The Congress needs to reorganise itself at the grassroots, infuse younger blood, and have more boots on the ground. Just offering freebies is not the answer anymore. Leadership matters, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Senior leader P Chidambaram whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending from Maharashtra is under consideration from Tamil Nadu as the Congress is all set to get the support of alliance partner the DMK. The G-23 leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Vivek Tankha, are also said to be in contention.
They had been told that this was part of their training for positions of travel ticket examiner (TTE), traffic assistants and clerks, and each of them paid amounts ranging between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 24 lakh to get the jobs in the Railways, according to a complaint filed with the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW).
Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday claimed that a few retired judges and some activists who are 'part of the anti-India gang' are trying to make the Indian judiciary play the role of the opposition party.
As Rajya Sabha bade farewell to 53 retiring members, the House saw voices against the alleged "encroachment" by judiciary on the rights of legislature
The voluminous report has proposed redrawing of the Anantnag Parliamentary seat by including Rajouri and Poonch from the Jammu region, besides carrying out massive changes in the Kashmir division, they said.
The National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu swept the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality in Rairangpur, in this nondescript, tribal-dominated town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, ahead of her journey to Delhi.
While Sunak has maintained a dignified silence over the recent crisis, his supporters have not lost any opportunity to point out how the former finance minister had got the economic forecasts right.
Sonia hit out at the BJP, saying the ruling party's "divisive agenda" has become a regular feature of political discourse in all states and that history is being "mischievously distorted" to add fuel to its agenda.
The main Opposition party is likely to lose some more of its strength in 2016-17
The prime minister, who spoke in the Upper House as it bid farewell to 53 retiring MPs, noted that Rajya Sabha members are representatives of the states and the interest of their state should be a priority for them.
The Congress, however, downplayed it saying the party did not want to involve its senior leaders in the issue.
'It indicates the grooming of the party's new leadership.' 'It is also a signal to the states that these ministers represent.'
Even though MLAs are required to show their ballot to respective party whips before casting their vote, all parties have ensured their MLAs are housed in five star hotels closer to the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha where voting will take place on June 10.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that it was the Centre which ensured the disruption by provoking All India Anna Dravida MUnnetra Kazhagam over the Cauvery issue.
A defeat in UP will, therefore, dent the Modi government's efforts to win more seats in the Rajya Sabha.
What Rajya Sabha can do for the states, no other House can do, the Prime Minister said.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said that there were enough safeguards to ensure fair inquiry by the judicial panel into the encounter which took place in Kanpur.
The BJP's defeat in Bihar dents its hopes of improving its RS tally but the grand alliance victory could also present the first signs of tension when five JD-U members retire next year.
'To lead the Congress party, you need experience.' 'You should have held some positions which give you the experience of running the party at any level.' 'Tharoor doesn't have any such experience.'
P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal were among the 41 winners declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
Two Rajya Sabha MPs from Gujarat -- BJP president Amit Shah, now Home Minister, and Smriti Irani, who has got the women and child development ministry -- have won the Lok Sabha polls, thus creating two vacancies in the Upper House of Parliament from the state.
The session, which was earlier scheduled to conclude on April 3, is now likely to be adjourned sine die on March 23, sources said.
For the first time, Akhilesh is leading the SP almost single-handed into a major election, but he is not the only one running the show Shikha Shalini reports.
'He is not a person to challenge the government.' 'He is a man who is known to go with the flow' Aditi Phadnis reports.
A round-up of what our lawmakers have been discussing in Parliament on Tuesday
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had last week announced the scheme, and said many priests were reeling under financial crisis and her government was doling out sops to support them. "The Cabinet has given its nod to the 'Rajya Purohit Kalyan Prokolpo' which the chief minister had announced a few days ago," state home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said at the secretariat.
64 Rajya Sabha MPs have signed the notice for impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice of India Deepak Misra under "five grounds of misbehaviour".
There is no one in Telangana to match KCR's stature and he believes he has outgrown the state, observes Aditi Phadnis.
The Uttar Pradesh authorities on Tuesday agreed to the demand for a second post-mortem of a farmer killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident after his family refused to cremate him, while mortal remains of the three others were consigned to flames at their native places during the day.
NCP president Sharad Pawar on Friday said there should be a presentation by the government on what is happening on the India-China border, particularly in Ladakh, where the armies of the two countries are involved in a face-off. Pawar, who is in the national capital to attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, said there are other defence-related issues on the table for discussion, but he will make a request that a presentation is made on it.
'The decline of the Congress party and its inability to play the lead role in Opposition politics has created a space for the TMC to expand.'
However, a majority in the Council of States will continue to elude the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazagham on Monday named two party nominees for the Rajya Sabha election and announced that the third seat was being allotted to ally Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
The combativeness reflects her insistence not to meekly acquiesce to what has been going on in Raisina Hill for years or decades, observes Kartikeya Tanna.
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
Among the 36 new faces in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers, eight are lawyers, four are doctors, two former IAS officers and four MBA degree holders, besides several engineers, making it an eclectic mix of professionals.
The recent Supreme Court judgment on reservation on Mondau came in for criticism in the Lok Sabha, with members claiming that it would hit80 per cent population of the country comprising Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Backward Classes.
It is significant that the matter has not been listed before the judges who are number two to five in the seniority.
'Even the ruling party -- if it really respects the independence of the judiciary and democracy -- should support this impeachment motion.'
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