Undeterred with the defeat of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently held Parliamentary elections, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has started working afresh with confidence. In a series of quick decisions, Chouhan wants to continue business 'as usual'.

The idea is to tone up the administration and make it more transparent and accountable in the first measure. The bureaucrats have been asked to come on time at State Mantralaya. He believes in leading by example. These days, he's the first to arrive and stays till late evening. He is also visiting villages randomly and staying overnight with the villagers.

The Chief Minister in the past told his Cabinet colleagues to visit villages to know the ground realities of the schemes, but hardly any Minist

After its disastrous performance in the general election, the BJP leadership must take stock of the situation and strategise the party’s recovery. Similarly, the Left needs to overcome its crisis of leadership, more so the CPI(M) which is facing serious trouble in its strongholds

After the 2009 Lok Sabha election both the Left and the BJP are confronted with the problem of infighting and leadership crisis. The BJP, which till now took pride in calling itself a ‘party with a difference’, is now seen more as a ‘party with dissidence’. On the other hand, the Left parties, particularly the CPI(M), known for their discipline are now facing indiscipline at the top

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti(TRS) supremo K Chandrasekhara Rao on Thursday suffered a double whammy as the rebels of his party launched a new forum Telangana Vimochana Samiti (TVS) to start a new movement for separate State and on the other a close aide of KCR revolted against him calling him a “big fraud”.

TRS MLC K Dilip Kumar, the brain behind the launch of the new forum, addressing a gathering of intellectuals, academicians and activists said that the TVS was not a political party. "It is a non political movement launched to struggle for achieving Telangana State.

It had become necessary because the existing parties had failed to achieve the goal," he said taking a dig at the TRS and its president K Chandrasekhara Rao.

BJP’s unsteady boat

Editorial

The Pioneer

June 15, 2009.

Personal pique can’t set the agenda

Victory has many fathers; defeat is an orphan. Nothing proves this adage more resoundingly than the turmoil currently being witnessed in the upper echelons of the BJP. Some of this was unavoidable following the party’s comprehensive defeat in the Lok Sabha poll. While it is a fact that many in the BJP were not confident of storming into power given the party’s weakness in several key States as well as its inability to cobble together a l

Subhash Bisaria

Organiser

June 21, 2009

It was the media that did the BJP more harm with its focused, negative, venomous and malicious onslaughts than anyone else.

How many public meetings did Rahul Gandhi attend—100, 150 or 200? Even if we take 5000 as audience listening to him (of whom many would be party workers) how many people did he reach? Just 10 lakh out of 110 crore. A pittance! But media reached him to all. Contrast this with Shri Advani, Shri Narendra Modi and Shri Rajnath Singh’s much more qualitative and substantive public meetings, how many people did it reach? Media, out of necessity, showe

You can tell a lot about the state of an organisation by just looking at its headquarters.

At 11 Ashoka Road, the BJP’s Central Office, the neon lights that shone on giant cutouts of the party’s top leaders don’t even come on anymore. It could be a case of a simple short circuit which the electricians there haven’t been able to detect. Quite like the disconnect between the party and the majority of Indians, which its leadership failed to detect, bringing the party to this pass.

And now, nearly a month after the results came out, they are still unable to decipher what went wrong. Far from taking collective responsibility for their shared failure, they even persuaded the lone man who owned up and offered to quit to stay on, so that they themselves c

L.K Advani was on Sunday elected as leader of the BJP's Parliamentary party, which however, failed to elect its deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and its Rajya Sabha chief leaving it to him to take the key decisions which would give broad contours of future leadership. With his election at BJP's Parliamentary party's first meeting after the recent Lok Sabha elections, Advani(81) becomes the Leader of the Opposition by virtue of heading the single largest opposition party.

"After his election as the leader, the parliamentary party has authorised Advaniji to appoint office-bearers including Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and deputy leader of both the houses. He has also been authorised to appoint chief whips in both the houses," senior party leader Sushma Swaraj told r

Meira Kumar, who has resigned as Union Minister for Water Resources, on Monday said she has been nominated for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker by the UPA.

"Yes I have resigned (from the post of the Union Water Resources Minister). UPA has nominated me for the post of (Lok Sabha) Speaker," Kumar told reporters in New Delhi.

She thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA allies for nominating "a woman" for the office of the Speaker.

She, however, declined to take any further questions, saying "I will talk on this only after June 3 when the election of the Speaker is scheduled".

