The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh suffered yet another blow with its Kakinada MLA Dwarampudi Chandrasekhar Reddy formally joining the YSR Congress on Thursday.
The YSR Congress on Tuesday told Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar that it is against tabling the Andhra Pradesh Re-Organisation Bill 2013 in Parliament.
The reunion of the two parties, which comes after a separation of three years due to what they termed "communication gap," may alter the political scenario in the state, where the local body elections are round the corner.
Spurred by the spectacular victory of the YSR Congress in the by-elections, many ruling Congress members of Legislative Assembly and main opposition Telugu Desam Party are believed to be keen to join the Jaganmohan Reddy bandwagon in Andhra Pradesh but he is said to wary of taking all of them.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
Jaganmohan Reddy, whose party has nine MPs, had already announced last month that his party parliamentarians would quit on April 6, at the end of the budget session, if the special category status was not granted.
P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal were among the 41 winners declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
In the next two years, reveals says R Rajagopalan, Modi-Shah will make a strong effort to woo the south.
Reddy, whose party stormed to power with a landslide victory in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, is likely to discuss providing outside or issue-based support to the Modi government in the meeting, sources said on Saturday.
Governor E S L Narasimhan administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 46-year-old leader, whose party emerged victorious in 151 seats in the 175-member strong state assembly.
State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu also told reporters that TDP has decided to 'expose' the Centre on what it has done or not done to the state -- as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 -- by putting out relevant facts and figures before the people.
Since when have elections become rocket science that you need to hire highly-priced specialists?And even if in the age of social media every party needs to present its best face, is Prashant Kishor the only one with such expertise, especially when his record is mixed with more losses than election wins to his credit? asks Virendra Kapoor.
Parallel to this, the ruling Telugu Desam has been organising rallies across the state in solidarity with its MPs.
Party leaders and workers who were on their way to Naidu's residence were stopped by police and taken into preventive custody.
Legislators from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions did not allow the Andhra Pradesh assembly to transact business when the winter session resumed on Friday as they remained firm on their demand that the Centre drop the move to bifurcate the state.
Rao's death triggered a political slugfest in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh with the Telugu Desam Party holding the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government there responsible for the veteran leader's suspected suicide.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy has resigned as Kadapa MP in protest against "unilateral and arrogant posturing" of Congress party on the proposed division of Andhra Pradesh but stopped short of spelling out his party's stand on the statehood issue.
The DGP was on the "hit list" of the YSR Congress for some time now, as they were perceived to be close to the previous Telugu Desam Party government.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked 16 individuals for posting alleged defamatory material against Supreme Court and Andhra Pradesh high court judges on social media, taking over investigations from the state CID, officials said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the AP CM said that the TDP is ready to bring no-trust motion against Centre as last resort.
Every general election since 2004 has been seeing the foray of one or two new parties into the political battlefield in Andhra Pradesh.
Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Odisha will be held simultaneously in the first phase.
Elections for 19 Rajya Sabha seats spread across eight states will be held on Friday with the contest in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan promising to be a close affair between the BJP and the Congress.
His announcement came amid indications that the TDP, which recently pulled out its ministers from the Narendra Modi government, was toying with the idea of quitting the NDA.
The power struggle in Andhra Pradesh Congress party continuing since the sudden death of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is fast heading towards its climax as there are indications that the party's central leadership will invite YSR's son and a claimant of CM's gaddi Jaganmohan Reddy to Delhi to strike out a compromise formula.
Scores of opposition workers were taken into custody by police in several areas across the state.
Leaders of various parties from both sides of the political divide met President Pranab Mukherjee at the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad on Monday night and put forth their arguments for and against the proposed bifurcation of the state.
All the major parties seem to be waiting for their rivals to blink first as forging alliances has apparently become a tricky affair in the newly-born state of Telangana, which has 17 parliamentary and 119 assembly constituencies that will go to polls on April 30.
Discussion on the draft Bill for the formation of separate Telangana, could not be taken up in Andhra Pradesh Assembly today as MLAs from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema opposed to the move and did not allow the proceedings, due to which the House was adjourned for the day.
Barely a few hours after Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu said at a rally that his party would fight alone in Seema-Andhra, the TDP has gone into damage control mode and says the statement was misinterpreted.
BJP alleged that it was an attempt by a "grand alliance of most corrupt parties" to ensure that its "corruption" was not exposed.
Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com gives the lowdown on the constituencies going to polls in the first phase on April 11.
Though the people of Andhra Pradesh seem to have more or less reconciled to the fact that bifurcation of the state is inevitable, political parties in Seemandhra are leaving no stone unturned to stall the proposed division process, at least till the 2014 elections.
Lok Sabha and assembly polls on May 7 in Seemandhra seem to have narrowed down to a N Chandrababu Naidu versus Y S Jaganmohan Reddy fight, with the TDP chief seeking a comeback while the YSRC supremo is looking to expand his party's footprint in the political arena.
The April 11 polling will decide the fate of several political bigwigs.
Several ministers in his government joined Naidu in the fast, which was held in all 13 districts of the state.
A team of doctors at NIMS, attending on the Kadapa MP, administered IV fluids after his health indicators including blood pressure and glucose levels dropped drastically, a NIMS official said.
He said he requested the prime minister to be 'magnanimous' towards the people of Andhra Pradesh.