Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
'Change was very much needed for the Congress to win the 2022 assembly elections.'
"Akali Dal is a part of the NDA but it is a separate political outfit. They have taken this decision because of some political reasons. We have an alliance (SAD-BJP) but both are different political outfits. They (SAD) have taken a political decision," said Sharma.
The biggest winner will be the BJP -- which has such a small presence that every incremental vote it gets can only increase its strength. But the man who will win despite losing everything will be Captain Amarinder Singh, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
Two days after the gruesome murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala in Mansa district, the Punjab police on Tuesday made the first arrest in this case.
Deepak alias Mundi, who managed to hoodwink the police so far, was caught along with two of his associates from the West Bengal-Nepal border.
Does he (Channi) not know how many people from Bihar live there (in Punjab) and how much they have served that land, asks Nitish.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday hit out at the Congress for blaming the anti-incumbency of his four-and-half-years tenure for the poor show in assembly polls, saying the party's leadership will never learn.
As the Kejriwal empire spreads, will he be able to keep the momentum going? And will it be at the cost of greater centralisation of authority in the party, asks Aditi Phadnis.
While members from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland and Tripura are retiring on April 2, five members from Punjab are retiring on April 9.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
'Let the Congress high command decide who will replace Captain Amarinder because they are far wiser than I am.'
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
While the Gandhi siblings have had their way with Amarinder Singh's ouster, the future of the party under the temperamental Navjot Sidhu's leadership is uncertain, reports Sai Manish.
At many places, where the voters had entered booths before 6 pm and were standing in queues, they were allowed to cast their votes.
The total income of national and regional parties from unknown sources for 2020-21 stands at Rs 690.67 crore.
A day before her scheduled appearance before the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi excise policy case, Bharat Rashtra Samiti leader K Kavitha led a hunger strike here on Friday seeking the passage of the long-pending Women's Reservation Bill in this Budget session of Parliament.
Sidhu in a press conference on Friday had questioned the Channi-led state government over the steps taken for the delivery of justice in the cases of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib and drug trafficking.
The game intensified after Congress fielded Channi from a second seat and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia chose to take on Sidhu from the Amritsar East seat.
Taking on his own party's government, Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday asked people whether they were getting cable TV connection and sand at the cheap rates announced recently.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday said the session of the state assembly will be summoned on September 27.
The swearing-in ceremony of the Mann's cabinet will be held at Punjab Raj Bhawan at 11 am, officials said.
The Kartarpur corridor was an excellent opportunity for the Congress to seize centre-stage in Sikh religious affairs. After all, the Akalis never achieved this in their years in power, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
I telephoned Chief Minister Darbara Singh and asked him why this carefully thought-out plan had suddenly been aborted. The Chief Minister sounded very agitated and all he said was that this was not his decision, but the orders had come directly from Home Minister Zail Singh. A fascinating excerpt from retired IAS officer Ravi Sawhney's book, Living A Life.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha will be the consensus presidential candidate of several opposition parties, including the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Prashant Kishor expressed the view that the recent 'chintan shivir' could not achieve "anything meaningful".
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.
'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'
Dominic Xavier asks if the bills will really benefit farmers or if this is a ploy by the Modi government to push the agricultural sector towards privatisation.
The Shiromani Akali Dal skipped the meeting, besides the Aam Aadmi Party, the TRS and the BJD.
'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?'
Pawar, who had surprised the BJP by forging an unlikely alliance of Congress-Shiv Sena-NCP to form government in Maharashtra after the 2019 assembly elections, has already appealed to opposition parties to keep aside differences and join hands to challenge the Modi juggernaut.
'Had the Congress made Sidhu its CM face, they would have won 80 out of 117 seats.'
Asked whether the SAD would pull out of the National Democratic Alliance as well, Harsimrat said it was for the party to decide and a collective decision would be taken on the issue by all senior leaders together.
With Charanjit Channi's selection as Punjab CM, the Congress has got its opponents thinking seriously about their next move, notes Sanjeev Nayyar.
Garg had questioned Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh's criticism of Pakistan while Mali gave a controversial remark on Kashmir.
At least three weapons were used and thirty empty cases were found from the site.
The apex court also said it will consider whether the matter should be put before a five-judge bench
The two-time MP was taking part in the Rahul Gandhi-led march in Phillaur in Jalandhar where he fainted, said senior party leader Partap Singh Bajwa, who was also marching in the yatra.
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