Incidents of violence rocked Assam's Samaguri assembly constituency where by-elections will be held on November 13 with both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress alleging that gunshots were fired targeting each other's supporters over the last 24 hours, police said on Sunday.
Jorhat has many attraction to offer for the discerning and offbeat traveller.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Political parties have fielded sons, wives and daughters-in-law of legislators who quit after being elected to the Lok Sabha.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma believes that the BJP could win more seats in the state by aggressively campaigning in minority-dominated areas. He attributed the party's recent success in the bypolls to its beneficiary schemes, which he claims have garnered support from the minority community. Sarma emphasized that the BJP will continue with its development work for all communities and has no plans for appeasement. He also gave an update on the Guwahati-North Guwahati bridge project, which is progressing well and is scheduled to be opened to the public in July 2025. Sarma also hinted at a possible cabinet reshuffle in the coming months.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
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.
A 14-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by three persons in Assam's Nagaon district, triggering massive protests by people on the streets.
The BJP-led alliance in Assam is all set to form the government for the second successive term winning 72 of the 102 seats declared so far and is leading in three others.
Doctors have advised the 85-year-old politician to stay in home isolation.
Throwing security concerns to wind Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday plunged himself amid the masses in Nagaon district of Assam during a road show after seeking blessings of Goddess Kamakhya at the historic Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati earlier in the day.
We are definite that we will form the government here," Sonowal told media persons.
While the flood waters receded in Bongaigaon and Sivsagar districts of Assam, fresh inundation occurred at a dozen villages in Nagaon even as four districts continued to reel under the impact of floods on Sunday.
Even before the trends started coming, eager party workers were seen glued to their smart phones viewing the counting progress online.
Those who have studied Assam elections say the high turnout has the Congress worried.
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