Meira Kumar had resigned as Water Resources Minister on Sunday night, just two days after taking charge of the ministr

If the Indian Political League a.k.a General Elections, was the IPL of politics, Karnataka captain B.S. Yeddyurappa, 67, could have walked off with the Most Valuable Player award. He delivered 19 seats to the Lok Sabha in the latest parliamentary polls, the highest to the BJP’S Royal Challengers, but he lost the finals and that is his biggest regret.

“I had promised Advaniji the highest number of seats from my state and really wished that he would have been the prime minister, and that makes me sad,” says Yeddyurappa. “I am still coming to grips with the fact that we could not make it to the Centre.”

Grace and dignity are traits normally not exhibited by the variety of nationalists the RSS breeds in the shakhas. That is why most of us were stunned when the BJP announced that L.K. Advani was actually going to quit after leading the BJP to its most stunning defeat in two decades.

This is not the sort of response one normally expects from someone who spent most of his political life wrapped in the saffron flag advising trishul - wielding lumpens how to demolish a fifteenth century monument.

Indeed, a friend had bet her recession-depleted salary in the profound belief that the majboot neta will not slacken his grip no matter how humiliating the voter’s rejection. But in the few hours that followed the BJP’s declaration of the Loh

 you are to believe the hype on TV, Lutyens' Delhi is humming with activity. Every now and then I receive phone calls asking if X is talking to Y using the good offices of A. A lot of bit players are strutting about the city looking self-important and taking care to get themselves photographed. There are constant meetings and the rumour mills are over-active.

Based on information, my take on events are as follows:

• The Congress has had some success in soothing the ruffled egos of the Samajwadi Party. Amar Singh is thrilled that Digvijay Singh has said sorry. The SP believes it is going to win at least 25 seats. Its main focus is to regain power in Lucknow but till that happens it will not be unhappy with at least two portfolios like defence for Mulayam and

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), fighting for a separate Telangana state in Andhra Pradesh, on Sunday formally joined the National Democratic Alliance at a public rally in Ludhiana.

TRS chief K. Chandrashekhar Rao arrived in this industrial city of Punjab and shared the dais with the entire top brass of NDA leaders.

Rao was felicitated by Akali Dal president and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in the presence of the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh.

Rao had earlier announced that his party was joining the NDA.

The TRS had been with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government but after many flip-flops over the Telengana issue, the TRS finally walked out of the UPA fold

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani Sunday said the "historic" and successful rally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners has sent a message to the country that the alliance was a solid one.

Addressing a big gathering in this industrial city of Punjab Sunday with top NDA allies, BJP leaders and chief ministers sharing the stage, Advani said the rally was the biggest event of its kind for the alliance.

"I would say that this rally, called at a short notice, is historic. It is the biggest event of the NDA ever since it was formed in 1998," said Advani, sporting a saffron turban given to him by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Visibly happy at the arrival of all top ND

Suddenly, there’s a buzz within the BJP. The flagging campaign has been re-energised, and there’s a spring in the step of workers. The party believes that it has put up a strong show in the first three phases of polling, and is now banking on Rajasthan, one of its traditional strongholds, to deliver Delhi to it.

True, the BJP lost the assembly elections in Rajasthan only last year, but it still has a committed vote base there and just needs to woo away a relatively small percentage of Congress and undecided voters. And so, all the big guns – from L K Advani and Narendra Modi down – are being wheeled into the desert state in a bid to propel the BJP to the position of the single largest party all-India, come May 16.

Meanwh

Prasanna Zore travels to madarssas on the outskirts of Barmer town and finds surprising support for BJP MP Manvendra Singh.

Jamil Ahmad looks a stereotypical Muslim. With a flowing, hennaed beard, skull cap and chaste Urdu he impresses you as soon as he starts a conversation.

"Bolnewala toh kisi ko nahin bakshate sahib (those who make wild allegations spare nobody, sir)," he says without anger or remorse when asked if a Muslim like him is likened to the Taliban [more...

BJP today said the overtures made by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi to TDP Chief N Chandrababu Naidu and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar showed that his party has accepted defeat in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

"You don't have to read between the lines to come to the conclusion that Rahul Gandhi has conceded defeat in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. He has tried to reach out to Nitish Kumar and Naidu to make up for the complete rout of his party in these two states," BJP spokesperson Balbir Punj told PTI.

