Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi slammed Congress leader Shashi Tharoor for suggesting that Republic day celebrations should be cancelled. The minister termed Tharoor's remark "utterly irresponsible".
The meeting comes amid both leaders being seen as prospective contenders for the post of AICC president.
Tharoor said that he could not meet some delegates as their contact details were "missing" from the list that was provided to him.
Kharge was elected Congress president, defeating Shashi Tharoor in an electoral contest, the sixth in the party's 137-year-old history.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said credit should be given to the government for achieving the 100-crore COVID vaccine dose landmark in the country, drawing a sharp response from party colleague Pawan Khera, who asserted that giving credit is an 'insult' to millions of families.
He also said there are leaders who stand firm in their ideology but their number is gradually declining.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Dhanorkar was 47 years old and is survived by wife Pratibha, an MLA, and two sons.
Tharoor on Friday called Kharge, 80, a "candidate of continuity", an apparent reference to the impression in some quarters that the Karnataka leader is the choice of the Gandhis.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Tharoor's close aide Aalim Javeri collected the forms from the office of the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on the first day of the start of the nomination process, all but confirming an electoral face-off for the top party post with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
Filing of nominations for the post of Congress president is scheduled to begin on Saturday with a contest between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor on the cards.
Political pundits unanimously suggest that the state is not experiencing a discernible Gandhi wave this time around.
Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which publishes a yearly report on press freedom in countries across the world, had last year ranked India at 150 in a survey of 180 countries.
The last electoral contest for the top post of the party took place in 2000 when Jitendra Prasada had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP, who was speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode on Friday, said while he concedes the BJP's dominance, it is also a fact that they have lost many states and them losing the central government is not impossible.
A day after the opposition parties announced 'INDIA' as the name for their alliance, they finalised 'Jeetega Bharat' as the 26-member bloc's tagline, setting the tone for their 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
He cited the Congress' poor performance in the 2019 general election after victories in assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the previous year to buttress his point.
In instructions for polling issued on Saturday, Congress central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry had said Pradesh Congress Committee members 'will mark '1' on the ballot paper against the name of the candidate and fold the ballot paper to put it into the ballot box'.
"I am contesting the organisational election. There is a saying 'Bakrid mein bachenge toh Muharram mein nachenge'. First, let these elections get over and let me become president, then we will see," Kharge said at a press conference held at Pradesh Congress Committee office in Bhopal.
During a session titled 'Sustaining Democracy; Nurturing Democracy', he claimed that tightening the already stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in a way that kept people like Siddique Kappan in jail for two years without bail is one of the many ways the current dispensation has 'managed to depart from the democratic spirit of the Constitution'.
Denying rumours that he may opt out of the presidential race due to meagre support, Tharoor said he was very much in the fray and has been receiving support from various quarters.
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
References to freedom fighter and India's first education minister Azad have been removed from the new class 11 political science textbook by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma savours Mumbai's street fare... Shashi Tharoor bangs a drum... Punjab CM visits Pakistan...
Regarding Satheesan, he said that "if we see each other at the venue, then we will see".
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has written to the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry seeking the publication of electoral rolls for the upcoming election to the post of All India Congress Committee president, sources said.
His disqualification as Wayanad MP is effective from March 23, the day of his conviction
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge distributed sweets among leaders of the opposition bloc INDIA during a meeting in his chamber ahead of the commencement of the House proceedings.
In his post, Vaishnaw said Apple has also claimed that Apple IDs are securely encrypted on devices, making it extremely difficult to access or identify them without the user's explicit permission.
She's the crazy cat lady for whom home is where her girls Burfi and Mishti are.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday claimed he has the support of party workers from across the country for his bid to fight the AICC president polls.
The Congress on Wednesday released a list of 40 leaders who would be the party's star campaigners for the May 10 assembly elections.
Tharoor's campaign team has also raised 'serious issues' in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana.
A couple of scenes outside Parliament as the Houses adjourned for the summer.
The Congress on Thursday urged External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to take up strongly with Canadian authorities reports of a float depicting the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi being part of a parade in Brampton.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar's wife and son who keep themselves far from the political limelight reveal what it is like to campaign for the first time.
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