Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
'Chavan's political clout began declining since his Lok Sabha defeat in 2019.'
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
The Congress has so far announced 82 candidates for the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls beginning April 19.
'After Manoj Jarange Patil began his long march towards Mumbai on January 20, he kept increasing his demands and the government meekly surrendered to him.'
'We see that a BJP MP abuses a Muslim MP in the Parliament. People are saying that he should not have said all this in the Parliament, they are saying that his tongue was bad. This is the representative of the people for whom you voted'
Oriental Bank of Commerce is set to carry out a major manpower restructuring especially at the acquired Global Trust Bank unit, after it gets a report from National Institute of Bank Management.
A bill will be brought in the assembly during the ongoing session, possibly this week according to sources in the cabinet.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a pitch for electing a strong and stable government in an uncertain world beset by geopolitical tensions as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday released its manifesto, prioritising development and welfare while shunning populist measures and contentious issues like the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday conferred Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour, on former prime ministers P V Narasimha Rao and Chaudhary Charan Singh, agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan and two-time former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, posthumously at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who released BJP's manifesto for the legislative assembly polls, said a committee would be constituted on UCC.
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
'Can we force somebody to contest and fight an election when they don't want to contest an election?'
The Indian Institutes of Management have begun the exercise to sift creamy layer among OBC by asking candidates belonging to the category to give details of their status with regard to 'creamy layer' in keeping with the Supreme Court directive. The move by the IIMs comes in the wake of the HRD Ministry's directive last Sunday to all centrally-funded elite educational institutions, including IIMs and IITs, to implement the OBC reservation from this year sans creamy layer.
Vishnu Deo Sai, a prominent tribal face of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Chhattisgarh, will be state chief minister after he was elected as leader of Bharatiya Janata Party's legislative party during a meeting of 54 newly-elected MLAs in Raipur on Sunday.
The state government had on June 24 directed district adminstration to issue SC certificates to 17 OBCs -- Kashyap, Rajbhar, Dhivar, Bind, Kumhar, Kahar, Kewat, Nishad, Bhar, Mallah, Prajapati, Dhimar, Batham, Turha, Godia, Manjhi and Machua.
State-run bus services have been completely suspended in five Marathwada districts while curfew and Internet shut-down have been imposed in parts of Beed where the houses of political leaders were targeted by protesters.
After consolidating its foothold in south India through the acquisition of Global Trust Bank, Delhi-based Oriental Bank of Commerce.
As many as 430 high court judges out of a total of 554 appointed since 2018 belong to the general category, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, noting that 58 were from the Other Backward Classes and 19 from the Scheduled Castes.
Delhi Finance Minister Atishi on Monday announced the 'Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana' for the 2024-25 fiscal, under which Rs 1,000 will be given monthly to women aged above 18 from the fiscal year 2024-25.
Here is a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the ruling Congress in Chhattisgarh.
Kharge also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the people should not believe Modi's "guarantees".
'Revanth Reddy mounted a spirited campaign in Telangana which turned around the fortunes of the Congress in six months.'
Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management announces admissions to MBA Programme (OBC Category).
Bihar has fertile grounds for caste to emerge as an electoral issue.
The Congress has pinned its hopes on many of the old-timers and also given representation to some new faces in its first list of candidates announced for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled next month.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
A bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and L S Panta delivered the verdict on a batch of petitions filed by various organisations and individuals challenging the decision as being unconstitutional.
The assembly also witnessed a brief adjournment after the ruling alliance members pointed to remarks of Jarange and alleged there was a conspiracy to create unrest in the state.
Five MLAs -- four from the BJP and one independent -- were also sworn in as ministers. However, former home minister and six-term MLA from Ambala Cantt, Anil Vij, has not found a place in the new cabinet.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
Gandhi expressed confidence that a vast majority of the INDIA parties will support and push for a caste census.
The forum, which constitutes 40 OBC lawmakers, including Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Dausa MP Sachin Pilot and JD-U leader Sharad Yadav, termed the creamy layer criterion put forward by the Supreme Court as a 'conspiracy'.
Activist Manoj Jarange, who has been sitting on an indefinite fast in Maharashtra's Jalna district over the demand for reservation to the Maratha community, has refused to get a health check-up done.
A total of 11.45 lakh candidates out of 20.38 lakh have qualified the examination, up by 48 per cent from last year.
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad on Monday said it will go ahead with the admission process for the 2007 batch without providing for 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in the wake of the Supreme Court order.
Mohan Yadav will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in Bhopal on Wednesday morning, and the event will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states among others, a party leader said.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
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