Ravish Tiwari

🔴 Mamata Banerjee has said there is no UPA, signalling that an anti-BJP grouping need not have the Congress as its automatic leader. A look at how the UPA began and disintegrated, and the new assertion by regional parties.

The final set of recommendations of the committee and dissent notes by half-a-dozen members from Opposition parties are likely to be tabled in the coming winter session of Parliament.

The laws heralded key structural reforms but the Government and the party brought to it its characteristic “you are with us or you are with the enemy” approach.

Farm laws repealed: A look at why and how the government had pushed these laws, why it has now withdrawn them, and the implications of the move, politically and economically.

The segment dealing with farming in the Political Resolution adopted by the BJP national executive had completely omitted any reference to the three farm laws.

Largely devoted to lauding the Modi government over a range of issues, from Covid to his stand on climate change, as well as reduction of the excise duty on petrol and diesel, it predicted a big win for the BJP in coming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

Key BJP state leaders are on the backfoot hoping the situation doesn’t snowball.

The binary choice from President George W Bush — 'with us or against us' — came to inform several subtexts in domestic politics. 9/11 also fanned an aggressive nationalism, and the yearning for a 'strong' leader.

BSP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Satish Chandra Misra said: "The moment the Covid-19 cases dropped in Uttar Pradesh, we began (our meetings). It’s not that we were silent, the party has been working right up to the booth level, and we are determined to throw out the BJP government in the state."

Timed with his 71st birthday (September 17) and 20 years of his public life as an administrator (October 7, 2001, when he first became Gujarat CM), this unprecedented drive holds significance in the wake of the brutal second wave of the Covid pandemic.

Much before the emergence of Narendra Modi on the national scene, it was Kalyan Singh who was seen in party ranks as the “Hindu-Hriday Samrat”.

Demands for a caste census and a legislation to take reservations beyond 50 per cent resurfaced during the discussion on the Constitution Amendment Bill that sought to override a Supreme Court ruling and restore to states their right to create their own OBC lists.

Addressing his eighth Independence Day address, PM Narendra Modi virtually prophesized next 25 years till the centenary year of Independence as ‘Amrut Kal’, during which India will transform itself to newer heights.

It was not known then that the resignations of Bhubaneswar Kalita of Congress and SP’s Surendra Singh Nagar and Sanjay Seth were part of carefully orchestrated moves by the BJP to ensure smooth passage of its legislative plan for the day.

In a complaint to the House Chairman, TMC chief whip Sukhendu Sekhar Roy is learnt to have listed the names of the Opposition MPs, from TMC's arch-rival CPI(M) to the Shiv Sena and senior Congress leaders such as P Chidambaram, who are “ready to depose” as “eye-witnesses” against Puri.

This could mean a complete washout of the Monsoon Session of Parliament. The Houses could not function for the eighth successive day on Wednesday amidst Opposition protests.

As many as 36 new faces were inducted and 12 sitting ministers were shown the door taking the tally in the Council of Ministers to 78 (including the PM), just a notch short of the statutory limit of 81.

The BJP headquarters was abuzz with names of those who have been summoned to the capital, an indication that they could be inducted into the new Council.

By making vaccines free, taking over their procurement and extending food rations to November, Modi tried to turn the tables on the Opposition, deflect growing heat from the Supreme Court and give fresh action points to his beleaguered party.

For the first time since the Modi Government came to power in 2014, senior Union ministers and top functionaries in the BJP and the RSS are on the defensive and unsure of how — or even what — to communicate to the people as the second Covid curve rages across the country.

Banerjee, who herself lost the election, led her party to a landmark 200-plus tally. The BJP surged from just three to over 80 seats and retained Assam.

Over the last few days, many BJP leaders — including MPs and party office-bearers in several states — told The Indian Express they have been inundated with calls for help from families, friends and their constituencies but they can do little.

As the new general secretary or sarkaryawah and the effective No. 2, Dattatreya Hosabale, 67, who joined the RSS in 1968, is the first in the post who has worked for almost three decades in any frontal organisation – in his case, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The view in the government and ruling party is that the issue is “potent” in Punjab but protests in Haryana, Western UP and parts of Rajasthan have different political imperatives.