Speculation about Sharmila growing closer to the Congress has been doing the rounds for quite some time after she met Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar in Bengaluru in May to congratulate him on the victory of the party in the neighbouring state.
Uddhav Thackeray claimed the new Narendra Modi government at the Centre, which was sworn in on June 9, will collapse and will be replaced by an INDIA bloc dispensation.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
'What matters is policies, not personalities like Priyanka, Rahul or Modi.'
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
A Ganesh Nadar's close encounters with the Election Commission.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
'The strategy of frontal organisations of the Maoists is to create unrest and ensure that such unrest leads to a law and order problem.' 'To cover such acts it was necessary to bring in a different definition of unlawful activities which is different from the definition of unlawful activities in the UAPA.'
Surprisingly, the BJP's nearest rival in ad spend was not the Congress, but the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
With several leaders from the Seema-Andhra region waiting to defeat the Telangana resolution in the assembly, the Congress is exploring the possibility of imposing the President's rule in the state.
Call it the art of staying rooted yet bending with prevailing political winds. With Telangana going to the polls in December, and assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra and Odisha scheduled next year, what factors have influenced parties' recent moves?
Reddy faced the biggest challenge of his political life in 2015 when he was allegedly caught on camera trying to bribe a nominated MLA to vote in favour of the TDP in a legislative council election.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Rediff.com highlights the provisions of the controversial Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, which was introduced by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde in Lok Sabha on Thursday amidst pandemonium.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The incumbent ministers put in their papers at the meeting of the cabinet, which was their last, at the secretariat in Amaravati.
Govt decides to impose central rule in Andhra Pradesh New Delhi, Feb 28 (PTI) Govt to impose President's rule in Andhra Pradesh The government on Friday decided to impose President's rule in Andhra Pradesh and keep the assembly in suspended animation. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union cabinet while taking up an agenda item "political situation in Andhra Pradesh" and "proclamation under Article 356 (1)", sources said. The move comes in the wake of the resignation of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy following the government's decision to bifurcate the state. Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan will hold the charge during the period of President's rule. The term of the 294-member current Andhra Pradesh assembly expires on June 2, 2014 before which elections are to be held. The Election Commission is set to declare assembly polls along with the Lok Sabha elections in the next few days. The ruling Congress in the state did not propose another candidate to succeed Reddy, who quit as a member of Legislative Assembly as well as from the party protesting against the decision to create Telangana. The bill to create the country's 29th state, by splitting Andhra Pradesh, was passed by Parliament in the just-concluded winter session.
The agency made the disclosure in a chargesheet filed by it on May 10 against former Telangana chief minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Chandrashekar Rao's MLC daughter K Kavitha and four others.
The decision about the high-powered committee was taken as the government apparently thought of taking one step at a time instead of hurrying things up in the face of growing resistance from farmers who gave their lands for the development of Amaravati as the new capital, under the previous government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu, reports Dasarath Reddy.
The Election Commission Wednesday decided to defer proposed by-polls to three Lok Sabha and eight assembly seats in view of the prevailing coronavirus situation in the country.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Crores are being spent in the high-stakes election poker in Andhra Pradesh.
Preparing to take office for a record third consecutive term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday pledged to work with all states, regardless of the party in power, to build a developed India.
According to the Election Commission of India, the code has evolved over the last 60 years to assume its present form.
The proportion of postal votes polled in the general elections has gradually risen since 2009.
Ministers from Telangana region on Monday stayed away from the Andhra Pradesh cabinet meeting which has been convened for approving the vote-on-account budget for 2014-15.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
Elections will be held in a united Andhra Pradesh, but on June 2, two separate governments will be formed at Telangana and Seema-Andhra. Vicky Nanjappa reports
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
Bharatiya Janata Party's National Democratic Alliance partners have got five cabinet ministerial berths in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as against none in the outgoing government, given the party's dependence on allies for a majority in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
Under the amended legislation, the basic pay of chief minister has been enhanced from Rs 5,250 to Rs 16,000 a month and that of ministers (including deputy chief minister) from Rs 5,000 to Rs 14,000.
A sobbing Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday vowed to step into the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly again only after returning to power.
The move comes a day after the government called a special session of Parliament between September 18 and 22, the agenda for which is under wraps.
The federal agency had arrested 46-year-old Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, from her Banjara hills residence in Hyderabad on March 15.
The list of guests included celebrities from across the globe, politicians, the who's who of Hindi and south Indian cinema world and almost all the top cricketers of the country.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
Days before the first vote for the Lok Sabha polls is cast, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the rival Nationalist Congress Party factions led by party founder Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar to abide by its directions on the use of symbols, party names and disclaimers in publicity material for the elections.
The Congress alleged that the claims made by the ED against Baghel are part of a "conspiracy" hatched by the BJP to tarnish the Chhattisgarh chief minister's image and asserted that the people of the state would give a befitting reply to such tactics in the upcoming Assembly poll.
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