BJP MLC C T Ravi was arrested in Karnataka, India, for allegedly using derogatory language against Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar. He was released on bail by the High Court of Karnataka, which observed that police failed to follow proper procedures during his arrest. The incident has sparked a political showdown between the BJP and the ruling Congress in the state.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
The rout of Sharad Pawar-led faction has raised questions over his political future with a potential risk of a further slide in the party flock in future.
Power distribution company officials said several areas, largely in central and east Delhi, were affected due to the failure. Some areas in north Delhi also faced outages.
Results for assembly polls in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir were declared on Tuesday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party scoring a hat-trick in Haryana while the National Conference-Congress alliance emerged victorious in J-K. Here's how some big names fared.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday pulled off a stunning performance in Maharashtra winning a record number of seats to propel the party-led ruling Mahayuti alliance to a landslide victory while the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) stormed back to power in Jharkhand on the back of a spectacular showing by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
The meeting in New Delhi etc is just the BJP being nice to the man who helped it realise its dream by stabbing Uddhav in the back, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
The Haryana victory will be a morale booster for the Bharatiya Janata Party and increase its bargaining power in the Mahayuti's seat-sharing talks for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections, according to political analysts.
D Gukesh credited mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton for helping him tame the 'emotional pressure' of competing at the World Chess Championship.
Asked if the party would approach the court for the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir's statehood, the NC leader said, "I do not want to get into that right now."
The Congress on Wednesday demanded a thorough probe into 'discrepancies' found in some Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the counting of votes of the Haryana assembly polls and demanded that such EVMs should be sealed and secured pending the inquiry.
He said scientists have noticed a trend of very deep cloud systems developing over the southeast Arabian Sea, and added that sometimes, these systems intrude into the land, like in 2019.
The PM said the Congress and its allies should not encourage the "Pakistan agenda" and speak the language of separatists.
Stalin still enjoys a lot of sympathy and empathy as someone wishing well for the state, but not full-throated support as in 2019 and 2021, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress has said the assembly polls results were "unexpected" and have alleged discrepancies in the EVMs in some seats.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party looks set to retain Haryana, the Congress' poll campaign, which was built around various issues including unemployment, farmers' plight and Agnipath scheme, appeared to have failed to click with a majority of the voters.
A blame game began in the Congress on Tuesday as it failed in its bid to come back to power in Haryana after 10 years, with senior party leader Kumari Selja saying the party high command should assess all reasons that led to the disappointing result and identify the people responsible.
American auto major Ford Motor on Friday said it is preparing to utilise its Chennai manufacturing plant to roll out vehicles for exports and has intimated the same to the Tamil Nadu government. Minister for TRB Rajaa, who is in the United States accompanying the Chief Minister M K Stalin to woo investors, said the efforts of the Chief Minister to reposition 'Brand Tamil Nadu' in its Numero Uno place has yielded rich dividends.
The body of a Bharatiya Janata Party leader was found inside the party office at Usthi in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district, a police officer said on Saturday.
The death toll in the BEST bus accident in Mumbai has risen to seven, officials on Tuesday said as experts inspected the wet leased vehicle to ascertain if it had any mechanical fault.
Praying for those who lost their lives in the incident, Kejriwal said the assembly polls in Gujarat should be held immediately.
The Tirupati Laddu row intensified on Friday with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which is managing the super-rich temple, backing Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu's claim that the famous 'prasadam' had animal fat and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy dubbing the accusations as 'atrocious'.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) has shifted its focus back to Hindutva after suffering significant losses in the recent Maharashtra assembly elections. The party has been vocal about attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh and has taken a stance to "protect" a Hanuman Temple in Mumbai. Observers say this move is an attempt to regain its core voter base and counter the BJP's narrative on Hindutva, ahead of the upcoming civic polls. Analysts believe the party's "secular" stand may not be effective in the BMC elections and that its return to Hindutva is a sign of frustration from electoral setbacks.
Counting of votes will be held on Sunday in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in what is seen as a semi-final contest ahead of the general elections in less than six months.
The strains are telling as old friends and new enemies face each other in the battlefield.
The results in Karnataka were declared on May 13 but the party has not finalised its chief ministerial face yet and the process of consultations is on.
Omar Abdullah will have to negotiate at every step with the lieutenant governor's office and the Modi government at the Centre.
He said Gehlot could tell how he got the call recordings and whether the call interceptions were done legally or not.
But the atmosphere is now conducive for the Mahayuti to continue in power in Maharashtra thanks to the government's people-centric schemes, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is giving promises that it cannot execute, he said.
The Congress hit back at Nadda, saying his letter to Mallikarjun Kharge is a "4D exercise - denial, distortion, distraction, and defamation".
Shinde had retained most of the sitting MLAs, who chose to be with him when he led the rebellion two years ago. They delivered for him on Saturday when votes for the state polls were counted.
Heavy rains continued to lash several parts of Kerala on Thursday, leading to waterlogging in the low-lying areas of major cities, including Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Thrissur.
Election fever has reached its peak in Baramati in the last phase of the campaign for the Maharashtra assembly polls with the rival Nationalist Congress Party factions led by Ajit Pawar and his uncle Sharad Pawar leaving no stone unturned.
Due to heavy rains and waterlogging over the tracks at several locations on South Central Railway network, as many as 99 trains were cancelled and four trains were partially cancelled while 54 trains were diverted, an SCR official said.
Convert the Haryana result into a blessing in disguise; make the calamity into an opportunity. Maharashtra was always the big ticket game in town; MVA must win it. The Congress should shift headquarters to Mumbai for the entire month. Show urgency and a hunger to win, asserts Sanjay Jha.
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
As heavy rains continue to lash Kerala, the India meteorological department on Friday issued an orange alert in eight districts in Kerala for Friday.
The clarification came in the wake of speculation within a section of the ruling Congress about a change in leadership after two-and-half years of this government's tenure.
Amid speculation that he has been asked to come to the national capital by the high command, he said: "I have not received any call yet. Let's see."
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