The Election Commission on Wednesday changed the date of polling for the Rajasthan assembly elections from November 23 to November 25 in view of demands for a change given "large-scale" weddings in the state that day.
Should he begin the yatra from Gujarat's Porbandar, the birthplace of the Mahatma, on October 2, and skip campaigning for the five assembly polls?
K Kavitha dared PM Modi to put her and other leaders behind the bars.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
There is an impression within the Tamil Nadu BJP -- although no one is airing it -- that over-exposure for Narendra Modi over the past months may work against party candidates, as they have triggered a near-continuous social media debate on his achievements and failures, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Lok Satta Party chief Jayaprakash Narayan talks to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa on the Telangana turmoil, 'juvenile' Aam Aadmi Party and more.
While Chouhan has emerged as a favourite to remain at the helm in MP despite the presence of some challengers, the leadership race is wide open in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, two states where the BJP has snatched power from the Congress.
The Champai Soren-led coalition government in Jharkhand will seek trust vote on February 5, minister Alamgir Alam said on Friday after a Cabinet meeting.
"The January 5 meeting is the first step in the consultations. In the first step, we have called the recognised parties in the state to devise a mechanism and a roadmap (on the issue," he told a press conference, the state chief minister has been invited to the meeting in his official capacity.
The deadlock in the Andhra Pradesh assembly is likely to end on Monday, when the Telangana Bill will finally be presented in the House.
There are concerns within the Congress with respect to the articulation of the party's demand for the caste census, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently accusing the grand old party of attempting to divide Hindus through its push for the Other Backward Classes.
Seven political and administrative reasons were given to convince the Congress leadership while proposing the creation of Rayal-Telangana. Vicky Nanjappa reports
The demand for removal of Justice A K Ganguly, accused of harassing a law intern, from the post of Chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission, along with Telangana issue paralysed the functioning of Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
A decision on the next meeting of political parties on the Telangana issue to hear their final views will be taken in the next few days, Home Minister P Chidambaram said.
In order to stall the Telangana bill and urge the government to withdraw its decision, the YSR Congress of Jagan Mohan Reddy and Seemandhra government employees will protest in different parts of the city
The UPA II government's next move rests on a 'yes' or 'no' to Telangana by the Congress core committee, which meets in Hyderabad on Friday to take a political decision on the issue that has created a crisis in Andhra Pradesh since the past three weeks.
The draft bill, approved by the Union abinet, seems to be much more favorable to the wishes of the people from Telangana than it is for those from Seemandhra, says Mohammed Siddique
Earlier, Modi was given a standing ovation at the meeting following the party's stupendous win in three assembly polls.
'Politics is a game of public perception and my father felt that by his long disappearances, Rahul Gandhi was losing the battle of perception.'
The BJP is faced with the crucial question of who will lead the party in the four impending state polls this year: In Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday picked first-time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma as Rajasthan's new chief minister, ending days of speculation that followed its victory in the assembly polls.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Talking about the brutal killing of Krishnaiah in 1994, G Uma Krishnaiah said her husband was killed for no fault of his.
13 eminent economists, including former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and current International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath, in a report have asked the political establishment not to resort to populist tricks.
The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.
Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Friday announced that a final decision on creating a separate state of Telangana will be taken within a month. His statement came in the wake of an all-party meeting on the issue in Delhi.
2019 was the Bharatiya Janata Party's breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables, asserts Prem Panicker.
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Sunday exuded confidence that its national president, who was sworn in as Bihar CM for a record ninth time after forming a new government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, will win Monday's trust vote.
Amid the growing clamour for a separate state of Telangana, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said there would be further consultations on the issue."I think the home minister had a meeting with leaders of political parties from Andhra Pradesh. They had gone back and will study the report of the Srikrishna Committee. There will be further consultations," Dr Singh said. His comments came at a time when Congress MPs from Telangana region have threatened to resign.
Telangana's Rythu Bandhu policy is an embryonic UBI, or rather embryonic QUBI (a quasi-universal basic income, pronounced Kyoo-Bee). And it could potentially also be the future of agricultural policy in India, says Arvind Subramanian.
A well-intentioned cause for the creation of Telangana that fulfils the aspirations of the people has been made controversial on account of the lack of political management, says Arun Jaitley
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Popular balladeer Ghaddar has made it clear that his proposed political party the Telangana Praja Front was not seeking to be an alternative to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) but was a platform on which different organisations fighting for Telangana state will be brought together.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
The Aam Aadmi Party has decided to launch a massive membership drive in the southern states to build on the momentum of its stupendous victory in the Punjab assembly polls.
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.
Stalin still enjoys a lot of sympathy and empathy as someone wishing well for the state, but not full-throated support as in 2019 and 2021, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
MIM President Asaduddin Owaisi told rediff.com on Thursday that MIM was a political party responsible to the people and it cannot act under pressure from any committee or forum.
Political parties in Andhra Pradesh must help the Centre find a solution to the Telangana issue but they are divided and a solution cannot be thrust down their throats, according to Home Minister P Chidambaram. "This is a unique situation where political parties in Andhra Pradesh are divided down the middle. Congress, Telugu Desam, Communist Party of India Marxist, Communist Party of India, they are all divided," he said.
The BJP and Congress are the top two beneficiaries of the electoral bonds, followed by the Trinamool Congress.
