'The core group from Pune, which bought arms, trained people, carried out intelligence gathering and participated in all the stages of the battle, consisted of RSS volunteers.' 'The Pune group raised resources with the help of three stalwarts from the film industry.' 'The stalwarts were Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammad Rafi and C Ramchandra.'
Besides the not-so-hidden unease between Modi and Adityanath, Modi chose to address the Lok Sabha to ensure that he could personally claim all the kudos, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'The RSS ideology has been borrowed from fascism and is not borne out of Hinduism.' 'They want India to have one historical identity whereas India is a land full of divergence which goes in every direction.'
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray launched a scathing attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), questioning the outcome of the recent Maharashtra assembly elections and alleging hypocrisy in the BJP's stance on corruption. He also hinted at internal changes within the MNS, emphasizing the need for discipline and a renewed focus on the party's goals.
Members of the Popular Front of India and its political offshoot Social Democratic Party of India as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were among those involved in the two recent back-to-back murders in Palakkad district, the Kerala police said on Monday.
To me he always symbolised the sincere, confident, face of a Bharat whose rise is unstoppable. Ratan Tata was a Rishi who was unquestioningly trusted by people who never saw him and never met him, asserts Tarun Vijay, the former BJP MP.
Seeking a consensus on Narendra Modi's projection as the prime ministerial candidate, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has held confabulations with top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including L K Advani, who is said to have reservations on the issue.
Some of our leaders were busybusy over the weekend.
The Emergency greatly influenced the RSS' makeover from a fringe force in the Indian political imagination to one that could have its own man sworn in as prime minister in two decades' time. A riveting excerpt from Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977.
Opposition parties in India have criticized the imposition of President's rule in strife-torn Manipur, accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of failing to address the ethnic violence and using the measure to cover up internal conflicts within the party. They demanded a clear roadmap for restoring peace and questioned the government's lack of transparency and inaction on the issue. The violence, which erupted in May 2023, has left over 250 people dead.
'The BJP has killed public anger. They have killed people's self-respect.'
"Since RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and other leaders are not scheduled to visit Delhi in the immediate future, I decided to meet them in Nagpur," Advani told media persons on arriving at the Nagpur airport.
'The message is loud and clear: "If you're not falling in line, we will open a line of understanding with the MNS, and then the Shiv Sena will be in trouble".'
"I remember one incident -- I would not name anyone -- that person said 'if you are going to become prime minister, we will support you'," Gadkari said.
The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday returned to power in Delhi after more than 26 years to sweep away the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party with a two-thirds majority on the back of a hyper localised campaign and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'AAP-da'(disaster) blitzkrieg.
United States President Donald Trump for the fourth time in recent days claimed that the Biden administration allocated $21 million funding to India for 'voter turnout', evoking a sharp response from the Congress which urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to 'talk to his friend' and strongly refute the allegation.
Addressing a meet after meeting Rajesh's kin, Jaitley condemned the dastardly attack and said that even an 'enemy of a country doesn't do this'.
In an attempt to resolve various issues between Hindus and Muslims, former RSS chief KS Sudarshan on Sunday met Shia cleric Hamidul Hasan.
Kharge also hit back at the BJP for criticising his party colleague Rahul Gandhi over a copy of the Constitution with a red cover. He showed a picture of PM Modi gifting a similar copy to former president Ramnath Kovind.
Kerala Chief Minister and veteran Marxist leader Pinarayi Vijayan intensified his attack on the Congress, alleging that its general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, is contesting the Wayanad Lok Sabha by-election with the backing of Jamaat-e-Islami.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh top brass, including its chief Mohan Bhagwat, but brushed aside suggestions that the issue of projecting him as prime ministerial candidate for 2014 general elections was discussed.
The Centre should open all its diplomatic channels with Bangladesh to communicate the global Hindu concern and ask the government there to stop attacks on Hindus and Buddhists, the outfit urged.
The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance, which secured a landslide victory in the recent Maharashtra assembly elections, is set to form the new government in the state. Outgoing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, his deputies Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar met Union Home Minister Amit Shah to finalize a power-sharing agreement. The alliance partners, BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, will decide on ministerial berths at the meeting with Shah. Political circles are abuzz about the social equations in Maharashtra influencing the choice of the next Chief Minister.
The assembly also saw the passage of four bills amidst the din, and Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri taking strong exception to Congress members "unnecessarily" bringing in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's name during their protest in the well of the House.
'Whether somebody else can take up (Narendra Modi's position) the answer to it is yes but for that (to happen) some kind of crisis must come and in that crisis Modi must lose the (trust) vote.' 'Only then another candidate from the BJP can come and most likely it could be Nitin Gadkari because he enjoys the confidence (of the RSS as well as that of BJP MPs).'
He alleged Union Home Minister Amit Shah had directed BJP leaders in a "closed-door" meeting to "stop" him (Uddhav) and Sharad Pawar politically.
'In his first speech in Parliament, Modi spoke about the slavery of 1,400 years, and though he didn't say in so many words, the meaning was that he had come to re-establish a Hindu Rashtra.'
Senior BJP leaders L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj, who are said to be opposed to the declaration of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate in the next elections, held a dinner meeting with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday to discuss the issue.
Since the nation is now paying the price of such behaviour in terms of the long queues at the crematoriums and graveyards, the anxiety of the RSS is natural, especially if the BJP's main support base of the middle class turns away from it, observes Amulya Ganguli.
"My ideology does not match his ideology. I can never go to an RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) office. You can slit my throat, but I will not go. My family has an ideology, it has a thought system," Gandhi said at a press conference on the sidelines of his Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra.
A court in Maharashtra's Nashik district has summoned Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case filed against him for his alleged objectionable remarks against Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
A state government that came to power after swearing to protect all people without discrimination refused to help a non-Christian organisation till the high court rapped it on its knuckles, observes former BJP MP Tarun Vijay, former Chief Editor, Panchjanya, the RSS weekly.
Ahead of the Maha Kumbh, a senior cleric has written to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressing fears that mass conversions of Muslims will take place during the event, while other community leaders have flagged the alleged demand raised by some Hindu seers' body to keep Muslims out of the mega gathering.
On other days Digvijaya Singh is among staunchest critics of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, but on Thursday he revealed how Shah as well as RSS workers had helped him during his `Narmada Parikrama' four years ago.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were among the top leaders who paid homage to former prime minister Manmohan Singh at his home in New Delhi on Friday.
Senior leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from Madhya Pradesh met officials in Indore following the arrest of a few people, allegedly linked with the Sangh, in Malwa region. Leading the delegation, BJP Member of Parliament Sumitra Mahajan, along with local Members of Legislative Assembly and RSS leaders, went to the Officers' Mess of Police on Sunday night to meet the NIA officials, party sources said on Monday.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat -- arguably, the third most powerful person in the ruling dispensation -- on Monday, December 20, met the Dalai Lama at Gaden Phodrang, his home in Mcleodganj, Himachal Pradesh.
