Almost a week after winning the Assam Assembly polls, Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to decide on the name of its Chief Ministerial nominee on Saturday in a crucial meeting called by the central leadership of the party.
The momentum the BJP has in its favour is partly due to the anti-incumbency wave the Congress is battling.
The BJP's victory in the Delhi Assembly elections has sparked speculation over who will lead the next government. Several prominent leaders, including Pravesh Verma, Ashish Sood, Pawan Sharma, Vijender Gupta, and Satish Upadhyay, are in the running for the chief minister's post. The party's national leadership is expected to make the final decision, leaving the contenders in a state of anticipation.
'The BJP lacks a credible mass leader who matches Mamata Banerjee's popularity.' 'Given the division of votes among Opposition parties, the West Bengal government's dole-giving strategy, and the consolidation of the poor, significant sections of scheduled caste groups and Muslim minorities behind the ruling party, it will be difficult to dislodge the Trinamool from power.'
In a four-cornered fight, the real battle is between Union minister Pratima Bhoumik and CPM's Kaushik Chanda.
The six week-wait for who will rule Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal will end on Friday as counting of votes for assembly elections begins.
'There are more young people in Assam who are unemployed than possibly anywhere else.'
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said it was only "temporary" and did not disclose the reason behind the decision.
Amid protests in Barak Valley, Morigaon and Dhubri, the crackdown on child marriage in Assam entered the fourth day on Monday, with the number of arrests rising to 2,441.
The Assam government has asked the Centre for 600 companies from the armed forces to be deployed during the upcoming assembly polls in the state.
'This is leading to anarchy.'
Hazarika, a former minister, said that he resigned from all posts in the AGP, including that of the general secretary.
Sarma's name was proposed by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and seconded by BJP state party president Ranjeet Kumar Dass and newly elected Haflong MLA Nandita Garlosa.
Nineteen political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, received over Rs 1,100 crore during assembly polls in five states and Union territories in 2021 and spent over Rs 500 crore, a big chunk of which went towards advertisements and travel expenses for star campaigners, a study said on Friday.
BJP minister Sum Ronghang, the hill areas development and mines and minerals minister, alleged that the BJP functions in a "non-transparent manner".
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.
The poll panel has also ordered the sealing of the inter-state border with Assam till March 2, he said.
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved conferring the status of classical language on Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali languages.
Assembly elections in Assam used to be a quiet affair and people outside the state would take little interest in the outcome. This time, even in faraway Delhi, people are keeping tabs on political developments in Assam.
"The voting percentage is likely to go upwards when reports from all polling stations are obtained as polling is scheduled till 6 pm in many constituencies. Final figures will be known on Saturday after the scrutiny of form 17A," the EC said.
Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday said though there is no pre-poll adjustment with the Tipra Motha, there can be local-level understanding with the tribal party, which has emerged as the third pole in the upcoming Tripura elections.
Of the 20,831 voters in this assembly constituency, an overwhelming majority of around 18,000 are not tribals.
A decision on the next chief minister in Assam is yet to be taken though two days have passed since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance won the assembly election and the state chief of the saffron party said on Tuesday that either incumbent Sarbananda Sonowal or senior minister Himanta Biswa Sarma will head the next government.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa on Tuesday said that the Centre is likely to sign a peace accord with militant organisations from the state's Adivasi communities within September.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party would deliberate on its failures and do course correction after internal deliberations.
Sounding the Congress' poll bugle in the state, Gandhi attacked the Modi government repeatedly alleging that it was working with an approach of 'Hum do, Hamare do' -- a term he recently used while speaking in Lok Sabha to claim that the country is being run by only four people.
A forum of families of victims of insurgency in Assam has called upon the Election Commission not to entertain nominations filed by former militants to contest the ensuing assembly election in the state.
After the 18-member 'Assam Advisory Committee' suggested the two organisations to form a political party, a source close to the development said the new outfit will be launched within the next 10 days.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
Bodo tribals influence as many as 30 seats. No wonder, national parties are keen to forge alliances with Bodo groups.
A maximum of 92,000 personnel of CAPFs are likely to be deployed in politically volatile West Bengal, where elections will be held in seven phases, followed by 63,500 personnel in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, where polling will be held in five phases.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday asked Chief Secretary N K Das to institute a probe into Wednesday's incident of protests by Guwahati-based journalists that occurred outside the main entrance to the Assam assembly complex regarding the entry of mediapersons at the time of filing of nomination papers by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for the May 30 Rajya Sabha elections, according to an official communique.
He was on Friday initially barred from campaigning related activities till April 4 for allegedly making threatening remarks against Bodoland People's Front chief Hagrama Mohilary.
Several Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states in the country, including Gujarat and Assam, have expressed their keenness to follow the Uttarakhand UCC as a model.
The elections in the five states, the first major exercise since the UPA coalition government came to power 20 months back, will start on April 3 and end on May 8.
In the recently concluded Tripura Assembly elections, the BJP won 32 seats in the 60-member Assembly while its ally IPFT won one seat.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win more than 300 Lok Sabha seats across the country in next year's general elections and return to power for the third consecutive term with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm.
'Kerala voters vote from their mind rather than their heart.'
Bharatiya Janata Party nominee S Selvaganapathy was declared elected unopposed to the lone seat in Rajya Sabha from Puducherry, the first time the saffron party has got representation in the Upper House from the Union Territory, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's two nominees, Kanimozhi N V N Somu and K R N Rajeshkumar, were elected without contest from Tamil Nadu.
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