The elections in two eastern Indian states were keenly observed in Bangladesh for two major contentious issues, writes Prakash Bhandari from Dhaka.
The move is being seen as an attempt to forge opposition unity to defeat the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
Ahead of the visit of an all-party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir, political parties on Saturday pitched for holding dialogue with "all stakeholders", including Hurriyat, to douse the unrest and banning the use of pellet guns by security forces.
Arch-rivals Left and Trinamool, SP and BSP come together for Sonia's lunch
Kumar, a Dalit, as its candidate for president against NDA's nominee Ram Nath Kovind.
The GST Bill, seen as single biggest tax reform in a long time, needs to be ratified by at least 15 state legislatures before the President can notify the GST Council which will decide the new tax rate and other issues
The All Assam Students Union on Wednesday launched statewide protests against Assam Congress' decision to field a candidate from outside the state, Sanjay Singh in Rajya Sabha election in Assam bowing to the dictate of party high command.
Results coming out of Lok Sabha polls show that parties like Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party and Tamil Nadu's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam managed to corner a large number of votes but failed to convert them into seats, while parties with lesser vote share have got seats to show in their kitty.
Mudslinging and verbal attacks will definitely surge once the poll dates are announced, but as with any state, there are some crucial issues which will play a significant role in influencing voters in Assam too, says Devanik Saha.
Sonowal, who steered the BJP to victory in the elections, has put the issue of infiltration and attempts to check them as his government's priority.
Cross-voting by Left and Congress MLAs on Friday helped Trinamool Congress gain an extra seat in West Bengal while a similar action by Congress MLAs in Andhra Pradesh saw the Telangana Rashtra Samithi making its debut in Rajya Sabha as high drama marked the polls to the upper House in the two states.
Thirty-five per cent of the 64,41,634 voters exercised their franchise till noon on Monday in five Lok Sabha constituencies of Assam where four persons clashed with CRPF personnel demanding that they be allowed to cast their vote first in Kaliabor constituency.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
The Bharatiya Janata Party appeared to cede ground in Uttar Pradesh where Samajwadi Party was leading on six of the 11 Assembly seats where bypolls were held while it was neck and neck with Congress in Gujarat and behind in Rajasthan, exactly four months after it swept the three states in Lok Sabha elections.
Rajnath Singh led the delegation of 26 MPs from 20 parties which stayed overnight in Srinagar before stopping over in Jammu this afternoon.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
While Bharatiya Janata Party's countrywide vote share shot up by over 12 per cent at the expense of other parties, the chart throws some contrary pictures as parties like Bahujan Samaj Party got no seat in spite of third-highest vote share, but Trinamool Congress and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam clinched over 30 seats each with less than 4 per cent vote share.
The Congress has been reduced to a C player in national politics thanks to its inability to read the pulse of the people, says Rashme Sehgal.
After Bihar elections, Rahul Gandhi's go-it-alone strategy seems to have taken a back seat.
Why the Bihar defeat can be the best thing for him as PM, but only if he has the humility to read the writing on the wall, says Shekhar Gupta.
The BJP's panicky return to basic-instinct majoritarianism in Bihar has pushed Muslims back into the 'secular' basement, says Shekhar Gupta.
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