The Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has made it clear that he never wanted the Indian Premier League Season II to be postponed in view of election schedule but only wanted the dates to be re-jigged.
In a bid to out-do the ruling Congress party and others in populist promises, the main opposition Telugu Desam party on Thursday announced that if it comes to power in the next month's elections to the state assembly, it will provide a colour television set to each poor family in Andhra Pradesh.
Former Chief Minister and Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu, who heads four-party Grand Alliance in Andhra Pradesh said with the announcement of election schedule, the countdown has begun for the Congress governments both in New Delhi and Hyderabad.
In a major setback to the Praja Rajyam party of filmstar Chiranjeevi in Andhra Pradesh, the Election Commission of India has rejected its request for a common election symbol on the ground that the party has not contested even a single election so far.
The United Progressive Alliance chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi kicked off her election campaign seeking mandate for another term on the basis of the "good work" done by UPA at the Center and by YS Rajasekhara Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh.
Even as the schedule of Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly polls is likely to be announced in a week's time, all the major political parties have already gone all out with sarcastic television advertisements targeting their rivals.
The Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday assured the state high court that it will extend all the necessary cooperation to the Central Bureau of Investigation in conducting the probe in to the massive Satyam fraud.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who chaired Tuesday's cabinet meeting, the last before the announcement of the poll schedule, presented the results of three different extensive surveys across the state before the ministers.
The seat sharing has become the biggest challenge before the four party Grand Alliance led by the Telugu Desam party. The TDP president, N Chandrababu Naidu is under tremendous pressure from his partners' demand for a larger number of Lok Sabha and assembly seats.
Telugu Desam president and former Andhra Pradesh chief miniser Chandrababu Naidu has dismissed the entry of former Indian cricket team captain Mohamemd Azharuddin as inconsequential and said that his joining the Congress party will not have any impact on the party.
The names of candidates in Braille script on electronic voting machines to help visually challenged voters and deployment of helicopters to ferry people from remote areas to the polling booths are some of the special features of the upcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh this year. Chief Electoral Officer I V Subba Rao told reporters on Wednesday that every EVM will have a strip in Braille with the names of the candidates and other details.
There are signs of trouble between the film actor Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party and the Nava Telangana Party over the issue of an alliance or understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Even as the NTP president T Devender Goud is scheduled to meet BJP's the prime ministerial candidate L K Advani and the party president Rajnath Singh in New Delhi on Thursday, Chiranjeevi has ruled out the possibility of a tie up with the saffron party.
The Grand Alliance of opposition in Andhra Pradesh, headed by the Telugu Desam chief N Chandrababu Naidu, continues to suffer from teething problems and confusion. In a setback to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, one of the constituents of the alliance, the TDP president Chandrababu Naidu has made it clear that the GA will not have any common agenda or program.
The Praja Rajyam party of film-star-turned politician Chiranjeevi has claimed that it was going to win 205 seats in Andhra Pradesh assembly in the forthcoming elections.
The surrendered top Maoist leader in Andhra Pradesh Sambasivudu was today allowed to meet his family after which he visited a house in Vanasthalipuram area where his parents and daughter were staying with relatives and met them after several years. It was an emotional reunion as tearful parents and daughter Swarnalatha received him
In an unprecedented rush for tickets, the Andhra Pradesh unit of the Congress has received as many as 8,000 applications for the 294 assembly seats in the state and 500 applications for 42 Lok Sabha seats. The sources said that the Congress party was planning to release the first list of candidates with 80 names for assembly polls and 15 for the Lok Sabha elections before the Election Commission issues the poll notification.
The senior most leader of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist in Andhra Pradesh K Ilaiah alias Sambasivudu, who surrendered before the police on Sunday night, said that he took the decision to come out of the underground movement because of his ill health and loss of interest in the armed struggle.
In a major blow to the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist in Andhra Pradesh, the organsation's state secretary Sambasivudu on Sunday surrendered before a senior police official. Confirming his surrender, Home Minister K Jana Reddy said that Sambasivudu will be produced before the media on Monday. He refused to share any more details. Sambasivudu took over as the chief of the underground organisation in 2006.
The logo of the terrorist outfit Indian Mujahideen -- depicting the silhouettes of two Kalashnikov wielding men in the background and a globe and a book in the foreground --was created by a Pune-based engineer, according to the prime suspects of the twin blasts in Hyderabad. The three accused in the case -- Aneeq Shafeeq Syed, Akbar Ismail Chowdhary and Ansar Sheikh -- are being interrogated by the officials of the anti-terror wing OCTOPUS.
In his latest film Satyameva Jayate, Rajasekhar has taken a not-so-subtle potshot at fellow actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi.Playing an angry policeman fighting a corrupt system, Rajasekhar rebukes another character, "Why are you using Mother Teresa's photograph for your benefit? Don't you have any identity of your own?"During his much-hyped entry into politics, Chiranjeevi has cited Mother Teresa as one of his inspirations.