BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are taking place today, with the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance seeking to retain power and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) hoping for a comeback. The campaign saw prominent leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crisscrossing the state to garner votes. The Mahayuti is banking on popular schemes while the MVA focuses on issues like caste-based census and social justice. The elections have also seen a significant rise in the number of candidates and voters.
Wouldn't it be better to join the celebrations with the vast Hindu majority while at the same time criticising Mr Modi/BJP/RSS for politicising it? notes Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused the Congress again of planning to redistribute people's property if it is voted to power, but stopped short of saying that the wealth would go to Muslims.
Congress and Rashtriya Lok Dal held a crucial meeting in New Delhi on Thursday night to finalise seat sharing arrangements for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections to be held early next year.
'Priyanka Gandhi play is not only about winning allies and lifting spirits; it's also about cash'
Of the total 166 names declared so far by the Congress, 119 candidates will be making their electoral debut.
In the last five years, 480 candidates with declared cases related to hate speech have contested elections to state assemblies, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the ADR said.
Congress, the main Opposition party in the BJP-ruled state, had left the Khajuraho seat for SP as per the seat-sharing arrangement within the INDIA bloc.
The threat message was received on the Mumbai traffic police helpline and an officer read it around midnight, the official said.
Rai said that the terminology was part of the regional dialect and there was nothing obscene about it.
Akhilesh Yadav confirmed in a television interview that the press conference is on the alliance in Uttar Pradesh, while parrying questions on the Congress.
Farmers from Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring states on Tuesday offered 'antim ardas' -- the final prayers in the Sikh tradition -- for the protesters killed in the recent violence in Lakhimpur Kheri, with their leaders vowing to intensify the agitation against the Centre's new agri laws.
SP has already fielded its sitting MLA from Gauriganj seat.
Noting that elections will be held in four states, she urged party leaders to sustain the momentum and goodwill that had been generated for the party in the Lok Sabha elections.
Shah asserted that the BJP will once again form the government in Uttar Pradesh with a comfortable majority.
Gandhi said the party will defeat the saffron party and Narendra Modi in Gujarat just the way it was defeated in Ayodhya.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have called his MLAs and ministers and said 'this should not happen in India. Manipur is not a part of any banana republic, I will not allow this to happen, talk it out, what is the problem'
Congress MLA Ajay Rai was on Tuesday arrested along with 50 others in connection with violence and arson in Varanasi on Monday as the administration cracked down on miscreants in the holy city where the situation was peaceful amid continued police patrolling.
The BJP leader said the Congress wants to divide the country on the basis of religion and region.
The Congress is all set to fire the first major salvo against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati when Rahul Gandhi flags off 10 simultaneous yatras on April 14, which would cover the entire state and carry the message of the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance's achievements and mark the 20 years which the state of Uttar Pradesh has "existed" without Congress rule.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
Rahul Gandhi is not to be blamed if the Congress does not perform well in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, whose results will be out on Tuesday, party leaders said on Saturday. "A leader creates an atmosphere. To convert that atmosphere into votes and seats is the responsibility of candidates and the organisation," All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge for Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh said.
'Mayawatiji no more controls the bahujan vote in UP.' 'In this election more than 40 per cent of the BSP's core voters blessed the SP without the SP even asking for it.'
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla recognised Rahul Gandhi as the leader of opposition on Wednesday, a day after the Congress communicated its decision to name him for the position to the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
"We are going to have a meeting with our partners tomorrow. These questions will be raised and answered there," Gandhi told a press conference in New Delhi when asked if the Congress and its allies will approach parties that are part of the National Democratic Alliance to try and form a government.
'If his health was good he would have become CM again after polls.' 'Those who are with Nitish Babu today will remain with him till the elections to use his name for votes and would definitely play games with him after the polls.'
Allahabad has seen some interesting battles, such as the Congress's Amitabh Bachchan defeating H N Bahuguna in 1984 or the 1988 by-poll that marked V P Singh's emergence as the contender for the PM post.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
The last time a non-Gandhi was in the fray from the constituency was in 1998, when Satish Sharma, a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, contested the polls but lost to the BJP's Sanjaya Sinh.
Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh elections, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra have arrived in Bhopal as part of the ruling party's programme wherein every legislator will be allotted one assembly seat each that they are supposed to visit to take stock of the ground situation, party leaders said.
Telangana Minister J Krishna Rao told reporters that the chances of survival under the circumstances are "not that good."
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
Soon after meeting, Raut hinted at a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in UP and Goa, stating that the parties are thinking of working together in both the states that are scheduled to go to assembly polls early next year.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
Though the 91-year-old leader is no longer politically much active, his joining the saffron party is being seen as a boost to it ahead of the Uttarakhand assembly polls.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
The party renominated Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram seat.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
