Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has been at loggerheads with the chief minister, attacking him on issues like the alleged delay in the completion of a probe into the 2015 desecration of Sikh texts and the subsequent police firing on protesters.
The additional director general of police (security), however, said in an order on Friday that the security personnel were 'being withdrawn on a purely temporary basis in connection with an emergent law and order duty'.
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.
Despite attaining absolute majority in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party lost its vote share in comparison to Congress which failed to live up to its expectations in the poll results of the 117 member assembly.
Sunita Kejriwal and daughter Harshita Kejriwal will seek votes for chief ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann in the Dhuri assembly seat.
He said, Kejriwal was dreaming of becoming the CM of every state he visits.
Speaking to the media persons in Delhi on Sunday, the Rajya Sabha member said: "I have declined the offer to be the next Punjab CM. I believe Punjab CM face should be a Sikh."
Any decision taken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will be acceptable to all, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Saturday as talk of Navjot Singh Sidhu being appointed chief of the party's state unit despite his oft-stated reservations gathered force.
Nothing exemplifies this Sikh khundak (revenge) better than the fact that all the tallest names in the state lost their election to novices fielded by AAP.
Devendra Fadnavis will lead the new Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar serving as deputy chief ministers. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday evening at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers. The Mahayuti coalition won the recent assembly elections by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
Sidhu made the sharp retort amid speculation that the former cricketer is himself eyeing the top post if the Congress wins next month's assembly polls.
The BJP would need to contest more seats than it did in 2014 and 2019.
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh said Sidhu is welcome to the Congress if he wants.
The Opposition targeted Mann on Monday, alleging that he was deplaned from a Delhi-bound aircraft at the Frankfurt airport as he was drunk, a charge dismissed by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party as baseless.
The 48-year-old Mann was elected the AAP Legislature Party leader at a meeting of the party MLAs in Mohali on Friday.
The assembly polls are seen as a test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity, especially in the wake of demonetisation.
A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge.
The Punjab BJP dubbed the allegations as "baseless" and "bundle of lies" and said AAP is trying to divert attention of people from its "failures".
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
Every time we look at the Congress, its future, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, we find the situation more hopeless than even a few months earlier, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Glimpses from the campaign trail on Thursday, February 17, 2022.
As a consequence of prominence given to the brutality during those few days, a very important aspect of that episode got almost glossed over. This was the intervention by a very significant section of people who restored faith in humanity, and conveyed the message that only a small section of Indians, that too politically backed, were consumed by anti-Sikh majoritarianism. The overlooked facet of the events of 1984 was the story of significant sections of the city's populace, public figures and nondescript ones, stepping out hand-in-hand, to first stand with little but bravery in hands, in the way of attackers, and thereafter to provide immediate relief to those who lives were uprooted and who lost family members in the violence, recalls Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Opposition on Tuesday termed the Union Budget as a 'kursi bachao budget' driven by political compulsions and claimed that it ignored opposition-ruled states in a bid to 'appease' Bharatiya Janata Party's allies.
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal (94) became the country's oldest candidate to fight elections as he filed his nomination papers from Lambi on Monday.
The Sikhs, especially in Punjab, are already angry and frustrated, cautions Shekhar Gupta.
The counsel for Punjab told a bench headed by Justice SK Kaul that the state government is very keen to resolve the issue amicably.
As state-level leaders tried to placate Sidhu, he made it clear through the video that he was in no mood to budge on his 'principles'.
Sources said all the ministers expressed anguish over the "major security breach" during Modi's visit to the Congress-ruled state on Wednesday, with some demanding strong action.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party head Ajit Pawar on Monday said discussions were underway among the Mahayuti partners to finalise a formula for the new government formation in the state.
Polling was held for over hundred civic bodies in Punjab on Sunday amid stray incidents of skirmishes at some places.
As the Queen star found herself in the middle of a row, with the BJP distancing itself and the Congress attacking it, here's a look at some of the controversies, political and otherwise.
The row over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur's remarks in Lok Sabha escalated on Wednesday with the Congress submitting a notice to move a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for posting on 'X' a video that allegedly also contained expunged portions of Thakur's speech.
Chouhan and Raje were overlooked by the BJP for the chief minister posts in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively despite ensuring the party's return to power in the assembly polls held recently.
The BJP believes that the only party still capable of leading a credible challenge against it is the Congress. Please note how BJP campaigners in states where the Congress may count for a cipher or thereabouts, mostly attack the Congress, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Sidhu Moosewala -- who seems to have a huge following, given the fact that a memorial billboard was put up outside a garden in Mumbai's Lokhandwala Complex area on Monday -- had asked his bodyguards to stay home and decided to drive the jeep himself.
Counting for assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur was held on Thursday. Here's how the big names fared.
The Congress on Thursday suffered its worst-ever defeat in Gujarat but appeared headed for a close win in Himachal Pradesh, a mixed bag result for the party that not only faces a rampaging Bharatiya Janata Party but an ambitious Aam Aadmi Party vying for the leadership of the Opposition going forward on the road to the 2024 general elections.
At its Jaipur meeting, the BJP will focus on this year's assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh while the Congress's Chintan Shivir in Udaipur will discuss how it can resurrect itself.
