In remarks clearly directed at the BJP, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said Monday that he expected “real attacks” on his party after the Lok Sabha election.

Speaking at a book release function, Kejriwal said he and some of his associates have till now been subjected to “slaps, kicks and egg attacks” during the Lok Sabha election campaign.

“I feel nothing major will happen until the elections get over because otherwise these might boomerang,” he said, speaking in Hindi.

“The real attacks will start after the election. They won’t spare us after the election,” he added.

Kejriwal did not name the BJP by name but the contents of his speech made it evident that he had the Bharatiya Janata Party in mind.

The former Delhi chief minister has been going hammer and tongs against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi all over the country, and has decided to challenge Modi in the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

In his speech, Kejriwal told the audience that he saw a video clip — the result of a sting operation — in which a BJP leader is heard saying that “our own people will have to die to take the movement forward”.

Kejriwal mistakenly referred to the person heard on the video as Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal, but soon corrected himself and said it was Sakshi Maharaj.

And then, in one pointed reference to the party, Kejriwal said the BJP had nothing against Muslims per se. “To come to power they will do anything.”

He added that the “forces” the AAP was ranged against were “very powerful” and these cannot be fought simply with money power.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra told that there was no proposal for her to run against Narendra Modi in Varanasi, but stressed that her family including brother Rahul have told her they would whole-heartedly back her if she ever decides to contest an election.

“No one in my family would ever stop me from contesting an election. My brother, mother and husband would whole-heartedly support me if I wanted to contest,” she told.

“My brother has expressed to me many times that he thinks I should contest,’ she said, adding that she will for now continue to focus on managing the campaigns of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi in their constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.

“My decision to not contest is personal. I will only change it when I feel from within I should.”

A newspaper today reported that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had indicated that she was open to taking on the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Varanasi in UP, but the proposal was shot down by senior Congress leaders.

Her statement refutes reported concerns that a larger and directly political role for her could overshadow older brother, Rahul, who is fronting the national election campaign for the Congress.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley has said that the newspaper report confirms the “Gandhis are under siege.”

“The family charisma has faded away…The real solution to the problem is to make Congress a more structured party. The Congress party solution is, if one incumbent in the family fails, the alternative can only be another member of the family,” Mr. Jaitley said in a blog.

Rajnath Singh, the president of the BJP, has ruled out any change in the country’s “no-first-use” nuclear weapons policy.

The BJP is expected to win the national election that began last week; results are due on May 16. The party sparked speculation about an end to the nuclear doctrine last week when its manifesto said that the party would “revise and update” India’s policy.

“The no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons was a well thought out stand… We don’t intend to reverse it,” BJP President Rajnath Singh told a national newspaper in an interview printed on Monday.
The policy was adopted after a series of nuclear tests in 1998 during the last BJP-led coalition government which led to international condemnation and an embargo being placed on the country by Western powers.

The policy was intended to gain India greater acceptability as a nuclear power, despite it not being a signatory of the 1970 UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

If the BJP is able to form a government under its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, it is expected to have a more muscular foreign policy.

Any change in nuclear policy would be of most significance to India’s rivals Pakistan and China. Neither reacted to news of the possible review.

On the 123rd birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, Narendra Modi attacked Rahul Gandhi saying he was “insulting” the chief architect of the Constitution by taking credit for enacting laws and giving rights to the people.

“It is unfortunate that these days Congress party’s ‘shehzaade’ (Rahul Gandhi), I don’t know why, enjoys humiliating Baba Saheb Ambedkar by repeatedly saying that Congress has given this right or that right. All the rights and laws have been given to us by Ambedkar,” he said.

“If someone claims that he has given any right or law for the country, then he is insulting Ambedkar. Those who do not know the Constitution, they are today taking credit for these things due to political reasons,” the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate said.

Modi’s comments have come at a time when Rahul Gandhi and Congress have claimed that the UPA government has given the Right to Information, Right to Education and Right to Food to the people in the country.

Ambedkar was born on this day in 1891 in the town of Mhow in Madhya Pradesh and was independent India’s first law minister and principal architect of the Constitution of India.

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Monday sought to dismiss reports projecting him as saying there was no Modi wave in the country and denied there were any differences between them.

“There is nothing like differences between me and (Narendra) Modi. He is the party’s most popular leader and he represents the party.

“I said people are frustrated with the misrule of the Congress-led UPA and Modi is the natural leader to reflect the feeling of the people against the government,” he said.

