Mohan Bhagwat flagged a number of issues like illegal immigrants, cow vigilantism, situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the economic scenario in his Vijayadashmi address.
I watched from my balcony and found that during the next eight hours up to 5.30 pm, not one prospective voter was seen to go to the Congress table, notes Rashme Sehgal. The rush was all around the BJP table.
Thursday was the day results from the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections and by-elections in Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh were out, so what were some of our leaders up to?
"The opposition parties should draw proper lessons from these results and draw up plans to put up an effective united opposition to the BJP state-wise by marshalling all the forces," the CPI-M said in a statement.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat and discussed "important" issues, but said there was no talk on politics in Maharashtra where the Bharatiya Janata Party is in the process of government formation.
Stepping up its attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday slammed Prime Minister Narendra for keeping silent in the controversy involving Lalit Modi and other scandals and threatened to launch a nationwide agitation if the tainted ministers and leaders are not sacked.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created such an atmosphere in Kashmir that any Indian can hoist the national flag with pride at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, the Bharatiya Janata Party said on Sunday and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to thank him for the change in the Valley.
They said according to the Hague Convention, the service upon a foreign entity had to be served through the prescribed rules.
Agitated over the alleged assault on student protesters by police, students from various universities across Delhi on Tuesday staged a protest outside police headquarters in New Delhi blocking the traffic at ITO intersection.
If the CM can steer the BJP into forming a government for a third term, he will have achieved a unique place in the party's history -- Mewat notwithstanding.
The BJP at 43 is a work in progress, with total ideological continuity and much substantive change in political method and style, observes Shekhar Gupta.
In his first trip to the US in 1960, Atal Bihari Vajpayee befriended a young IFS officer posted in the permanent mission of India to the UN and explored New York with him, visiting museums, art galleries and even nightclubs, says a new biography of the former prime minister.
In its manifesto, the Congress also promised five lakh government jobs and 200 units of free electricity per month for all, besides hiking the minimum wages of tea garden workers to Rs 365.
Opposition members in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday expressed serious concern over reports that some Sangh Parivar leaders had allegedly sought to take "revenge" on the minority community for the killing of a VHP leader.
'The only narrative before India is what Modi and the BJP is presenting.' 'Nationalism has been taken as a serious plank by the BJP and RSS.' 'They want to keep the nationalism thing alive to make people forget the economic reality.'
BJP's central leadership is expected to take a call next week, reports Sanjay Jog
The Congress and a host of its leaders on Wednesday changed their social media display pictures to an image of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru holding the national flag.
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.
The US state department in its annual report to the Congress on international religious freedom has alleged that in India in 2021, attacks on members of the minority communities, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, occurred throughout the year.
Voting began on Monday in the Congress presidential polls as senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor face-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
Congress on Sunday took a dig at the PDP-BJP alliance, saying that Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed should be "careful" about the conversion agenda being pursued by the saffron party.
In his annual Vijayadashmi address, the RSS chief also spoke about "urban maoism", the Sabarimala row and the need to strengthen the country's borders.
Several workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) barged into the Congress's Pune city headquarters on Friday and attempted to blacken the photographs of party leader Rahul Gandhi to protest against his remarks on late Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, police said.
'He told senior journalists a few days after the Babri Masjid demolition, 'Jo hua theek hua. Maine isliye hone diya ki BJP ki rajniti hamesha ke liye khatam ho jaye.'
In a setback to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena combine in Maharashtra, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi-backed candidates clinched two of the five legislative council seats which were up for grabs in biennial elections from teachers and graduates segments, and appeared poised to bag a third seat also.
The Congress will launch a two-month door-to-door campaign across India from next week to spread Rahul Gandhi's message among the masses, senior leader Jairam Ramesh said on Friday.
Many in the Bharatiya Janata Party feel that internal democracy in the party is being stifled
All the issues around which the grand old party wanted to fight the May 10 assembly elections have been put on the backburner as party state president DK Shivakumar in damage control mode took up a temple run.
'The incidents that used to happen in our time, have they stopped now?' 'Can you imagine they made an acid attack victim consume acid? And when did this happen?' 'When the CM was inspecting the thana...' 'History tells us that a party does not remain in power permanently.' 'Finally, they will have to deliver.'
Cracks are widening within Bihar BJP with more party legislators coming in the open and alleging lack of inner democracy with one MLA openly vouching for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying he would serve as a better prime minister.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that India is witnessing the 'death of democracy' and anybody who stands against the onset of dictatorship is 'viciously attacked'.
Modi's gestures have fuelled speculations that the BJP wants to bring Yediyurappa into the centre-stage of its campaign plank leveraging his mass appeal for the Assembly elections, due by May.
If Kerala wants to sustain its room for independent thinking and talk back to Delhi when needed, it should put its finances in order. Or - if one takes the North East example - Kerala's political posturing may end up commensurate with its financial dependence on others, suggests Shyam G Menon.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Anti-Congress regional parties may have felt the possible impact of Rahul's South-North yatra, pending a second East-West padayatra, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The BJP's constitution promises allegiance to India's secularism and socialism.' 'This is the oath that it makes all its members sign,' observes Aakar Patel.
'He depended too much on assurances given by sadhus and sants. He may not be culpable, but he was wholly responsible for December 6, 1992.' 'While Manmohan Singh came to reforms out of conviction, Rao came to reforms out of compulsion. If the compulsion had not been there, I don't know how he would have responded.'
According to sources, Jaitley, who feels let down by being kept out of action in four states going to the polls during the next one and half years was in the Sangh headquarters.
'When I started this, I just took it as an ordinary yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Slowly we understood that this yatra has a voice and feelings'
