In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
In what has turned out to be an embarrassment for the ruling Congress party in Assam, three absconding persons accused in June 30 mob attack on Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Rumi Nath, 33, and her second husband Zakir in a Karimganj hotel in South Assam, were arrested from the official residence of another Congress MLA in the state assembly complex in Guwahati on Thursday night.
Adequate security and Covid safety measures have been put in place for the electoral exercise.
The Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents.
Political sources say Modi is 'keen' on getting the NCP (SP) over to the Mahayuti to counter Eknath Shinde's 'demands' and to act as a cushion against his present allies, Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu, 'in case their relationship became untenable'.
As suspense over who will become the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra continues, Nationalist Congress Party leader Chhagan Bhujbal on Sunday backed his party's chief, Ajit Pawar, for the top post.
The Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party has issued a whip to all MLAs asking them to remain present for a key meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday, while the rival group headed by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has also called a separate meeting of party legislators in Mumbai.
This is a brief background of the new Cabinet Ministers.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
The communal violence in Sambhal that claimed four lives and left over 20 people injured has now sparked a debate over a purported rivalry between the Turk and Pathan communities, with political and administrative figures weighing in on the cause of the unrest.
After Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, discontent is brewing among Congress MLAs in Manipur.
The newly-elected MLAs of Telangana would take oath during the first session of the Legislative Assembly scheduled to be held on Saturday.
After getting feelers from the Congress, Haryana Janhit Congress, which won six seats in the recent assembly elections in the state, has decided to be part of the next government in the state."At the first meeting of the Members of Legislative Assembly (after the results were announced), we have decided not to sit in the Opposition. We will be part of the government to work for the people of Haryana," HJC leader Kuldeep Bishnoi said.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna passed away at his residence in Bengaluru early Tuesday morning, his family said.
Top state leaders--Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Congress' Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar and Janata Dal-Secular leader HD Kumaraswamy are contesting from different seats.
More than 60 Congress Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assembly and Members of Legislative Council from Telangana region on Wednesday met Home Minister P Chidambaram and demanded urgent steps for the creation of a separate state. The law makers, however, expressed "unhappiness" over getting "very little" time to meet the home minister and sat for more than two hours at a conference hall of the home ministry, apparently as a mark of protest.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
In the 2017 state assembly polls, the Congress had emerged as the single largest party by winning 17 seats.
The situation remained calm but tense in Manipur's Imphal Valley, where an indefinite curfew has been imposed and internet services suspended following violent protests after the discovery of the bodies of six persons, three women and children each, allegedly abducted and killed by militants in Jiribam.
With the four-day old Congress government in Uttarakhand facing a severe crisis, embattled Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna on Friday rushed to Delhi to seek party chief Sonia Gandhi's intervention.
The AIMIM leader said that the party "laid certain conditions related to the development of our MLAs constituencies in Dhulia and Malegaon".
In another display of the politics of threat in West Bengal, a ruling Trinamool Congress Member of Legislative Assembly openly threatened to "behead" a Congress leader in Birbhum district.
With the Congress in power in the state and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) snapping at its heels, the BRS is now fighting an existential battle.
The Telangana issue assumed centre stage on Thursday night as Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily held consultations with Congress members of Legislative Assembly and members of Parliament. Though a lot of hope was pinned by the Telangana leaders on this meeting there was absolutely no decision taken on issue of statehood, say insiders. However, the mass resignation programme by these elected representatives will be put on hold till the assembly elections in five states.
Sacked Rajasthan minister Mahipal Maderna was on Friday grilled for the second day in Devi abduction case by the Central Bureau of Investigation which also questioned his wife and another Congress member of Legislative Assembly even as the agency filed a status report on its probe in the Rajasthan high court.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra Pawar on Thursday filed papers as an NCP candidate for Rajya Sabha elections.
Congress demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting high court judge.
As the CBI tightens the net around Jagan Mohan Reddy over a corruption case, and the YSR Congress chief claims that he is a target of political vendetta, Rediff.com's Priyanka reviews the probe agency's case against the powerful Andhra leader
A total of 19 legislators from the opposition Congress and Aam Aadmi Party were suspended from the Gujarat assembly for a day on Wednesday after they shouted slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party government before walking out of the House over the issue of a fake trainee PSI found undergoing training at a state-run police training academy.
Members of the Karnataka legislative assembly on Monday demanded a thorough probe into the death of chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat along with his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor on December 8.
The muscle-flexing by 140 Members of Legislative Assembly of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, demanding the appointment of late AP Chief Minister Y S Rajshekhara Reddy's son Jaganmohan Reddy as the next CM, has come as a rude jolt to the Congress leadership, according to highly placed sources in the party.The party has realised that the entire power structure in a state should not be handed over to one individual or faction.
Seeking clarification, Karnataka Governor has sent back to the government a bill that sought to collect funds from temples with over Rs 10 lakh annual income, citing that a case concerning the earlier related act and amendments made to it is still pending in Supreme Court.
The BJP may be in the Opposition in many states, but nowhere is it as divided as it is in Karnataka, points out Aditi Phadnis.
The ruling Congress suffered a setback in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday as three Members of the Legislative Assembly from the coastal region quit the party in protest against the bifurcation of the state.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's judgment in which it termed the suspension of 12 BJP members of the Maharashtra legislative assembly as "unconstitutional" and "irrational".
An MLA from Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena faction and a legislator of the Nationalist Congress Party virtually came to blows in the Vidhan Bhavan premises in Mumbai on Wednesday after shouting slogans against each other.
Sporadic incidents of unrest marred the West Bengal bypolls, with a local Trinamool Congress worker Ashok Shaw dying following a crude bomb attack in Bhatpara, an area adjoining Naihati assembly constituency where voting was underway.
Polling on three graduates and two teachers constituencies of the council was held on January 30 and counting of votes by ballot began on Thursday evening and was completed on Friday.
Left with just three MLAs, the Congress does not have the required one tenth of the legislative strength in the 40-member House to claim the Cabinet minister-level post.
Now, the state has an unprecedented situation where there are six major political players with three on each side.
