Mani Shankar Aiyar says the Congress party and not then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for unlocking the Babri Masjid gates and claimed that the "Bharatiya Janata Party-planted" Arun Nehru was behind it.
'Are we so ready to believe that in this country whose virtues we constantly shout from the rooftops, there is no single person -- other than Modi -- in a minimum of 272 elected MPs with the talent and ability to lead this country?' asks Prem Panicker.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined a plea by sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking the recusal of Justice M R Shah from hearing his petition to submit additional evidence to support his appeal in the Gujarat High Court against his conviction in a 1990 custodial death case.
The CBI court had on September 30, 2020 acquitted the accused including former deputy prime minister L K Advani in the case after which two Ayodhya residents -- Haji Mahboob and Syed Akhlaq -- moved a revision petition before the Allahabad high court.
The coming assembly and Lok Sabha elections -- the choice of candidates, the campaign strategies and the negotiations with other Opposition parties --0 represent the real test for Mallikarjun Kharge.
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
Ajit Pawar asked in his speech at his faction's meeting when would Sharad Pawar, who is 82 years old, "going to stop".
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
The Babri mosque in Ayodhya was demolished by karsevaks on December 6, 1992.
Salem had said his sentence could not exceed 25 years as per a solemn assurance given by India to Portugal for his extradition in 2002.
"We have prepared a broad platform where we have assessed the top 50 judges of the country who would be considered for appointment to the Supreme Court of India. We have data on judgments and the quality of judgments. The idea is to make the process of appointment in the Supreme Court more transparent," the CJI said.
Will BJP campaigners start using the term 'Ram Rajya' to refer to the nation under Modi's rule, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Chef par excellence Satish Arora recalls his days working as a chef to prime ministers to Chandrima Pal.
'We are very close to become a theocratic State where Hinduism is the official religion of the government.'
The Allahabad high court will hear Wednesday a plea against the acquittal of all 32 accused, including Bharatiya Janata Party veterans L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, in the Babri mosque demolition case.
Modi was severe in his criticism of the opposition amid the continuing logjam in Parliament and also sounded confident of the ruling dispensation retaining power at the Centre for a third term after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
According to trust sources, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat , Maharashtra Chief Minister Udhav Thackeray and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar are also on the list of invitees.
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
Terming the agitation for Ram temple the biggest since India's freedom movement, he said it was aimed at the outcome which the verdict has made possible.
At this poignant historic moment one can only wish that institutions are not built by bricks and mortars, but also by the rich Parliamentary traditions which have stood the test of time which needs to be strengthened by all stakeholders, notes Rup Narayan Das, a former joint secretary of the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
As a judge of special Central Bureau of Investigation court, Yadav had on September 30, 2020 acquitted all the 32 accused, including BJP veterans LK Advani, M M Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh, in the case of demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
Politicians bid farewell to Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu as India's vice-president at the G M C Balayogi auditorium in the Parliament house complex on Monday, August 8, 2022, evening.
Sources said that Shah was accompanied by a battery of government lawyers as he met Advani at the 92-year-old leader's residence in connection with the case.
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Arvind Kejriwal warned the media that "very big forces" would try and break the INDIA alliance by showing that there was a lot of acrimony among them.
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.
Even though the RSS buckled under pressure and let go Nitin Gadkari, it did not yield ground to L K Advani completely. The Sangh preferred to go with Rajnath Singh as the BJP president, rejecting Advani's first choice, Sushma Swaraj. More feuds are expected in the saffron joint family in the days to come. Poornima Joshi examines
As it virtually shut the door on Narendra Modi, Janata Dal-United on Sunday indicated it would prefer Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani as National Democratic Alliance's prime ministerial candidate over the Gujarat chief minister.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi unit chief Vijay Goel on Saturday created a flutter with his remark that the next government at the Centre will be formed under L K Advani's leadership, a statement that comes amid growing clamour in the party to project Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate.
A day after senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani withdrew his resignation following the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief's call to him, the Sangh on Wednesday said that it is not interfering or managing the affairs of the right-wing party.
Congress on Tuesday took a dig at Janata Dal-United over its "difficulty" in continuing ties with National Democratic Aliance sans BJP veteran L K Advani, saying Nitish Kumar wants a treatment for the symptom of communalism but does not want to address its root cause.
He underlined the need for patience in political life and said those seeking a change of guard should go back to the people to achieve it.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Wednesday said its volunteers will "actively participate" in Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani's proposed yatra against corruption. "The Sangh has already asked its swayamsevaks (volunteers) to actively support all initiatives and actions against corruption. They had earlier extended support to Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare in their campaigns against corruption," RSS leader Ram Madhav told reporters.
74-year-old Singh, whose candidature was declared by NDA on July 16, filed his papers before Returning Officer T K Viswanathan, who is the Lok Sabha Secretary General.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
What should be made out of the Madras high court order involving non-Hindus' entry into Hindu temples, when many non-Hindus are among the hundreds of thousands that have been worshipping at these temples for generations, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
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