He made the remarks on the floor of the state assembly while thanking the House members for unanimously approving a constitutional amendment for extending quotas to SCs and STs by another 10 years.
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
'That would be very bad for them and suicidal for both the Gandhis and the Congress party.'
The JD-U leader has been critical of his party's decision to support the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament, and it has now become a law following its passage in both Houses.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said it will 'depend on the situation' who becomes the face of the Opposition to take on the BJP, but added she has no problem if someone other than her leads.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) member also reminded regional parties opposed to the BJP of the defeat in the 2019 general elections when Narendra Modi powered the National Democratic Alliance to a second straight term in office due to a fragmented opposition, warning the 'BJP is coming after them' in their respective states.
33-year-old Abhishek Banerjee has emerged as the most visible and significant leader in the party after his pishi (aunt), Mamata Banerjee reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
'The JD-U has become an ideology-less accessory to the BJP,' says Ambassador Pavan Varma, who has been expelled from the JD-U.
'For the first time one single party is getting 49% which is a record of its own.'
It is in no way a government of the economic Right. The Right is limited to religion and nationalism. The rest is as Left as the Congress or any other party, observes Shekhar Gupta.
In case the EC doesn't hold elections within six months, the duration in which Banerjee has to become an MLA, the Trinamool Congress is ready with Plan B.
She is the 21st chief minister of West Bengal and 8th person to hold the office.
The Grand Old Party must bring widespread reforms across all levels of the organisation to show it is no longer in a state of inertia and to present itself as a viable political alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress veteran Kapil Sibal said.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday trained her guns on the Congress, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will become more powerful as the grand old party is not serious about politics, and alleged that the country is suffering because that party does not take decisions.
It is wrong to say the Congress doesn't matter. Certainly one set of people who do not believe that for a minute is the BJP. That's why even in his speech in Parliament on Constitution Day, Mr Modi called dynastic politics a threat to democracy, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Adhikari joined the BJP amid Shah's two-day visit to West Bengal ahead of the assembly elections in 2021.
Without doubt, the BJP is miles ahead in marshalling digital tools for electioneering better than any other party, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
The fear that Mamata might snatch the mantle of Opposition leadership which the Gandhis firmly believe to be theirs by birthright seems to have persuaded Sonia and Rahul to give up their hoity-toity ways, observes Virendra Kapoor.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
The two-member commission will be headed by former Calcutta high court Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya. Former Supreme Court judge Madan Bhimrao Lokur is its other member.
Sidhu asserted that he will continue to appear on The Kapil Sharma Show.
From Twitter to Facebook to Spotify, everyone it seems is clambering aboard the social audio bandwagon. Neha Alawadhi reports.
Pawar and his Manch can deliberate to their hearts' content, but so long as the Congress does not play ball the BJP has little to worry, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
From Narendra Modi's victory in 2014 to the Nitish-Lalu triumph in 2015 and delivering Assam to the BJP in 2016, young and very professional strategists have startled politicians and the media.
'Welcoming her with glee reflects the BJP's desperation and bankruptcy in UP.'
Some of the reaction to India's bombing on Pak terror camps.
'The BJP has become a reasonably larger force in Tamil Nadu in the last two years.'
By getting the Tamil Nadu assembly to act on his very imaginative public declaration to keep petro-chemical industries out of the Cauvery delta, which has traditionally been a DMK stronghold, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has not only set the ball rolling for the assembly elections due a year later but also sent out a strong message to the BJP government at the Centre, which took a unilateral decision to exempt petro-complexes from environmental clearance, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
But his opponents are making a mistake. They shouldn't be smug, argues Vir Sanghvi.
Congress's UP chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit and Ghulam Babi Azad will also be present in the roadshow.
Speculations were on Thursday rife about the Congress planning to make three-time Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit the party's chief ministerial nominee for next year's assembly election in politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, once its stronghold.
"They should go wherever they want," Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar said on Thursday when asked of Prashant Kishor and Pavan Verma's repeated questions about the party's stand's on the newly enacted Citizenship Act.
Party leaders are being forced to bite the tongue while answering queries on cut money and alleged arrogance of local TMC leaders.
Adhikari, the face of the Nandigram movement that catapulated Mamata Bannerjee to power in 2011, sent his resignation letter to the chief minister by fax, which he then forwarded to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar by e-mail.
'Despite many advising me otherwise saying "nothing will come of it", I refused to be cynical and dialled the number that had been staring at me from billboards aross the state,' reports Keya Sarkar.
For the first time in seven years the prime minister finds himself at his most vulnerable, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The brewing discontentment in the party may adversely impact the TMC's prospects in the next assembly polls due in April-May next year.
'Whether the Hindu voter will vote for us or not, we can't say, can we?'
'If Nitish Kumar is given more seats, then no one can stop the NDA from losing, even the BJP will be wiped out.'
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