Going on the offensive, the Nationalist Congress Party on Saturday gave Congress a day to revert on the issue of seat-sharing for the October 15 assembly polls in Maharashtra, saying it will "wait a day longer".
The Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Bill, 2020 provides the quota for local people in private sector jobs that offer a salary of less than Rs 50,000 a month.
Devotees from as far away as Nepal throng Sant Rampal's ashram for blessings, particularly the kheer made from the milk in which he takes his daily bath. That's how revered the godman is. But all that might be coming to an end.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Haryana's chief minister enjoys Narendra Modi's support and protection and will be in office unless the state sees a massive administrative botch-up.
The polls have come at a time when opposition parties in Haryana are in a disarray.
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
Apart from the second pandemic upsurge in Haryana which devastated its cities and villages, in most districts panchayats stopped inviting BJP-JJP leaders to social gatherings, while a few announced a boycott.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra expressed solidarity with protesting wrestlers after meeting them at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Saturday and accused the government of 'protecting' WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing allegations of sexual harassment levelled by women grapplers.
Scindia's departure from the Congress also raises question marks about delayed decision-making and status quo in the Congress.
The bureaucracy in Haryana blamed the government for inexperience and criminal negligence.
Senior Congress leaders Anand Sharma, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kapil Sibbal, Raj Babbar, Vivek Tankha, Ghulam Nabi Azad will address an event in Jammu on Saturday which Manish Tiwari is also expected to join.
The Dhingra commission had probed alleged irregularities in the grant of land licences to a firm owned by Vadra and submitted its 182-page report to Khattar on August 31, 2016.
The BJP president tore into the Congress, accusing its leaders of seeing the shastra puja performed by defence minister Rajnath Singh on India's first Rafale fighter jet as a farce.
Rahul Gandhi has set out to revamp the Congress party after the recent drubbing it received in the assembly elections. Renu Mittal reports
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called for a "four-coloured" revolution signifying the colours of the Indian tricolour in the area of power and agriculture, marine sector and milk production to take the country forward.
State leaders have emerged as the biggest road block for Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi who is trying to give young leaders bigger responsibilities, says Renu Mittal
Apprehending that some of its MLAs may not toe the party line, especially as BJP-backed Chandra had claimed support of at least two INLD MLAs, a dozen-odd legislators of the party were on Monday sent off to the hill station in Uttarakhand.
The RJD chief said, "Bihar mandate is a big slap on the Narendra Modi government. PM Modi wanted to fool people of Bihar but they understood his nefarious designs."
The fate of 1,351 candidates will be sealed by 1.63 crore voters in high-stakes multi-cornered contest in Haryana which goes to polls on Wednesday with top guns including the kin of the three famous 'Lals' battling it out in the state.
The elections in this phase are seen as a big test for the Bharatiya Janata Party
'The people who were assigned the role to look after the affairs of the Congress in Maharashtra have failed.'
The final figure of polling could increase and it will be available on Tuesday, officials said.
The toast of the Congress for their tenacity and the difficult choices they made to fulfil a five-month political commitment, their stories are many.
To snatch a state government out of Congress hands is therefore a high-stakes game with national political implications, for it denies the party the essential fuel to run effective election campaigns, notes T N Ninan.
The divide between 'teams' of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's and that of vice president Rahul Gandhi is increasing by leaps and bounds, according to party sources. There appears to be no common ground between the two sides, with both blaming the other for the state of affairs in the party. Renu Mittal reports
High drama played out at the nearly seven-hour Congress Working Committee meeting with sources saying that Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the letter writers and some leaders found it to be insinuating that it was written in cahoots with the BJP.
"If the Opposition gets into singing praises, then democracy will be destroyed," Sharma said.
'An old party like the Congress cannot rely solely on the prescriptions of a 'Doctor' whose motives and intentions are still unknown and that he does not look attached towards any party or ideology,' point out Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
While giving approval to commercially develop land in Gurgaon, the Haryana government considered Robert Vadra's name and status as proof of his company's financial capacity.
Modi's friend, billionaire Gautam Adani, called Sardesai and delivered a personal message from the prime minister.
Members of the G-23, who had shown courage to point out the flaws in the party's functioning, have allowed themselves to be co-opted by the Family to go through the motions of a post-mortem, notes Virendra Kapoor.
"If they (some leaders) persist (with G-23) that means there is a vested interest for a few of them to work against the Congress party which we don't subscribe to and rather oppose it," the former Union minister said.
Congregations of Sikhs in Amritsar and in Karnal against the formation of a separate Gurdwara Management Committee in Haryana were called off on Saturday after the Akal Takht's intervention but Haryana Sikhs went ahead with the election of office-bearers for the ad-hoc committee.
Wouldn't have used 182 pages for report if there were no irregularities, said Justice Dhingra.
Political observers feel that the outcome of the elections weighs in favour of the BJP which had won a massive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections, held earlier this year.
Strongly condemning the heckling of opposition chief ministers at events featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress on Thursday alleged that an "orchestrated" and "well-planned conspiracy by BJP and RSS" is on which is "hurting" the spirit of federalism.
As trends indicated a comfortable win for the grand old party in Himachal Pradesh, Shukla said the party was happy that it is getting an opportunity to form the government in the state and asserted that the party will do everything to fulfill the 10 guarantees made to the people of the state and would provide better governance to people.
The letter was not a challenge to leadership but a parchment of action to strengthen the party, Congress MP Vivek Tankha asserted, while former union minister Mukul Wasnik said those who saw the letter as an "offence" will also soon realise that the issues raised are worth consideration.
For "protection and upkeep" of cows, Haryana Assembly on Monday night passed a Bill which clamps a complete ban on cow slaughter in the state and provides for a rigorous imprisonment ranging from three years to ten years for killing the animal.
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