'We were told that the 'yuvaraj' had announced to contest 151 seats, and they were not willing to back down on that number'
Lakshman Prasad Acharya has been made the governor of Assam with the additional charge of Manipur while Gulab Chand Kataria has replaced Banwarilal Purohit as the governor of Punjab under major gubernatorial appointments, the Rashtrapati Bhavan has announced.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday wrested power from Congress in Chhattisgarh, winning 54 of the 90 seats in the state assembly, while the grand old party got 35 seats, a far cry from the 68 it bagged in the last elections.
Former Union minister Prakash Javadekar and another senior party leader Om Prakash Mathur was made poll in-charge for Telangana and Chhattisgarh respectively, a party statement said.
In a sudden move former external affairs minister K Natwar Singh's legislator son Jagat Singh on Monday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. A sitting legislator from Laxmangarh in Alwar district, Singh was expelled from the Congress in the aftermath of the food for oil scam allegedly involving his father about two years ago
Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray, who on Friday attended the swearing-in ceremony of Devendra Fadnavis government following a last-minute call from Amit Shah, held talks with the BJP president after the event.
With May 31 being the last date for filing nomination, the party is set to announce the names of more candidates soon.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be the deputy leader.
The party has also expanded its list of spokesperson to 23, with MP Anil Baluni being elevated as the chief spokesperson and remaining its media head.
With half of their staff on duty and no visitors allowed in waiting halls, many top leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who are under quarantine due to the extended lockdown are exploring ways to keep themselves busy.
"If anybody with a mass base joins the BJP or any political party, everybody welcomes him. Expressing trust in our ideology, if anybody joins us we will welcome him with open arms. This is a normal procedure," Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told reporters in New Delhi.
Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had on Saturday paid a visit to the violence-hit areas of Asansol and Raniganj.
Two other Rajasthan ministers Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena were also sacked from the state cabinet after a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party, its second in the last two days. The meeting was billed as a 'second chance' for Pilot, who had turned down appeals from the party's top leadership -- including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi -- to return to the fold.
Twenty-one serving and retired Indian Police Service officers have been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the last three years in 16 different cases ranging from disproportionate assets to destruction of evidence, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met Bharatiya Janata Party general secretaries and discussed organisational matters as also measures to strengthen the party ahead of assembly elections in some key states.
Besides, the government would also undertake and promote steps for water conservation and curbing extraction of underground water, which is depleting the water table and is a matter of concern, the minister said.
Not only the BJP but key bureaucrats are also known to have hinted to the top leadership of the need to expand the Cabinet.
Describing Shiv Sena as a "natural ally", BJP dropped hints that it would prefer the estranged saffron party to be a partner in its government in Maharashtra even while Nationalist Congress Party's unconditional support continues to be on offer.
A down-to-the-wire contest is likely in some of the seats in the high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in seven states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana, where the fate of candidates including senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and senior lawyer R K Anand is being decided on Saturday.
A lot is riding on the Rajya sabha polls that are scheduled for Saturday. Major parties are whisking away candidates of other parties, while protecting their own, MLAs are being sent to 'camps' in the final countdown to the polls for 57 seats. Here is a state-by-state look:
The deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended on Friday afternoon.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has called a meeting of chief ministers of 12 Congress-ruled states to figure out how to fill out the vacancies in the Rajya Sabha. Highly-placed sources have said that he wants to cajole Amethis's former feudal lord Sanjay Singh; by giving him an RS ticket, in view of his own weak position in Amethi. Renu Mittal reports.
While all political parties have been talking about following in the footsteps of the debutant Aam Admi Party by fielding fresh faces in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-U leader Nitish Kumar has set the ball rolling by deciding not to renominate his party's three sitting MPs in the coming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha scheduled for February 7. Anita Katyal reports.
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