During his press conference earlier in the day, Gandhi had praised Naidu and Kumar, saying, "I respect Naidu. He has done a good job...May be he focused on Hyderabad. I am not saying (only we have leaders). There are leaders who are in the opposition. Nitish fo

While Barack Obama is busy formulating an Af-Pak policy, we are busy in melting-point informatics and "my brother Rahul will become PM one day" kind 
of family employment schemes. The Prime Minister "revealed" to a group of journalists that he had decided to resign if the nuclear deal with the US was not passed in Parliament. To fulfil his "kasam" to Washington, he silently saw the lawmakers' highest body turn into a mandi.

For him, his "kasam" was more important than the "maryada" of his nation's parliament.

I wish he had honoured in the same way his "kasam" to the Indian people – the oath he took while taking the office of Prime Minister, that bound him to protecting the lives of his people

After a day's work at Penn State University, where he is a professor of engineering and department head, Dinesh Agrawal returns home and turns on his computer to indulge his passion for politics.

But it's not the daily duels between Democrats and Republicans in America that transfix him. Dr Agrawal's attention is focused laser-like on the election season drama playing out halfway across the globe.

A former president of the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party (OFBJP), he is part of a dedicated band of Indian-Americans that is drumming up support for political parties in India.

From the recently concluded US elections to the upcoming vote in India, the past few months have been exciting for Indian-Americans.

But for some, the exc

Arun Shourie

Why is Advani taking up this matter now, on the eve of elections?

The fact, of course, is that Advani took up the matter with the prime minister in April last year. He wrote to Manmohan Singh soon after it became known that the German government had obtained names of persons who had stashed money in the LGT Bank in Lichtenstein. The reply from the then-finance minister P. Chidambram showed that the government intended to do little except go through the pretence of taking some steps. Soon thereafter, we were alarmed to learn that a senior official of the finance ministry had written to the then Indian

S Gurumurthy, the leading chartered accountant who is also the convener of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, is a member of the taskforce created by the Bharatiya Janata Party's [Images] prime ministerial candidate L K Advani [more...

Breaking his silence a day after stepping out of jail on a two-week parole, Varun Gandhi [Images], who has been booked under the National Security Act for his alleged hate speeches, on Friday said he would continue to raise his voice against 'anti-national forces'.

Having given an undertaking to the Supreme Court that he will not make any inflammatory speeches, Varun, 29, who was released from Etah jail in Uttar Pradesh more...

VIJAYAWADA: Few leaders could have even considered such an audacious gambit. Chief minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy's "T-turn" — warning voters

Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Wednesday appealed to people to vote for the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to power under the leadership of his long-time colleague L.K. Advani.

Vajpayee, 82, who is not contesting elections this time because of poor health, asked people to take a pledge "to elect 'the determined leader and decisive government' - which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has promised and Advani will fulfil", according to the text of his appeal.

The appeal comes on the eve of the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

"The nation is today standing at the crossroads of destiny. One road leads to the UPA (Congress-led United Progressive Alliance) government, which has ignored development

In the midst of this election season (and the multiple challenges that India faces), many of us would like to do something. You have told us this at the various Friends of BJP meetings that we have organised and in the hundreds of emails that we have received. So, here are some specific suggestions on what you can do this election:

• Host Drawing Room Conversations
• Visit the Friends of BJP website daily, forward articles to friends, and comment on them
• Write Articles for our Website (send them to more...

BJP leader LK Advani on Monday demanded an apology from Congress President Sonia Gandhi for her statement that India was in greater danger from people inside than foreign terrorists, which he said was an implied attack on his party.

Referring to a reported speech of Gandhi in Jharkhand, Advani said he was shocked about her remarks that "we are in greater danger from people inside than from foreign terrorists entering India".

He said though Gandhi did not name his party, it "substantially accuses us and the comments were clear".

He said in India, there has been a tradition from the past, even in the 1962 and 1965 wars when late Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri had praised the role of Jan Sangh and RS

The concept of triage first arose in field hospitals, where doctors had to decide what to do with large numbers of war wounded and very limited resources. Over time, they developed an empirical method of optimisation, by dividing up incoming patients into three groups: Those who were hopeless, those who could wait for attention, and those who could only be saved if they got immediate care.

The medical staff would pursue appropriate methods with each of these groups. The hopeless cases they would give painkillers to, make them comfortable, and let them die in peace. Those who were lightly wounded they would give first aid to and prepare them for further care, not immediately, but as soon as feasible. The last group, for whom emergency

New Delhi: First it was BJP's Varun Gandhi, then RJD's Lalu Prasad and now Congress' D Srinivas has sparked controversy with an alleged hate speech.

