'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Yadav was earlier called for questioning on March 4 but he had not appeared before the CBI sleuths, following which a fresh date was given for Saturday, they said.
Bihar Assembly Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari on Wednesday accused outgoing Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha of having "insulted Dalits" by denying him the opportunity to conduct proceedings of the House after stepping down.
Opposition unity in the form of an alliance of all major opposition parties cannot be forged at the national level, the Communist Party of India-Marxist has said, adding that it can be gained only by adopting a joint stand on important political issues.
What was the "locus standi" of Sonia Gandhi when she along with the then prime minister Manhoman Singh inaugurated legislative buildings in Manipur and Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked on Wednesday while countering the Congress's criticism over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Leaders of 38 parties have confirmed their participation in a meeting of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be held in the national capital on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda said.
On the eve of the meeting hosted by it, the Congress clarified that it will oppose the ordinance on Delhi services in Parliament, a key condition put by the AAP to attend the talks.
Ill-health forced Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to cancel his scheduled visit to Chennai on Tuesday, where he was invited by his Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin, a key aide of the Janata Dal-United leader said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar walked to 10, Circular Road, from his home at 1, Aney Marg to meet his old comrade-turned political adversary-turned ally.
The Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress government will face a confidence vote in the Bihar assembly on Wednesday, August 24, next, and it is quite likely that the BJP will do all it can to defeat the trust vote.
Talking to reporters in Patna, the former Union minister asserted that he would happily function as 'an ordinary party worker, worth five rupees', if the JD-U leadership was assumed by 'anybody from among the Luv Kush Samaj (Kurmis and Koeris) or the EBCs whose aspirations have been the party's driving force'.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday hinted that the much-awaited all-party meeting on a state-specific census of castes could be held later this week.
The Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar will go for a floor test on August 24 to prove its majority in the state assembly.
Five days before the Big Opposition rally in Patna, one of the Mahagathbandhan's allies will walk out of the ruling alliance.
Suman, who held the SC and ST welfare portfolio, is the national president of HAM founded by his father Jitan Ram Manjhi, a former chief minister.
In switching over, Nitish has sent out a message that if he could not now become the NDA's PM, then he would need to stay on as CM at the very least, which a third term for Modi would not let him have, N Sathiya Moorthy points out.
Top leaders of the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) held talks in an informal setting in Mumbai on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The 21st Law Commission said the special status given to the entity of HUF was a 'so-called gift by the British', who could not comprehend the complex socioeconomic structure of Indian families. 'Now, this status is being used for the evasion of tax only,' it said.
Kishor said it was "laughable" for Kumar to issue "certificates" given that he was with the BJP till a month ago.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday declined to speak on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lok Sabha, saying he avoided doing so in matters involving court order.
State BJP chief Temjen Imna Along, widely popular on social media across the country for his sense of humour, and Salhoutuonuo Kruse, one of the two women elected to Nagaland assembly for the first time, were among those who were sworn-in as members of the council of ministers.
This is the first meeting between Gandhi and Kumar since the latter walked out of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar and formed a 'Mahagathbandhan' government with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and outside support of the Left.
"This also shows that the ruling dispensation's exasperation (baukhlahat) and desperation (hataasha). But the people of the country are smart enough and they (the BJP) will be held to account (hisab kar diya jaaega) at the appropriate time", said the close aide of the Bihar CM, who had quit the NDA last year and has since become a strong votary of opposition unity.
The opposition on Tuesday termed as an 'election jumla' the women's reservation bill brought by the government with many leaders raising questions over the proposed legislation, contending it doesn't account for reservation for OBC communities and that it will be effective at the earliest by the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
The mortal remains of the former Union minister were consigned to flames by his son Shantanu Bundela and daughter Subhasini in his ancestral village Ankhmau at around 5 pm.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
Party sources are tight-lipped about the fate of Tyagi, who is a trusted aide of Kumar, the party's supreme leader, but has reportedly often left the latter embarrassed by going public on issues without waiting for a nod from the boss.
Kishor had claimed that Nitish Kumar asked him to lead the JD-U.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejigged his team only once, in July 2021, in his second term, unlike in his first stint, when he reshuffled and expanded his council three times.
Talking about the brutal killing of Krishnaiah in 1994, G Uma Krishnaiah said her husband was killed for no fault of his.
There was no immediate response from the Aam Aadmi Party over the matter.
Announcing that a district-wide bandh was being organised in protest against the killing, Chaudhary said that if no headway is made in the investigation within 48 hours, there will be a state-wide stir.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
"Objectively, it is only the Congress that has a footprint, shall we say, in eight to 12 states. So to have healthy democracy in which one party does not steamroll the Opposition, the kind that India experienced from the late 1970s till 2014, to revive that, to restore it, which I believe would be very good for all of us, it would depend a lot on the Congress becoming more competitive," he claimed.
Kushwaha was referring to 'Luv Kush' rally in Patna, a veritable gathering of Kurmis and Koeris upset with supposed hegemony of numerically powerful Yadavs which Prasad, then helming Bihar, was seen as embodying.
The BJP that was written off by the exit polls put up a spirited fight winning 104 wards.
Kumar's comment comes days after a section of JD-U leaders in Uttar Pradesh announced that they would join the Congress' 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' in the state.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor on Wednesday asserted that if the newly formed 'Mahagathbandhan' government in Bihar provides five to 10 lakh jobs in the next one or two years, he would withdraw his 'Jan Suraj Abhiyan' and extend support to the Nitish Kumar dispensation.
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