Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had a sharp exchange in the Lok Sabha on Monday, with Shah saying he was not trying to intimidate anyone but could do nothing if someone was afraid. How the row began The argument broke out while the House was debating the National Investigation Agency (Amendment) Bill. Opposition MPs, Owaisi among them, had interrupted BJP member Satyapal Singh. Singh had alleged that a political leader in the state once told the then Hyderabad police commissioner to change theRead More

The Samajwadi Party said on Sunday that it expects to spring a surprise in the forthcoming by-elections to 12 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and to win the bulk of them, weeks after its alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party fell apart following a poor Lok Sabha result. The SP’s claim Former state minister Arvind Singh Gope said party workers had already finished booth-level preparation in most places. He compared the coming contests with earlier by-elections in the Phulpur, Gorakhpur and Kairana parliamentary seats and the Noorpur assembly seat, andRead More

BSP chief Mayawati said in Lucknow on Monday that a “wrong practice” of forcing people to chant religious slogans had taken root in Uttar Pradesh and some other states, and asked the Centre and state governments to take strong action against it. Her comments followed a complaint by a cleric that he had been made to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Mayawati’s statement In a post in Hindi on Twitter, Mayawati said the practice of compelling people to chant religious slogans and committing atrocities against them should be condemned. She saidRead More

Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who made his resignation from the Punjab cabinet public on Sunday, again used social media to say his resignation letter had now gone to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. He had been criticised for tweeting a letter addressed to the Congress president rather than to the chief minister. Criticism of Sidhu Sidhu was attacked from several quarters after stating that he had left the cabinet on June 10. His critics accused him of trying to pressure the party’s central leadership and said the letter should have goneRead More

Rebel Karnataka Congress MLA MTB Nagaraj, who had earlier suggested he might bring another disgruntled legislator back from Mumbai, joined the rebels there on Sunday and declared that he would not take back his resignation. Fellow rebel ST Somashekar told a press conference in Mumbai that the group was united. Rebels stand firm “We won’t take back resignations. There’s no division among the rebel MLAs,” Somashekar said. He added that the group was not in contact with any other political party and was not responding to any party that triedRead More