Personal competence, where it should have been acknowledged and appreciated, was sacrificed for that oft heard line: Party-is-supreme. It angered that at a time when lives are at stake amidst the pandemic, the government didn't deem continuity in leadership important for the health portfolio, observes Shyam G Menon.
The former Congress president also tagged a post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs.
Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, has been fielded from the Amethi Lok Sabha seat, the party said in a statement.
The Congress chief, however, said he was not expecting any cooperation from the prime minister and the BJP-led central government for the development of Wayanad and Kerala.
On poll eve, both the BJP and the Congress claimed they were headed towards a majority and would form the government.
'There is one way to defeat the intention behind this directive: To patronise Muslim establishments that have been forced to identify themselves.' 'This is one opportunity for the Congress to show that the 'mohabbat ki dukaan' its leader talks about does exist.' 'Can Akhilesh Yadav, who has asked the court to take note of this directive, order his party members to do this?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
Where do Vijay and his TVK expect to get their votes from? Vijay has a huge fan following among women, but will they automatically become his voters like they had done for MGR's AIADMK, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will move the motion today in the Lok Sabha to choose Om Birla as the Speaker of the lower house amid a tussle for the post with the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
The "venom" that the Congress leader has been spewing against the prime minister in his "political frustration" has now turned into an insult to the country, Irani alleged.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Opposing the contention, the state government had argued that the Railways Act was only applicable to Special Railway Projects and SilverLine did not fall in that category.
She said it was a strange thing for her to know that for the time being he has been disqualified from even fighting another election for eight years.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Despite consumer inflation, joblessness, etc, ordinary voters still think Modi is the best to rule the country.< Going into the poll with a tried and tested prime ministerial candidate is a huge plus for the BJP --- and a huge handicap for the Opposition, points out Virendra Kapoor.
The opposition party also said that it would like to remind the BJP that Hindu Mahasabha president Syama Prasad Mookerjee aligned with Jinnah's Muslim League to form the government in Bengal during the British rule.
'What the UP administration wanted was political mileage, and they also had the silent approval from the central government.'
He also pointed out the high sums earned by the coaching centres leading to the commercialisation of education.
'As a child, I didn't even know that he was an IPS officer... It was much later when I came back to India'
'Rahul is a seasoned player of politics and chess. He makes his moves after careful consideration.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli?'
While Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has made his national ambitions amply clear, even rechristening his party to aid the process, his Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin insists he is already in the national scene and used his birthday rally on March 1 to not only strongly pitch for the Congress as a force to reckon with in the efforts to dislodge the Narendra Modi-led dispensation at the Centre, but also sought to shoot down the prospects of a Third Front.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Ruling Congress-led UDF in Kerala on Saturday suffered a setback in the civic elections, billed as the semifinal ahead of next year's assembly polls, as CPI-M-led LDF won a majority of local bodies while the BJP made inroads improving its performance.
According to the officials, the three-storey coaching institute, surrounded by residential and commercial establishments, had permission to use the basement as a store room, but it was being used as library in violation of the rules.
Separately, the poll panel also issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, asking him to respond to the complaints filed by the BJP against him and the main opposition party's senior leader Rahul Gandhi regarding their remarks.
In view of the recent back-to-back murders of two political activists in the state, Kerala DGP Anil Kant on Friday directed district police chiefs to take stringent action against those spreading fake news and false message through social media and book the administrators of such platforms who allow discussion on them.
Police are probing various angles, including the assailants coming from neighbouring Kerala.
Making a scathing attack against the Left government, he said the practice of giving pension benefits to the personal staff of ministers just after completing two years a few months ago was a 'gross violation and abuse of authority.'
His fresh attack came a day after he said the government is coming up with 'excuses' to stop the Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir yatra, which is currently in Haryana and will enter the national capital on Saturday.
With the controversy over 'love and narcotic jihad' remark by Pala Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt refusing to die down, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday engaged in a fresh round of verbal sparring.
BJP MLA Purnesh Modi, complainant in the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi, has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court seeking that he be heard if the Congress leader moves a plea challenging the high court verdict refusing to stay his conviction in the Modi surname remark case.
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kerala Governor Arif Muhammad Khan slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and minister of higher education R Bindu over the issue of appointment in universities and said he is not able to work in an environment where too much political interference.
Vijayan met Ghosh at Kerala House in New Delhi, expressed solidarity with their protest and also gifted her a book, 'Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi' by Sudhanva Deshpande. Ghosh had suffered head injuries during the January 5 attack on JNU students in the campus by a group of masked assailants.
A little over a year after it retained power in Kerala with a massive victory, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front suffered a huge setback on Friday in a bypoll held to Thrikkakara assembly constituency, with Congress candidate Uma Thomas winning with a historic margin of 25,016 votes, giving a boost to the morale of the party-led United Democratic Front in the southern state.
Both the BJP leaders asserted that Gandhi's disqualification was a natural outcome of the law as the Supreme Court has made it clear that a lawmaker stands disqualified from the time of his conviction.
While the markets have factored in a number close to 350 for the BJP and almost 400 for the NDA, 50 seats fewer could trigger a market correction
The JD-U Rajya Sabha MP said Nitish Kumar has built his image such that makes him the best fit for being the convenor of the opposition grouping.
