Election Commission on a Public Interest Litigation seeking a direction to them to frame of guidelines to ensure that more citizens cast their votes in the polls.
With some variations, all regional political formations, whether in power presently or out of it, share some common features: Tight family control of the political apparatus, key members in elected or appointed positions, obvious wealth but not quite known sources of income, and family factionalism, sometimes open and bitter, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Plotters of the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts had also planned to kill then-Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi besides creating mayhem, one of the accused convicted for the bombings by a special court in Ahmedabad had admitted before the court in the past, the prosecution said on Friday.
'Removing Biplab Deb and replacing him with Manik Saha is a fruitless exercise that the BJP national leadership has indulged in.' 'It is foolish to think that people will forget what these two have done to the state and its people in the last four years.'
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Thackeray said people should be aware of how religious issues are raked up to distract their attention from core issues.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused the opposition of playing 'negative politics' and said now the entire country is rooting for corruption, dynasty and appeasement to 'quit India'.
Election to fill up 55 seats in the Upper House of Parliament was to be held on March 26, but 37 candidates have already been elected without a contest.
The strategic move will also bolster the BJP's push to decimate Uddhav Thakceray-led party by depriving it of its pet Hindutva and ethnic sub-nationalism plank.
The BJP has nothing to lose after a point. For the DMK it is a difficult choice, as it would not want to give too much of space to a 'national party' lest the 'Dravidian duel' of the past decades should be lost forever, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Deepa Gahlot lists 10 popular family shows and films streaming on various platforms.
In Tripura, the challenge for the chief minister is less from the alliance partners and more from his own party, the BJP.
Riya Subodh's journey to winning MTV India's Next Top model is inspiring.
Sniping at the BJP senior leadership has reached a new high in Karnataka. For the moment, there is a truce, but the party knows the damage it could do ahead of the polls.
The accused had taken a picture of the 'Jansampark Kaaryalay (public relations office)' of Modi, who represents Varanasi in the Lok Sabha, and put it 'up for sale' on OLX website, they said.
Speaking at length about the last two decades of Modi's political journey, Singh said, "A true leadership is identified by its intent and integrity and in both cases, Modiji is 24-carat gold. There is not a single stain of corruption on him even after being the head of a government for 20 years."
Already, there is a feeling even within the BJP's AIADMK ally that the BJP is overdoing things on the ED/I-T front, as corruption is not an election issue in the state -- as long as the people are otherwise not excessively unhappy with the governing party, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP can't be sure if it should celebrate that the old rival is fading or worry that new ones are rising. Because the last thing the BJP wants to see is alternatives rising, if only to the Congress, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The man who fired the first shot at Umesh Pal, a key witness in the killing of former Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Raju Pal, was gunned down in an encounter with Prayagraj police early Monday, officials said.
'It was more than ego.' 'It carried with it a sincere belief that he was the quintessence of the country, that the country's destiny was irrevocably intertwined with his destiny.' An excerpt from T J S George's The Dismantling of India: In 35 Portraits.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday gifted a Gond art painting, a specimen of Sanjhi art form and a wooden hand-carved box to his fellow Quad leaders from Australia, the US and Japan, sources said.
The 71-year-old remained Sonia Gandhi's most trusted lieutenant for most of her tenure as the longest serving Congress president, standing by her side through sun and shade.
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Modi leadership could lose Election 2024 if a communal flare-up becomes cause for all-round catastrophe, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
Fearing poaching, the party had shifted its legislators to various resorts in Gujarat in the one last week, dividing them in zone-wise groups. While some MLAs gathered in Rajkot in Saurashtra, few others were in Abu Road in Rajasthan.
Even as the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation is currently facing a survival crisis due to a rebellion by Sena minister Eknath Shinde, the departments -- mostly controlled by ruling allies Nationalist Congress Party and Congress -- have issued government orders for the release of funds for various development-related works worth thousands of crores in the last four days.
India's Right-wing has sought to own our democracy by making itself appear the stuff of majority, and sometimes, a national ethos older than the Constitution on which our democracy is based, argues Shyam G Menon.
During Friday's hearing, the Congress leader replied 'I don't know' to most of the questions asked by the court on the basis of recent testimonies of two witnesses -- the then electoral officer of Kolar in Karnataka where Gandhi had made the speech, and a videographer appointed by the Election Commission to shoot that rally.
'Islam says the person who has been hurt has the right to pardon the accused. So don't ask me on whether I will pardon Narendra Modi or not. Go and ask this question to Gujarati Muslims who have been hurt.' 'Secular and non-secular is not an issue for Muslims. The day Muslims become strong, the non-secular guys will become secular. And if Muslims are weak, the same secular guys will cut the throats of Muslims.' 'The secular character of India can never be finished. India is secular by its nature. Whoever comes to power, he will have to become secular to rule,' Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
'The government is doing away with crucial laws such as the Forest Conservation Act and the Environment Protection Act which had helped safeguard our forests.' 'The President has to show that she will stand in favour of tribal rights.'
