Ruling out withdrawal from the Presidential fray, the Nationalist Congress Party leader P A Sangma on Monday said if necessary he would contest as an Independent and "not let down" Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who have backed him.
Naveen Patnaik's guest list has been prepared with an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly polls, reports Archis Mohan.
The announcement of Murmu's candidature by BJP president J P Nadda came a day after she celebrated her 64th birthday.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Earlier, it was reported that the judges of the apex court would get the option to choose between Covaxin or Covishield vaccines. Later, the Union health ministry, in a clarification, said the judges have not been given any such option to choose between both the vaccines, adding that it will be conducted entirely through Co-Win system.
Modi reviewed the situation in West Bengal and Odisha with chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik, two days after the cyclone, the worst in years, devastated their states.
Patnaik said the state has also urged the Centre to stop train and flight services to Odisha till April 30.
Pawar, who had surprised the BJP by forging an unlikely alliance of Congress-Shiv Sena-NCP to form government in Maharashtra after the 2019 assembly elections, has already appealed to opposition parties to keep aside differences and join hands to challenge the Modi juggernaut.
Priest-turned politician Yogi Adityanath, 44, who was on Sunday sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, now joins Trivendra Singh Rawat of Uttarakhand, M L Khattar of Haryana, Sarbananda Sonowal of Assam and 70-year-old Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik of Odisha in the league of singletons running state governments.
Balasore district hospital looked like a war zone with the injured lying on stretchers in the corridor and rooms bursting at its seams with extra beds propped up.
Communist Party of India leader A B Bardhan said on Thursday that Third Front leaders are in touch with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who severed ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, to rope his party Biju Janata Dal into the coalition.
"Now it is a ground zero situation. The people of Orissa would hit back and give a befitting reply to Patnaik and his party for the betrayal. The BJP occupies the non-Congress space in Orissa," Javedekar added.
The conference was seen by many as a show of strength by the Opposition with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav joining in to raise their voice against oppression of backward classes.
The Election Commission will start counting votes for Vidhan Sabha elections on May 23. The assembly elections were held in four states -- Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim -- simultaneously with the Lok Sabha Elections over April and May. The Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim Assemblies went to polls in the duration between 11 April and 19 May, and the Election Commission will declare the results for at least 534 assembly seats - which is almost as many as the Lok Sabha seats - on May 23.
Agitators squatted on railway tracks at various places, leading to cancellation, short-termination and diversion of several trains.
The state government's statement came soon after Dutee tried to douse the controversy that erupted when she put her BMW car on sale.
The train crash happened near the Bahanaga Baazar station in Balasore district, about 250 km south of Kolkata and 170 km north of Bhubaneswar, around 7 pm on Friday, prompting the Railway Ministry to order a probe.
In his three-page-long resignation letter to party president and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, he wrote, "It is with deep anguish, hurt and sorrow that I have decided to quit the kind of politics into which our BJD has descended."
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
The opposition's presidential poll candidate Yashwant Sinha on Friday revealed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refused to take his calls when he tried to seek the latter's support for his candidature.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
Sources said Modi also called up various leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham's M K Stalin and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal.
The BJD won 112 of the 146 assembly seats in the recently concluded assembly polls.
BJD managed to retain 112 seats securing another term for Patnaik in the CM chair.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reviewed the post-cyclone situation and damages caused by Cyclone Yaas in the state at a meeting in Bhubaneswar where Odisha government demanded long term solutions to mitigate problems of repeated cyclones and provision of disaster resilient power systems.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
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.
The grand old party faces the onerous task of rebuilding its moribund organisation, which is struggling to overcome a leadership crisis and regain credibility with the voters.
Kindo, a full back in his playing days, was a member of the team that won the lone World Cup for India in 1975 in Kuala Lumpur
However, organisations such as the Missionaries of Charity will not be eligible for the extension benefits as their applications for a renewal of the FCRA registration have already been rejected, according to a notice issued by the ministry of home affairs.
The PM launched the multi-disciplinary sporting event through a video conference facility.
In a series of tweets, Bajaj lashed out at the AIFF for getting the permission to use the stadium cancelled.
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
Patnaik has continued his grip over Odisha with his party, the BJD, winning 112 assembly seats in the 147-member House.
Our political history tells us this has never worked. A united Opposition does work in some specific, limited situations, especially in the states. But never as some brilliant pan-national collection of diverse interests with no ideological or political core, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The ongoing Puri heritage corridor construction work might have caused damage to the 800-year-old Jagannath temple there and the state government project was being carried out without valid permission from the competent authorities, the Archaeological Survey of India on Monday informed the Orissa high court.
Move the pointer on the sentiment meter (depending on who you think will get more votes) towards the political parties to see how the outcome is likely to change.
The latest trend issued by the State Election Commission showed the BJD had already won or was leading in 762 Zilla Parishad seats, as compared to BJP's 46 and Congress's 36 seats.
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