Srinivas, the President of Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee, has come under Election Commission scanner for allegedly delivering a hate speech.

Speaking at a rally in Nizamabad, Srinivas allagedly sai

NEW DELHI: You may not be able to say this about India, but its politicians

It may sound strange, but true that Congress president Sonia Gandhi  neither owns a car nor a home in India.

According to the affidavit filed before the district magistrate Rae Bareli on Monday, the only dwelling unit she owns is an ancestral home in Italy which is valued at a paltry  Rs. 18.2 lakh.

Interestingly, her submitted wealth was just about Rs 1.38 crore, nearly Rs 1 crore less than her son Rahul Gandhi's   as per a similar declaration made by him with his nomination from the neighbouring Amethi Lok S

GUWAHATI: At least seven people were killed and 61 others injured in two bomb blasts triggered by suspected ULFA militants in Maligaon area and The dense smoke at the site of the powerful bomb blast at Maligaon, in Guwahati.  Dhekiajuli on the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Assam.

Assam DGP J M Srivastav said seven people were killed and 56 injured when a powerful bomb blast went off in Maligaon at around 2:00pm(local time), sparking a fire that set ablaze two cars and 20 motorcycles and spread to a three-storey building housing the area police station.

Just hours later, five people were reportedly injured in the Dhekiajuli blast. According to reports, the bomb was planted in a cycle.

"This is the handiwork of ULFA boys ahead of the out

KISHANGANJ(Bihar): RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Monday said he would have "crushed" BJP candidate Varun more...

New Delhi (PTI): Following are the highlights of the BJP Manifesto for 2009 elections:

* All BPL families to get 35 kg of rice or wheat every month at Rs 2 per kg.

* Farm loans at a maximum interest rate of 4 per cent.

* Waiver of agricultural loans.

* Special schemes for the urban poor, such as loans at 4 percent interest to poor vendors.

* Employment generation through massive public spending on infrastructure projects.

* Pursue cow protection relentlessly.

* Abrogation of Article 370.

* Committed to

New Delhi (PTI): Riding on popular local sentiments, the BJP on Friday supported creation of a separate Telangana state in Andhra Pradesh and to "sympathetically examine" the long-pending demand for statehood to Darjeeling and Doars region in West Bengal.

In its manifesto, which was released on Friday, the BJP categorically said it supported creation of Telangana as a separate state and assured that it would "appropriately consider" the demands of Gorkhas, Adivasis and other people of Darjeeling district and Doars region.

"The BJP has always been in favour of formation of smaller states. It was during the NDA's rule that the three small states of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and

Criticising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's comment on the attack at the Police Academy in Lahore that New Delhi  and Islamabad should jointly fight the menace of terrorism, senior BJP leader L K Advani on Wednesday said the statement showed the Centre's "flawed policy".

"I am shocked at the statement by the prime minister reiterating his earlier stand that India and Pakistan should jointly fight the menace of terrorism," Advani, the prime ministerial candidate of the National Democratic Alliance told media persons in Bhubaneswar.

"It is obvious from the prime minister's statement that the UPA government's policy of fighting terrorism is deeply flawed," the former deputy prime minister said.

 <

SP, RJD, LJP not to contest against one another; PMK quits UPA

The ruling United Progressive Alliance is in a shambles ahead of the general elections, with powerful allies SP, RJD and the LJP deciding to contest as a bloc against the Congress, and the PMK quitting the alliance. While a defensive Congress downplayed the setbacks, saying the partnerships were still intact, an elated BJP remarked the UPA had become a “back-bencher” with the desertions and that its remaining allies in Maharashtra and West Bengal would walk out after the polls.

The Congress could face further problems if Sharad Pawar warmed up to SP’s overtures for joining the new ‘front’. While the NCP has recently stitched together an alliance wi

UP outfit leader had offered Rs 25 crore for Bush’s head

Congress might have termed Varun Gandhi’s inflammatory speeches in Pilibhit as violent and communal, but on Thursday the party saw nothing wrong in aligning with a radical Muslim outfit, Ittehad-e-Millat Council in Uttar Pradesh whose president had announced a reward of Rs 25 crore on former US President George Bush’s head.

Ittehad-e-Millat Council will support Congress in the parliamentary elections and the parties would have a seat-sharing arrangement in the State Assembly election slated for 2012. The parties will also have joint campaigning for parliamentary elections.

