Sam Pitroda quits as Cong's overseas chief after row over remarks

If Pitroda's blunder cost him his office, what should the BJP's unrepentant attitude cost it? asks Shyam G Menon. IMAGE: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi holds a roadshow for the Lok Sabha elections in Patna, May 12, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo   Early May 2024, the full weight of consequences visited Sam Pitroda. Twice in the news in the weeks preceding his resignation from heading the Congress's overseas unit, the first occasion was when the 82-year-old technocrat ...

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Maneka Gandhi on Saturday indicated that her son Varun Gandhi's writings that were sometimes critical of the government may have cost him the party's Lok Sabha ticket from Pilibhit but asserted that he would do very well even without it. IMAGE: BJP candidate from Sultanpur Maneka Gandhi. Photograph: ANI Photo In an exclusive interview with PTI at her residence in Sultanpur, the former Union minister and BJP's Sultanpur candidate also said Varun Gandhi wants to ...

Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening. IMAGE: Supporters in large numbers gather during an election campaign by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (unseen) for the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections, in Kamareddy on Saturday, May 11, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo ...

Political economist and author Gautam Sen has said the idea to impose a wealth tax in India will lead to the country's super rich, the Ambanis and the Adanis, moving their bases out to countries like Dubai to avoid paying tax. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the interaction with business leaders Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Tata Group patriarch Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Mahindra Group Anand Mahindra, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI ...

The big surprise is that Narendra Modi, the greatest conjurer in our national politics, has not yet presented a theme to this election, observes Shekhar Gupta. IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra D Modi on his way to vote in Ahmedabad, May 7, 2024. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters   We are now at about the halfway point in the Lok Sabha election campaign and what stands out is -- and I say so with some trepidation -- how little stands out. Trepidation because the nutgraf of the ...

In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning.In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand.In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy.That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister. IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra D Modi addresses an election rally in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, ...

This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem ...

IMAGE: An electoral officer demonstrates the functioning of an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) during a training programme for women polling officials ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in Guwahati, April 8, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo   In the first such initiative, the Bharatiya Janata Party has invited the ruling and Opposition parties from around the world to witness the Lok Sabha elections in India first-hand. The Communist party of China ...