Ruptures in the opposition unity emerged barely a week after 17 parties joined hands to put up a joint candidate against the ruling National Democratic Alliance nominee for the July 17 presidential election.
Voters deserve one. Democracy requires one. We need an alternative that people want, not just an anti-vote, says Mitali Saran.
Union minister and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said in Hyderabad that he was not in favour of his party extending support to the third front from outside, rather he wanted the party to be a part of the government.
The chief minister said he has certain compulsions as a politician.
The move is being seen as an attempt to forge opposition unity to defeat the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
'When it comes to national politics, the Modi-Shah BJP has successfully redefined secularism.' 'If a party like the Congress has to have a future, it has to move closer to the secular centre from the far Left where its Left infatuation during the UPA years dragged it,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'The message they want to send to the country is that they can do anything by hook or crook'
What is being exposed is we have no real doctrine and no idea how to deal with the world, asserts Aakar Patel.
'He always avoided eating non-vegetarian food in presence of his deputies if they were fasting for the month of Shravan.' 'There were no Hindu, Jain, Parsi and Swaminarayan festivals he would forget.' 'He was a conservative Muslim and therefore could get along well with conservative Hindus.'
Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of playing politics over providing relief to flood victims of Jammu and Kashmir, Congress party President Sonia Gandhi on Friday said the ruling party at the Centre promised the sky but did not follow it up with action.
'We are only going to the Supreme Court to protect the rights (of Muslims) which are given by the Constitution. Nothing more,' says Indian Union Muslim League MP P V Abdul Wahab, explaining why the IUML has challenged the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Supreme Court.
CPI-M says it is ready to forge a front with Congress in Parliament on issues like land bill and secularism but ruled out being part of a national front.
'The situation in the country is very scary.' 'There is an increasing attack on the Constitutional democratic rights of our people.'
The 58-year-old leader will expand his council of ministers after the trust vote on Friday which he is expected to win without any hiccups.
Congress's K R Ramesh Kumar will be the speaker of Karnataka's Vidhana Soudha (assembly), while the deputy speaker will be appointed from the JD-S.
Sonia told party MPs to work with dedication, loyalty and enthusiasm with Rahul to strengthen the party and said he was her boss to.
'Why do sections of Muslims seem to prefer Lalu and Mulayam who symbolise wilful neglect of governance and development? In this election, secularism is less at stake. What is more at stake is the degenerative, cynical, opportunistic, and discredit-worthy misuse of secularism by the non-BJP leaders and their social constituencies,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Pawar may not be in the Congress and heading a rival party having a love-hate relationship with it. But still he is considered the top Congress leader from Maharashtra, reports Sunil Gatade.
Mounting a frontal attack on the Narendra Modi government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said there has been an increase in communal violence in the country since it came to power and alleged this was part of a "deliberate" attempt to divide the people.
The Congress seems to have learned nothing from its defeats. At a time when its supporters worry that the idea of India is under attack, the party is still preoccupied with its own battles, notes Vir Sanghvi.
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
The JD-U appears unwilling to become the BJP's second-string. A senior leader said, "If the BJP demands that the 2014 polls be made the yardstick for seat-sharing in 2019, we will insist the results of the last assembly polls become the criterion for the next state election." Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
SAD leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa said that during three poll related meetings with the BJP, his party was asked to consider its stand on CAA. "But we declined to do so. SAD is of the firm stand that Muslims cannot be left out of CAA," Sirsa said.
Union Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday criticised Bharatiya Janata Party's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for going ahead with his political rally in Patna despite the blasts at the venue in which six people were killed, saying it was a "giveaway" and exposed his true character of not caring for anyone.
The Congress on Thursday dared Narendra Modi to an open debate on his governance model in Gujarat, while rubbishing his attack on the United Progressive Alliance over the economic slowdown.
After an apparent truce between AAP and the BJP following the Delhi polls, sparks are flying once again. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
KCR said despite 'bhaashanbaazi', industries are closing down, the nation's GDP is crashing and the rupee is falling drastically compared to the US dollar.
Earlier, KCR had met West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee as part of efforts to build a non-Congress, non-BJP third front ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
'They are saying my petition is an attack on Hindu religion.' 'You pray in your home, there is no problem, but the school is a public institution run by government funds.'
The Modi-Shah definition of secularism is, India is a confident, resurgent Hindu, and therefore secular, country.
Amid speculation over the fate of alliance between the Janata Dal-United and Rashtriya Janata Dal ahead of the crucial Bihar polls, JD-U President Sharad Yadav on Thursday insisted that both the parties will fight the assembly polls in the state together in alliance with the Congress to challenge a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sensex up just 6.5% while the best returns were during Manmohan Singh, with the Sensex soaring nearly 167.5%.
The Allahabad high court had in January 2006 struck down the provision of the 1981 amendment Act by which the university was accorded the minority status.
Critics say that there's no 'Modi wave' in four Muslim-dominated parliamentary constituencies in Bihar's Seemanchal belt, but Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are hopeful to retain three out of the four seats here. In 2009 general elections, the BJP won in Purnea, Katihar and Araria but lost in Kishanganj.
'The BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are celebrating their biggest ideological and philosophical victory in some time,' says Shekhar Gupta.
With the D-day for the polls drawing closer, Modi upped the ante against the Siddaramaiah government addressing four back to back rallies at Gadag, Tumakuru, Shivamogga and Mangaluru.
Armed with data and statistics, Congress leaders refute every point made by Narendra Modi as part of its new strategy to take on the firebrand Gujarat chief minister. Renu Mittal reports
Stating that the Third Front has no policy or commitment, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday termed the 'alternative' combination of parties as a "parking slot."
"The people of Karnataka have made up their minds to throw out the Siddaramaiah government. They are disappointed with it on many fronts, with corruption being the main issue. The relationship between corruption and Congress party is akin to water and fish," Shah said.
Replying to the debate in Rajya Sabha on a motion thanking the president for his address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament, he said for the first time in decades, people of Jammu and Kashmir got benefits of reservation.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances