Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha said in Patna on Wednesday that he would carry out any responsibility handed to him with sincerity, as talk spread in the Congress that he could be named the next head of the party’s Delhi unit. Sinha’s response “Personally I have no demand, command or expectations,” Sinha told the news agency PTI, adding that he would do whatever job came his way with full commitment. His name was being discussed within the Congress as a possible successor to veteran leader Sheila Dikshit, who had died recently. WhyRead More

The Janata Dal (United), a BJP ally in the NDA, softened its position in Patna on Wednesday after opposing the Centre’s resolution on Article 370 and the bill dividing Jammu and Kashmir. The party said the law now in force must be respected by everyone. What the party said Ram Chandra Prasad Singh, the JD(U) national general secretary and its leader in the Rajya Sabha, told reporters the party had no wish to continue the ideological argument. “It should be abided by all,” he said of the new law, addingRead More

Senior Congress leader and former Union home minister P Chidambaram criticised the central government in New Delhi on Thursday over its decisions on Jammu and Kashmir, questioning whether a forceful brand of nationalism had ever brought an end to a conflict anywhere. The Kashmir decision The Centre had withdrawn the special status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed under Article 370 of the Constitution and split the state into two union territories. Chidambaram took aim at these steps in a string of posts on Twitter. “Has ‘muscular nationalism’ resolved any conflict anywhereRead More

An opinion column argued that the Congress failed both to rally the opposition on Kashmir and to give its own MPs a clear line on Article 370, and that the Gandhi family’s hold over the party was slipping as the search for Rahul Gandhi’s successor dragged on. A party without a leader The writer noted that the party had gone without a president for over two and a half months. In that period the Congress Working Committee had met twice: once on plans for Rajiv Gandhi’s 75th birth anniversary, andRead More

Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati has removed Amroha MP Danish Ali as the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, reportedly for straying from the party line on the Centre’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370. At a meeting of BSP MPs on Wednesday, she named Jaunpur MP Shyam Singh Yadav in his place. Wider reshuffle Mayawati also made other organisational changes. The party’s state president, RS Kushwaha, was replaced by Rajya Sabha MP Munquad Ali, and Kushwaha was made general secretary of the BSP’s centralRead More