PM-elect Narendra Modi will likely hold a bilateral with Kyrgyzstan President, who arrived in New Delhi today, after the swearing-in ceremony. According to reports, the meeting is likely to be at 10.15 pm. An updated list of the likely Cabinet ministers includes names of BJP Begusarai MP Giriraj Singh, Fatehpur MP Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. Several ministers, including Prakash Javadekar, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Ramesh Pokhriyal, have received the call from BJP chief Amit Shah to be part of the new Cabinet which will be sworn in at 7 pm today at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Ramdas Athawale,…
Author: News Analysis India
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday claimed Hindu Mahasabha leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had first sown the seed of the two-nation theory which was later taken forward by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the late founder of Pakistan. The Congress leader claimed efforts are being made to change Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea of India and said the first Prime Minister started nuclear and space programmes and oversaw building of world-class institutions. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will embark on a tour of Bastar region on Thursday. Apart from participating in various programmes, he will also unveil a statue of one of ‘martyrs’ of…
Rahul Gandhi remains adamant about quitting as Congress president but scores of party workers will go to his Delhi home to persuade him to change his mind, senior leader Sheila Dikshit said on Wednesday. Sheila Dikshit, a three-time chief minister of Delhi, said she would also be among Congress leaders who would try to meet Rahul Gandhi at 4 pm. “Rahul Gandhi is adamant about resigning. But we will not accept his resignation at all. He has done good work. Winning and losing are part of life, but it is important to keep fighting,” Sheila Dikshit, who was among the…
Just before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath-taking ceremony tomorrow, outgoing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has decided not to take up any active responsibility in the new government due to his poor health. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Jaitley said he had orally informed Modi about his desire to not be a part of the new BJP government so that it enabled him to concentrate on his treatment and health. “I am writing to you to formally request you that I should be allow. He has not been seen in public for at least two weeks but has been…
After reports that families of 54 West bengal BJP workers killed in alleged political violence will attend Modi’s swearing-in, a furious Mamata Banerjee has walked back on her decision to do attend the event. She tweeted that all reports of political violence in Bengal are untrue and advised BJP not to ‘devalue’ an ‘august occasion’ to score political points. BJP leader Arun Jaitley who had held key portfolios in the Union Cabinet including the finance ministry has asked to be relieved of any ministerial responsibilities for the second term. Jaitley has written a letter to Modi, stating that he would…
Time magazine, which published a cover story before the Lok Sabha elections calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the “Divider in Chief”, has carried an editorial with the headline ‘Modi Has United India Like No Prime Minister in Decades’. The article with that headline published on its website on Tuesday, asked “How has this supposedly divisive figure not only managed to keep power, but increase his levels of support?” and answered: “A key factor is that Modi has managed to transcend India’s greatest fault line: the class divide”. The writer, Manoj Ladwa, credited Modi’s emergence as a unifier to his origins…
The 2019 national elections may be over but the country’s political discourse is still in a time warp. The political slugfest involving former Prime Ministers, the father of the nation and his assassin had barely died down when Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday dragged in BJP icon Vinayak Damodar Savarkar into the fight, saying that it was he who had pitched the idea of carving out Pakistan from India before Independence. “Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had first thought of the two-nation theory. His theory was taken forward by Muhammad Ali Jinnah,” Mr Baghel was quoted as saying by news…
Chances are, in contrast to most BJP leaders and activists who would be celebrating their mammoth victory, glancing with pride at the saffron-splashed map of India, when Amit Shah looks at it, his eye would not fall with delight at the hue that has covered states from Kashmir to Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh, or the big new splashing of it in Bengal, Odisha and North East but rather on the 100-odd seats of south India where the colour is anything but saffron. The three states of Tamil Naidu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been politically represented strongly by regional parties…
The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress finds itself ship-wrecked on a 52-square metre sinking island infested with snakes and surrounded by crocodiles and sharks. That’s the grim picture for the Congress after the just-concluded general elections. How could the 134-year-old Grand Old Party have done any better than its 52-seat tally, still three short of getting the leader of the opposition status, when it failed to open its account in 20 states and Union Territories (UTs) and could manage to get into double digits only in one state: Kerala? In sharp contrast, the BJP-led NDA won all the seats in 10 states…
Amidst attempts to convince him to change his mind about stepping down as party president, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday held a meeting with his sister and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, and Congress communication head Randeep Surjewala. Mr. Gandhi also separately met Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot at his 12, Tughlaq Lane residence. There may be more meetings in the evening even though there was no official word on it. Though none spoke to the media, presence of both the Rajasthan leaders is being taken as an indication that Congress’ top leadership is…