Joshi, who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections, was seeking to clarify reports arising out of a television interview that he had dismissed a Modi wave in the country and that it was only for the party.

Referring to the debate over growth model, he said he had always maintained that India was a huge country with several climatic zones and agro-diversities and there could be no one strait-jacket model for the entire country.

Joshi said the development model of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be applied to Kerala and what applies to coastal area can fit desert region.

He said the BJP manifesto provides for various councils to go into issues and find solutions for development of various zones.

Two Aam Aadmi Party leaders were attacked in different states on Sunday, one of them, Pranav Prakash in Bihar, allegedly with rods and the butt of a pistol. In Madhya Pradesh, a slogan-shouting mob threw stones at senior AAP leader Shazia Ilmi during a rally.

Mr. Prakash, the AAP candidate in Nalanda, alleged that his car was stopped by about 25 people, who fired at the vehicle and smashed its windows.

“I was dragged out of the car. They used lathis on my arms and legs. They hit me with the butt of a pistol. I was also hit on the head,” said Mr. Prakash, who is admitted at a local hospital.

An AAP statement said the attackers “dragged him out of the car into a ditch and beat him unconscious.” The police are investigating the incident and have not said as yet who could be behind the attack.

Shazia Ilmi was in Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh to campaign for the local AAP candidate when unidentified men threw stones at her while she was making a speech, forcing her to stop.

Ms. Ilmi had just begun criticising the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi when the attackers threw stones at the dais raising slogans in support of Mr. Modi. AAP workers and the police chased the men but they managed to flee.

Ms. Ilmi has lodged a police complaint, accusing local BJP workers of attacking her. A local AAP leader alleged that both the BJP and the Congress were behind the attack.

In Bihar, AAP plans a dharna or sit-in outside the Election Commission’s office in Patna to protest against the attack on its Nalanda candidate.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has faced a number of attacks in the last few weeks. An autorickshaw driver slapped him last week during a roadshow in Delhi. He has had other people in crowds hit out at him and has also had ink and even an egg thrown at him.

Terming the Lok Sabha elections as a battle between two completely different ideologies, Sonia Gandhi today alleged that BJP was dancing to the tune of RSS whose “parochial and extremist” thought was aimed at dividing the society.

Wooing Muslims, she said the Congress government has taken “historical” measures like carving out a separate ministry for the welfare of minorities and launching National Wakf Development Corporation while putting a special emphasis on empowering women from the community.

On one hand, the Congress President said at an election rally, stood Congress which has been led by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Maulana Azad and other such greats whose sacrifices are there for people to see.

“There is another ideology which dances to the tune of an organisation whose parochial and extremist ideas spread division in the society. It breaks values and customs which we have preserved for centuries…. I am sure you won’t be misled by them and hand them over a resounding defeat,” she said.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Monday mocked the Gujarat model of development, calling it the “toffee model of development”. “In Gujarat, Adani gets land in just Rupee 1, the same money which you spend to buy a toffee. It’s a toffee model,” Rahul said.

He continued his acerbic attack on Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, “Tata gets loan for 20 years in just 1 per cent interest while farmers get it on 12 per cent.”

Rahul was addressing a rally in Maharashtra’s Latur district and this was perhaps his first clear use of humour to attack his adversary. Rahul’s speeches are more data-based, while Modi speaks the language of the people to attack his rivals, a clever trick to gain popularity.

Continuing his attack, Rahul also said that there was a partnership between Modi and Adani in Gujarat. “Jaswant Singh and (LK) Advani have been sidelined. Now there is a partnership between Adani and Modi,” he said.

In a bid to avenge the rape of her daughter, victim’s mother got accused’s wife gangraped by four men.

Shockingly, among the four men who gangraped accused’s wife, was also her husband (rape victim’s father).

The revenge attack case was reported from Barabanki’s Haidergarh area in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday.

The girl who was raped by the four men was bearing the brunt of her husband’s alleged crime. Her husband was in prison for raping a teenage girl. To avenge the crime, the teenage girl’s mother decided to get accused’s wife gangraped.

She called three men and convinced her husband to gangrape accused’s wife to teach him a lesson. They abducted her, took her near a village under Asandra police station area and gangrape her.

They later dumped her on the roadside and fled from the scene. On Sunday morning, villagers admitted the girl to CHC hospital where her condition is said to be critical.

Meanwhile, police have refused to lodge an FIR in the case.