Opposition parties have not been given the chairmanship of any of the four key parliamentary panels including the committee on home affairs and information technology, which were with the Congress, in the latest rejig announced on Tuesday.
The BJP game-plan: Take the top slot, or a close second, either for the 'Lotus' or the larger NDA, if it can and push the AIADMK to the third place, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Opposition parties will hold the next meeting of their 26-member INDIA coalition in Mumbai on August 25 and 26, sources said on Thursday.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
The session will commence with the maiden address of President Droupadi Murmu to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament. The address essentially highlights the government's achievements and policy priorities.
Gurung vowed to support the TMC in the 2021 Bengal assembly elections.
'Switching loyalty from one party to another is completely unfair as it devalues my vote.'
Leaders of 38 parties have confirmed their participation in a meeting of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be held in the national capital on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda said.
She also took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party over its defeat in the just-concluded Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, saying the ruling party's president could not hold on to his home state. "Who is the Pappu now?" she asked.
The results of the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are also likely to play out during the start of the session.
Announcing the name of candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she will be contesting from the Nandigram constituency as announced earlier.
With the declaration of results for the Tripura Assembly polls on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state by winning 32 seats and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) winning one.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
While Opposition MLAs in other states are dumping their parties to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, Tripura is seeing a reverse trend.
Our election slogan is simple "Ballot for Bullet".
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced Adhikari's name as leader of the BJP legislature party in the assembly after a meeting of the legislators at the party's Hastings office.
The statehood issue and implementation of the sixth schedule of the Constitution have been the major demands in the hills since the beginning of the protracted Gorkhaland movement in 1986.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'Winning this election will take us a step closer to realising our dreams'
Fighting as an independent, Dinakaran was up against ruling AIADMK's E Madhusudanan and DMK's N Maruthu Ganesh.
The list, which is a mix of seasoned political players and greenhorns, has 17 women candidates, five more than the last elections, constituting roughly 41 per cent of the candidates.
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
Indicating a shift in stand, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday said his party is open to consider quitting Maharashtra's ruling alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) if the rebel MLAs camping in Assam return and discuss their grievances with CM Uddhav Thackeray, while coalition allies Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress vowed support to the beleaguered governing bloc and asserted its majority can only be determined in the assembly and not outside.
Beset by troubles on multiple fronts within, the Congress faces the danger of imploding with party veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal on Wednesday sharply questioning the decision-making process, saying there are 'no monopolies', and demanded convening an urgent meeting of the Congress Working Committee for a 'dialogue'.
'If Mamata Banerjee doesn't want, then violence cannot be stopped.'
With two years to go before West Bengal elects its next government, the BJP's internal objective is to scale down the Trinamool Congress tally from 211 to 45 seats. This amounts to an annihilation of the TMC while enabling the BJP to win a record 250 seats in the 295-member legislature, reports Radhika Ramaseshan
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
The organisation established its electoral presence post-Independence in states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Assam, with West Bengal being its main stronghold, but eight decades down the line, the party, now limited to just some pockets of the country, has no MP or MLA in its kitty.
The Assam government announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh and a job for the next of the kin of the deceased.
Former Union minister GK Vasan's decision to revolt and float a separate outfit in Tamil Nadu serves as a deadly blow to the Grand Old Party, which is already struggling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP doesn't want to focus entirely on an anti-Mamata campaign.
The fact remains that in the present-day Tamil Nadu, GenX and GenY voters, born and/or growing up after the end of 'Kamaraj rule' in the '60s and 'MGR rule', respectively, constitute an absolute majority of the electorate. If they still vote for a Rajini or Kamal, in preference to the established 'Dravidian voters', it is despite the MGR imagery, not because of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Polling will be held in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
