Bypolls in three assembly constituencies in as many states passed off peacefully on Monday with around over 70 per cent voter turnout, though some technical glitches in electronic voting machine were reported in Tamil Nadu and the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal alleged that the Central Reserve Police Force was "influencing" voters.
The Congress quickly hit back accusing TMC of being a 'stooge of BJP' and challenged it to prove its credentials on a 'pan India' platform.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has 17 crorepati candidates followed by Tipra Motha with nine and the Communist Party of India-Marxist seven, the report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a civil society organisation, said.
Among the suspended members, six are from the Congress, two each from the TMC and Shiv Sena and one each from the CPM and the CPI.
Briefing reporters, Nadda said his party has proposed that if holding the three-tier polls together was not possible immediately, then Lok Sabha and assembly elections can be held together first.
TMC Rajya Sabha MP and leader of the party in the Upper House Derek O'Brien and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Lok Sabha MP and leader of the party in the Lower House, have written to presiding officers of both Houses, urging then to wind up proceedings on Monday (March 23).
The exit polls further pointed out that the northeastern state would have a hung house, with Sangma's National People's Party (NPP) emerging as the single-largest party.
"The Congress in a way is in the grip of urban Naxals. That is why its thought has become negative," Modi alleged in his 90-minute speech.
BJP won 18 of the seats while the TMC won 22 of the seats.
This is for the second time in the last three months that Sinha has come out with praising words for Rahul Gandhi and his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
As soon as the Question Hour ended, Congress' Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury demanded that a discussion on the 'Indo-China border situation be held', saying late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed a discussion in Lok Sabha on the India-China war in 1962.
According to the former Union minister, Banerjee has also said that she was ready to forget her experience with the Congress in the West Bengal state elections.
Opposition parties on Thursday continued their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over inauguration of the new Parliament building and accused him of being 'megalomaniac' and the government of being 'arrogant'.
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"Objectively, it is only the Congress that has a footprint, shall we say, in eight to 12 states. So to have healthy democracy in which one party does not steamroll the Opposition, the kind that India experienced from the late 1970s till 2014, to revive that, to restore it, which I believe would be very good for all of us, it would depend a lot on the Congress becoming more competitive," he claimed.
Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
Industry leaders have urged the government to carry forward the reforms process.
Panel chairman Thakur is believed to have informed Dev that the issue was not on the agenda for the meeting.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
'No, that is not an abbreviation for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha,' says T V R Shenoy, 'but for J Jayalalithaa-Mamata Banerjee-Mayawati-Mulayam Singh Yadav... If the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, and other regional forces do extremely well, we could be heading for a repetion of the 9th Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) and the 11th Lok Sabha (1996 to 1998), each of which saw multiple prime ministers and neither of which lasted even half of its five-year term.'
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra's expulsion from the Lok Sabha triggered a political slugfest on Friday, with the opposition calling it a 'betrayal of India's parliamentary democracy' and the Bharatiya Janata Party asserting that it was an 'apt decision' as there was proof of the allegations levelled against her.
Ajmal in an interview to a media house on Friday had commented on women and Hindu men as well as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, purportedly as a rejoinder to his remarks on 'love jihad'.
Banerjee said the two leaders discussed the current political scenario and strategies to oust the BJP in assembly and Lok Sabha elections at the 20-minute meeting at Gandhi's residence.
The meteoric rise of Shajahan Sheikh from a modest background of a helper in a local transport company to becoming the so-called 'tiger' of Sandeshkhali is what Bollywood film scripts are made of. And so does his fall.
After a meeting of the AAP's highest decision making body -- political affairs committee (PAC) -- at party national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence in New Delhi, Chadha also welcomed the Congress' decision to oppose in Parliament the Centre's ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi.
Mahua asserted that despite all efforts by the Bharatiya Janata Party to "sound the death knell" for constitutional democracy, India is too great a country to be destroyed by the fascists.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged people to celebrate the Hanuman Jayanti festival peacefully, and said while religion is a personal choice, festivities were an occasion for all to join in.
At least three people were killed and several others injured in a blast near the venue of senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee's rally in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district, police said on Saturday.
From the landing of Chandrayaan 3 to the bombardment of Palestine by Israel, a look at some events that shaped the world in the second half of 2023.
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The Supreme Court on Thursday extended Mishra's tenure till the midnight of September 15 in larger "public and national interest", after the Centre asserted that his continuity is necessary in view of the ongoing FATF peer review and attempts by India's neighbours to ensure that the country gets into the "grey" list.
In a first since last year's state elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday held a 'courtesy meeting' with Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari at her chamber in the state assembly, raising eyebrows in political circles.
Kerala Chief Minister and CPI-M leader Pinarayi Vijayan, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, West Bengal CM and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, and Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy lent support to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government's fight with the Centre.
If Hindus are in minority in a particular state they should be able to establish and administer educational institution of their choice in keeping with the rights granted to the minority by the Constitution as per the Centre, she said.
Sources at the private hospital where Mitra was admitted to said he died due to heart and age-related ailments.
The TMC general secretary, considered number two in the party, shared the letter sent to him by the central agency on X, formerly Twitter.
With this kind of coinage, the Opposition seems to be readily conceding the point that Modi is taller than all of them put together. So they need something bigger than themselves, collectively or not, to capture the voter imagination when it is about taking on Modi and the BJP in 2024, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Parliament proceedings were adjourned amid ruckus and sloganeering by the Opposition members over the Adani issue.
These meetings with Pawar has fuelled speculations about the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a third front against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Donations from corporates to the national parties increased by 109 per cent between FY 2017-18 and 2018-19, said an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO working for bringing in transparency in electoral politics.
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