Ittehad-e-Millat Council

Virtually ending its alliance with Congress in Bihar, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Monday announced candidates for 28 of the 40 constituencies in the State including from the three seats where Congress has sitting MPs.

The RJD chief released the list of candidates here but left without taking any questions.

The RJD had initially stitched an alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP under which Prasad's party was to contest 25 of Bihar's 40 seats while LJP 12. The rest of the three seats were left for Congress.

However, after the Congress rejected the offer and resolved to contest 37 seats on its own sparing the two seats, Saran and Pataliputra, for its two allies, Lalu fielded his party's candidates even in the three seats won by the Congress in the

THE BIG TWO: MANMOHAN SINGH OR L K ADVANI?

The two frontrunners for the post are clearly Congress' Manmohan Singh and BJP's L K Advani.

Current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh headed a stable coalition government for the last five years, is seen as a man of integrity and honesty, is a consensual figure, is highly qualified and experienced economist and enjoys Sonia Gandhi's complete support.

However, he is not in the best of health after he underwent a heart bypass recently. He lacks a mass base and hasn't won a single Lok Sabha election. He als

NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate LK Advani on Saturday said a future Government of his alliance, if voted to power, would enact a law to make it mandatory for every Indian citizen to have a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC).

“We promise to complete the MNIC rollout within three years of taking office,” Advani said, pointing out that this facility would remove the need for ordinary citizens to carry multiple identification documents and will enable law enforcement agencies to do an instant check and validation of anyone's identity.

The senior BJP leader said security was one of the main concerns for making national identity cards mandatory, as the country was facing a grave challenge in the infiltration from Bangladesh and other

As the nation is headed for elections to elect the 15th Lok Sabha, there is an emerging consensus among political pundits that national issues will not matter in the ensuing polls and that the local, regional issues and caste considerations will hold sway in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.

As a result, they seem to believe that a motley combination of unattached regional parties (loosely called the Third Front) will come to power after the polls with or without the participation of either the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Congress. Thanks to this perception of a ramshackle coalition coming to power at the Centre after Lok Sabha polls, there is a sudden buzz of activity in the Third Front camp.

This perception has grown so strong that it has spawned an

New Delhi: After days of tough bargaining, the BJP and the JD(U) on Friday reached an agreement on sharing of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, with the saffron party settling to play the role of a junior partner and conceding one seat.

“We will fight together. The BJP will contest in 15 seats and the JD(U) in 25,” BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley told reporters here after two-hour talks with JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The BJP is understood to have ceded the contentious Kishanganj seat to the JD(U).

Mr. Kumar met BJP leader L.K. Advani over lunch on Friday at the latter’s residence when the agreement was believed to have been sealed. Mr. Sharad Yadav and Mr. Jaitley were also present. — PTI

more...

New Delhi, March 14: Kicking off its Lok Sabha poll campaign, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) went hi-tech and launched its official website here on Saturday in the presence of all its top leaders.

At the function, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani launched the party’s “IT Vision Document”. He said that if voted to power, the BJP-led NDA would enact a

Trying to quash reports of personality conflicts within the party, the BJP on Saturday kicked off its campaign by unveiling its 'IT vision document', detailing how it planned to use information technology as a tool for change in all major sectors, if voted to power.

Positioning itself as a party with a modern and progressive vision, its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani said that they planned to use IT to transform various sectors, including education, health, agriculture and even economy.

NEW DELHI — Small, sick, listless children have long been India’s scourge — “a national shame,” in the words of its prime minister, Manmohan Singh. But even after a decade of galloping economic growth, child malnutrition rates are worse here than in many sub-Saharan African countries, and they stand out as a paradox in a proud democracy.

The path to hell, said St Francis de Sales, is paved with good intentions. When the UPA came to power four years ago, the then Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidamabaram, had made achieving the FRBM target of a fiscal deficit of 3 per cent, a non-negotiable target.

Today, no one believes that it will be less than 9 per cent. Five years from now, when the record of this government is judged, it is only this that will remain. The excuses will hold no water. So what happened to the UPA Government’s resolve, when it assumed office in June 2004, to stick to the fiscal rules under the FRBM Act 2003?

In fact, it was at the initiative of Mr P. Chidambaram that the notification of the FRBM rules was expedited as soon as he assumed office at North Block in June 2004. The intent wa