Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday expressed his regret that the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota was not provided under the Bill brought by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2010.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati will boycott the United Progressive Alliance-II anniversary celebrations and the subsequent dinner in New Delhi on Saturday.
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."
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 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 Housing Committee of the Lok Sabha took the decision following which the secretariat of the House wrote to the former Congress president, a Z-plus protectee who has been living in the 12, Tughlaq Lane bungalow since 2005.
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.
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
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 government, he added, was aware of the problem and was dealing with it.
Several Opposition leaders have rallied behind Gandhi and hit out at the government and accused the BJP of targeting political opponents.
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 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.
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The TMC general secretary, considered number two in the party, shared the letter sent to him by the central agency on X, formerly Twitter.
'The space required for wild cheetah populations to thrive was grossly under-estimated.' 'Cheetahs, because of their social system and ecologically fragile nature, live at only 1 cheetah per 100 sq kms even in the best habitats of Africa.'
Has the UPA decided that, Hyde Act or not, there's no risk at all of a US ban on our further nuclear testing because we are not going to do another test?
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.
"No, she will not make me the PM," was Dr Pranab Mukherjee's cryptic response in a reference to Sonia Gandhi when he was asked by his daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee about his chances of becoming the prime minister in 2004.
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.
Addressing media persons, Munnawar Hassan claimed to have the support of seven more party lawmakers.
In the wake of Trinamool Congress going it alone in the West Bengal civic polls, its UPA ally Congress on Monday dismissed as speculation reports that it was looking for a new ally in Samajwadi Party.
Dravida Munettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Tuesday refused to rate the three year performance of the United Progressive Alliance-II government, saying there are "ups and downs" for every government.
Jagdeep Dhankhar who is set to take oath as the next vice president this week met incumbent M Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi on Sunday.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is expected to attend the next meeting of opposition parties in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said on Monday.
The probe into selections for banks such as Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank followed the arrest of Syndicate Bank CMD S K Jain for alleged graft.
