Left, Right & Centre

Over 2,500 Congress members attended the plenary session held by the party today. The plenary session which is held every four years was addressed by Rahul Gandhi as the party's president for the first time. While Mr Gandhi was expected to outline his strategy to revive the party, the Congress leader struck to a familiar tone of how Congress is the only alternative to the BJP's politics of hate.

Two weeks is a long time in politics, because two weeks ago, the BJP looked invincible, fresh from its victories in the North East. This week, the UP and Bihar bypolls came as rude jolt to the ruling party as the BJP lost, including the key seat of Gorakhpur. The infallibility of PM Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah was dented, and that is what emboldened disgruntled allies to take the final shot - that's why Chandrababu Naidu pulled his party, the TDP, out of the NDA this morning. In some very sharp words, he had described the mood in the country after the bypolls as anti-Modi and anti-BJP. But then the TDP has gone a step further and moved a no-confidence motion against the government, as has their political rival in Andhra Pradesh, the YSR Congress. Many opposition parties are supporting them. The government looks like it is safe, numerically, but now other allies like the Shiv Sena will decide what to do over the weekend, and so will the AIADMK. Will this ally trouble seriously hurt the BJP in 2019?

Ever since the budget session of the parliament resumed on the March 5, every single day has been marred by protests taking place by the opposition. The Congress which is demanding a debate on the bank scam and Nirav Modi under a rule that entails voting. The government says it is ready for a debate but not under a rule that allows voting. The TDP has been demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. The AIADMK wants a special committee on Cauvery water management. This din, this chaos has meant that almost no business has been conducted in the house since the March 5. The one exception was a move which the opposition has called the murder of democracy. Yesterday, the finance bill or the budget was cleared in the Lok Sabha in just 30 minutes with 218 amendments and without any debate. Among the more controversial amendments is one that says there won't be any scrutiny of foreign funding of political parties going back 42 years. Is this how parliamentary democracy should be conducted? Should there not be a debate on key bills? Can the opposition even blame the government when it has been disrupting the house? Or with three weeks to go should the government have looked for a compromise?

What has happened today in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is a huge political earthquake ahead of 2019 general elections. The bypolls in UP and Bihar are telling us a lot about what could happen in next Lok Sabha polls. They say that the road to Delhi is through UP and perhaps today's results then will be wakeup call for BJP that has suffered a stunning defeat in the constituency of Gorakhpur and Phulpur in UP and has not able to defeat Lalu Yadav in Araria in Bihar despite an alliance with Nitish Kumar's JD(U). Over the next 60 minutes we are going to look at these results more closely - what went wrong for the BJP and what do these results tell us about the national picture. Are we reading too much into them or do they really indicate something bigger that is going on here?

Not a single day of work has taken place since parliament started on March 5. Every single day has been a washout and everyone is busy blaming everyone else. Should MPs' salaries be cut for each day that parliament is disrupted?

The BJP calls itself the party with a difference. It came to power with a resounding majority with the hope that their politics would be different. But when it comes to political expediency, they haven't hesitated in taking just about anyone and everyone from other parties. Some may say that's the reality of India politics, but others question whether the BJP is taking a beating on the image front as a result. So people like the Samajwadi Party's Naresh Agrawal are welcomed with open arms with a union minister by his side as he makes a crude, mysoginitic remark about Jaya Bachchan. Naresh Agrawal, in fact, has now been in every major political party. In the past he has called Kulbhushan Jadhav a terrorist, linked Hindu gods to alcohol among other things. Then there is Narayan Rane. The ex-Congress leader until literally months ago was being accused by a BJP MP of corruption and money laundering a few years ago. Narayan Rane even said PM Narendra Modi is a person without humanity. So why are these people in the BJP? Is this smart politics? Or is this is a self goal by the ruling party?

Notorious Samajwadi Party politician Naresh Agrawal joins the BJP and then makes crude remarks about Jaya Bachchan, prompting Sushma Swaraj to tick him off publically on Twitter. Naresh Agrawal has a very colourful past - he has infact been called a Pakistani spokesman by BJP leaders before; he even called Kulbhushan Jadhav a terrorist - all of which are completely contrary to the BJP's brand of politics. But here he was, getting a grand welcome with union minister Piyush Goyal by his side. Is this really a party with a difference?

It was quite a sight. For over 180 km, for six days, nearly 50,000 farmers marched slowly and peacefully towards Mumbai, demanding justice, demanding that the government keep the promises it has made to them, giving them their basic rights. As the protesting farmers entered Mumbai over the weekend, they did something else - they decided to march to the Azad Maidan overnight so that students appearing for exams don't get disturbed this morning. And they sat there, waving flags, quietly making their point demanding the right to own the land they till, the right to get good money for their crops as promised and the right to get loan waivers - a major unfulfilled promise of the state government. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has agreed to many of those demands, but will he keep those promises? Is rural distress going to be the one big issue that defines the 2019 general election?

Thousands of farmers reached Mumbai with a series of demands, including loan waiver and better pay for their produce. Tomorrow, they plan to surround the state assembly. On Left Right and Centre, Ashok Dhawale, President of the All India Kisan Sabha that is organising the protest, promised a peaceful demonstration. The government has promised to look into their grievances, but is too little being done? Will the farmers finally get what they want or will they be subject to more hollow assurances?

About 30,000 farmers are marching towards Mumbai, resting for the night in the suburb of Thane. On Monday, they will attempt to surround the Maharashtra assembly in Mumbai and protest against what they call the state government's anti-farmer policies. What is driving them? Are they asking for the sky, or simply for what is due to them and is government only paying lip service to their needs? Is Maharashtra farmer protest a wake up call? What has happened to the NDA government's promise of doubling of farm incomes by 2022?