Ruling Biju Janata Dal vice-president Soumya Ranjan Patnaik was removed from his post on Tuesday, months before the simultaneous assembly and Lok Sabha polls in Odisha for allegedly writing critical editorials in his Odia daily.
Senior Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler, Niranjan Patnaik and several others were on Saturday booked by the police in connection with a clash between party supporters and policemen during a rally that left over 260 people injured in Bhubaneswar.
More than a dozen trains were stopped at several railway stations, including Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Khurda Road, Berhampur and Sambalpur as bandh supporters staged dharna on the tracks, a spokesman of East Coast Railway (ECoR) said.
A day after the Congress's second straight defeat in the national election, resignations were flying.
Terming the severe floods in Orissa as man-made, Congress on Tuesday accused Biju Janata Dal government in the state of failing to provide relief to marooned people after exposing its inability in preventing the calamity.
Patnaik, won his his home turf Hinjili by over 60,000 votes, while he was leading from Bijepur till early on Friday morning.
The chief minister's statement is significant as several non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties are trying to forge unity in a bid to form a grand alliance to take on the ruling party in the Lok Sabha elections this year.
Chants of 'Jai Jagannath' rent the air all over as the news about the Supreme Court giving its nod for holding the world famous car festival in the pilgrim town reached the state bringing cheers among people, irrespective of caste, creed and religion.
This race among parties to woo the farmers mainly stems from the analysis of political pundits that the peasant class played a crucial role in the defeat of the BJP in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh.
The Naveen Patnaik-led party bagged 112 of the 146 assembly seats despite the Modi wave in the country.
The National Democratic Alliance, led by strong man Narendra Modi secured a whopping 352 of 542 seats, making it evident that his message of muscular nationalism, security and Hindu pride had worked wonders.
The Congress's new treasurer Ahmed Patel has been meeting industrialists and businessmen. He met one of the biggest industrialists of the country last week, but the assurance of any significant donation was half-hearted from the other end. Business houses aren't exactly queuing up to offer donations, reports Archis Mohan.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
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