Amidst threat by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee to bring no-confidence motion against the UPA government in the winter session of Parliament, Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma on Monday said that the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party would continue to support it.
The prime minister interacted with media persons on issues ranging from the Indo-US nuclear deal to the crisis in Sri Lanka.
The statistics (compiled till May), presented and analysed by the Performance Review Committee of the ministry last week, show that states run by UPA governments have not made much advance in implementing its signature rural development schemes.
Ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament, former Congress ally Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday indicated its support to the UPA's 'game-changer' Food Security Bill even though it has wanted a few changes in it.
Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Monday declared that the United Progressive Alliance combination would return to power despite the Bharatiya Janata Party's claim that it was going to come to power. He blamed the media for creating differences between the Left parties and the UPA. He was addressing mediapersons on the eve of three day ministerial conference on rural development to be held in New Delhi beginning from Tuesday.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Rajnath Singh on Thursday accused the Congress of misusing Central Bureau of InvestigationI as a tool to remain in power and said the days of the United Progressive Alliance government were numbered.
The meeting of UPA-Left Committee on nuclear issue, scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed, putting back further a decision on whether India should sign the safeguards agreement with IAEA. The meeting is now expected in the first half of next month.
Describing the nationwide bandh as an "unprecedented" success, the BJP today claimed the UPA government has been reduced to minority after the Samajwadi Party, an outside supporter of Congress-led coalition, joined the bandh with its chief Mulayam Singh Yadav courting arrest.
Senior Communist Party of India leader Gurudas Dasgupta on Monday said his party would not bail out the Congress-led UPA government if West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee brings a no-confidence motion against it during the Winter Session of Parliament that commences from November 22.
While the Congress has not lost all hopes on ties with Trinamool Congress which announced the decision to withdraw from UPA, other parties like Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal-United blamed the government for putting itself in an embarrassing position.
Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, a key ally of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, on Tuesday announced its participation in the nation-wide bandh on September 20 called by several non-UPA parties to protest the Centre's decision to hike diesel price, allow FDI in multi-brand retail and limit subsidised cooking gas.
Admitting the "failure" of the UPA government in grounding several mega projects in a time-bound-manner, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Praful Patel blamed it on the environmental "activism within the government".
"We have strong reservations about the impact of Indo-US nuclear deal on foreign policy aspects but for us the top priority is to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party and L K Advani from coming to power. That is the why the MIM has decided to support the UPA government," Asad Owaisi told a press conference in Hyderabad.
Ending its suspense, the Shiromani Akali Dal has decided to vote against the UPA government on the nuclear deal. The decision was announced by party supremo Parkash Singh Badal.
Top United Progressive Alliance leaders tonight dismissed as ' nreasonable' the BJP's stalling of Parliament on coal blocs allocation issue and its demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and stood by the government's offer to discuss the subject in the House.
The Congress seems to be ruing what it does not have in UPA II: The support of the left parties, not particularly because they let the government govern till they withdrew support over the issue of signing a nuclear treaty with the US, but because they didn't demand their pound of flesh in the allocation of ministries by not joining the government.
The Congress on Tuesday reiterated that the United Progressive Alliance government has taken firm steps to bring back black money stashed abroad in the last three years, and criticized leaders of the National Democratic Alliance for lending support to yoga guru Baba Ramdev's agitation.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said the United Progressive Alliance government will not last beyond the forthcoming winter session of Parliament, but the Congress ridiculed the claim. Addressing a BJP protest, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said, "The allies of the government are slowly leaving them and it is not going to last after the winter session of Parliament."
The government's frenetic pace of activity resulting in a series of economic policy initiatives in the last two months has taken the opposition political parties by surprise.
The UPA managers feel the remaining phase of the Winter Session of Parliament, which will be dominated by the Telangana issue, may actually end up as a repeat of previous sessions. Anita Katyal reports.
In an interview with CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, the West Bengal Chief Minister questioned the stability of the Centre saying Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati may bail out the government for now, but people won't bail them out in future.
By all accounts, India's poor, mostly in rural areas, can look back to a 10-year period when their lot clearly improved.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati will boycott the United Progressive Alliance-II anniversary celebrations and the subsequent dinner in New Delhi on Saturday.
The government, he added, was aware of the problem and was dealing with it.
She reached the office of the federal probe agency in central Delhi around 11 am and left around 6 pm.
BJP president Rajnath Singh said if the NDA comes to power at the Centre in next general elections, it will cancel all the schemes being implemented by the United Progressive Alliance government to 'appease a particular community'. He said the welfare measures announced by the Centre to provide benefit to a particular community was 'dangerous' for the country and NDA will withdraw all those schemes straightaway.
The United Progressive Alliance government has abandoned its statecraft. It does not mind if the country is hurt as long as the UPA can score points when faced with a certain electoral defeat, says Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
The NDA's combined parliamentary and state-level committed Presidential votes number around 12,000 fewer than a majority.
The United Progressive Alliance government has become a symbol of "heartless government" as it has failed to understand the pains of inflation borne by the common man, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley said on Friday.
After the presidential elections, it may still be advantage Congress-UPA but at some point the utter lack of governance is going to cost it dearly. Meanwhile the BJP has largely failed to take advantage of the disarray in the Congress, says Rohit Pradhan.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Wednesday accused the UPA government of accepting the "diktats" of the Bush administration of which the nuclear agreement "was a part."
The NCP on Friday sought to push the Congress leadership into a corner with its two senior leaders Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel believed to have resigned from the Union cabinet aggrieved over a variety of issues including no 2 slot for Pawar and Congress' treatment of its allies.
Communist Party of India Marxist would support the candidature of United Progressive Alliance's nominee Hamid Ansari for the post of vice president and would make a formal announcement on Monday, senior party leader Sitaram Yechuri said on Saturday. Speaking to reporters, he recalled that it was the CPI-M, along with other Left parties, which had proposed the name of Ansari in 2007 for the vice president's post, which was accepted by the Congress-led UPA.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
In fresh embarrassment to the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance regime, particularly to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Comptroller Auditor General Vinod Rai has claimed that coalition functionaries had deputed politicians to get him leave out names from the audit reports in the Coalgate and Commonwealth Games scams.
BJP's senior-most leader L K Advani tells Neerja Chowdhury that though the FDI in multi-brand retail decision was taken by an executive order, a "roll back is possible if there is a resolution by Parliament to this effect".
Ahead of their proposed protests in New Delhi, Anna Hazare and yoga guru Ramdev on Tuesday launched an attack on the UPA government accusing it of not showing enough resolve in tackling corruption and bringing back black money stashed away abroad.
The agency has found fresh evidence in the 39-years old riots case making it necessary to have the voice sample of Tytler, they said.
The Modi government's record on governance is better than that of UPA-2, but not better than UPA-1, observes T N Ninan.
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