In a blow to Punjab Congress, two of its senior leader resigned from the party and joined the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal on Friday.
Two groups clashed inside the Golden Temple premises for close to half an hour on Friday morning leaving at least 12 persons injured, even as the temple city observed a bandh to mark the 30th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.
The Mayawati-led BSP will fight 20 of the 117 assembly seats in Punjab, while the rest will be contested by the SAD.
Farmers shouldn't be denied right to approach court, the MPs added.
Two gangsters, who were arrested in connection with singer Sidhu Moosewala murder case and lodged in the Goindwal Sahib Central Jail in Punjab's Tarn Taran district, were killed in a clash among inmates on Sunday, police said.
The going for Badal, however, may not be smooth as the Akalis will be dependent on the BJP for the survival of the government.
Prashant Kishor expressed the view that the recent 'chintan shivir' could not achieve "anything meaningful".
He was colourful. He was dramatic. He was The Master of His Craft. There never will be an editor as versatile as Pritish Nandy, notes Nikhil Lakshman.
Opposition Indian National Lok Dal was ahead in nine seats while ruling Congress was leading in eight assembly constituencies, according to the trends available for 25 of the total 90 seats in Haryana .
0After committing support to the United Progressive Alliance, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday ruled out his involvement in formation of third front before the next Lok Sabha polls even though he had an intriguing meeting with Sukhbir Badal, President of national Democractic Alliance's key constituent Akali Dal.
'Mr Badal wanted to talk to a member of the Gandhi family to bring about some sort of rapprochement between the Akalis and the Congress which were the two major parties at that time.'
Opposition members on Friday forced adjournment of Parliament till noon by demanding resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in connection with alleged scam in allocation of coal blocks.
The merger was sealed on Friday during a meeting between Badal and Rahul at the latter's residence here where Singh and All India Congress Committee General Secretary Shakeel Ahmad were also present, they said.
President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several central ministers and chief ministers and leaders cutting across party lines condoled the demise of former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday and hailed his immense contributions to the state as well as the country.
Wooing voters for his party candidate in the Moga assemby byelection, Shiromani Akali Dal patriach and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday regaled the crowds with his wit and sarcasm mainly directed at his political opponents.
SAD (B) had already released the first list of its 62 candidates on Saturday.
Ahead of the Punjab assembly polls, former Army chief Gen Joginder Jaswant Singh on Tuesday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Chandigarh in the presence of the party leadership, including Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
The swearing-in ceremony of the Mann's cabinet will be held at Punjab Raj Bhawan at 11 am, officials said.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday visited Rampura village and met the family of the policeman who was shot dead allegedly by a local Shiromani Akali Dal leader after he resisted the harassment of his daughter by the politician and his aides. Badal met the family members of slain Assistant Sub-inspector Ravinderpal Singh and expressed his condolences.
Police have arrested one more accused allegedly involved in the killing of an assistant sub-inspector after he objected to the harassment of his daughter by a local Shiromani Akali Dal leader and his accomplices.
The five-state assembly poll results announced on Thursday brought gloom for several political heavyweights, including two current and five former chief ministers, who lost the electoral battle from their respective seats.
The ruling Congress consolidated its position in Haryana bagging 40 of the 90 assembly seats even though the state appeared headed for a fractured verdict.
'When the assembly elections happened in West Bengal, it was predicted that Mamata didi will win only by a thin margin but she won with a huge margin'
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee's controversial move honouring family members of the two assassins of General A S Vaidya in the Golden Temple complex came in for attack from the Congress as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday.
Speaking at an event organised to remember former Prime Minister IK Gujral on his 100th birth anniversary, Singh said, "When the sad event of 1984 took place, Gujral ji that very evening went to the then Home Minister Narsimha Rao and said to him that the situation is so grim that it is necessary for the government to call the army at the earliest. If that advice would have been heeded perhaps the massacre that took place in 1984 could have been avoided."
Pakistan must get to the root of the conspiracy to eliminate Indian prisoners while in judicial custody, says K C Singh
Veteran Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, facing trial in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, on Thursday told a Delhi court that there was a 'conspiracy' between the Central Bureau of Investigation and his political rivals, especially Akali Dal, to falsely implicate him in the matter.
Balwant Singh Rajoana, a convict on death row in connection with the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, has said that he did not want anyone to defend him.
'The President of India, as advised by the prime minister, has accepted the resignation of Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Union Council of Ministers, with immediate effect,' the Rashtrapati Bhavan said in a statement.
'If you put your own party into the witness box, like what Sidhu did, and treat them as wrongdoers, then how will the people of Punjab trust the party?'
Punjab Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal said his party would abide by any decision taken by the National Democratic Alliance regarding the upcoming Presidential election.
Under pressure from the leadership of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Patiala Mayor Jaspal Pardhan, who has been booked by the police in the murder case of a woman, has resigned. Pardhan's son Preetinder Singh told PTI that his father had late on Monday night sent the resignation letter to party secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema after the ruling SAD asked him to resign on moral grounds.
Amid separatist slogans and "honouring" of death row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana, the 28th anniversary of Operation Bluestar to flush out militants from Sikh holy shrine the Golden Temple, was on Wednesday observed at Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat, an event from which Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal kept away.
'Had the Congress made Sidhu its CM face, they would have won 80 out of 117 seats.'
Actor and activist Deep Sidhu, accused of being the key conspirator of the Red Fort violence on Republic Day last year, died in a road accident on Kundli-Manesar-Palwal highway near Kharkhoda in Haryana's Sonipat, police said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Samajwadi Party, Shiromani Akali Dal have decided to join forces to oppose the government's move to hike the diesel prices every month for the next one year and also increase the price of gas cylinders by Rs 50 to cut down the cost of subsidy.
Following the death of Lok Janshakti Party leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Ramdas Athawale of Republican Party of India is the lone member from the Bharatiya Janata Party allies in the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
The execution of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a co-accused in the killing of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995, is taking political connotations in the state even as top leadership of main parties Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress treaded cautiously on the issue here in Chandigarh.
Shiromani Akali Dal leader Ranjit Singh Rana and another co-accused were on Thursday arrested in the case of gunning down of an assistant sub inspector of Punjab police while saving his daughter from eve teasers.
Accusing the government of large scale corruption, Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha on Thursday asked it to disclose the names of those who have stashed unaccounted money in foreign banks.
