Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
The yatra, which is scheduled to begin on January 14, will cover 6,713 kilometres and the participants will travel on buses and foot.
Police have recovered four fire arms including two revolvers and 45 vehicle registration plates from the house of the arrested kingpin of a nationwide car theft racket, Anil Chauhan, at Mirza in Guwahati city on Thursday.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
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.
'After the NRC it is proved that whatever the BJP was saying about illegal Bangladeshi migrant was a lie and Indian Muslims have their documents to prove their citizenship.'
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
Sarma, who heads the Bharatiya Janata Party-led North East Development Alliance (NEDA), met Sangma at a hotel in Guwahati on Tuesday night, they said.
The poll panel has also ordered the sealing of the inter-state border with Assam till March 2, he said.
He was 84 and survived by wife Dolly, daughter Chandrima and son Gaurav. Gogoi, a three-time chief minister, breathed his last at the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital at 5.34 pm, Sarma said.
'Elections are fought to win.' 'In our party, the leadership takes the final decision, and our leaders are very clear about it.'
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
In its complaint against Shah, the Congress told the EC that the home minister claimed in a speech in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon on October 16 that "...Bhupesh Baghel's government, for appeasement politics and vote bank politics, lynched Chhattisgarh's son Bhuneshwar Sahoo and got him killed..."
The situation is now under control in the area, which is on the border between the Kolasib district of Mizoram and Cachar district of Assam.
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
The momentum the BJP has in its favour is partly due to the anti-incumbency wave the Congress is battling.
The prime minister was apparently referring to Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg's controversial 'toolkit', which she tweeted and then deleted, outlining ways in which people can participate in the farmers protest.
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.
'Everything was sacrosanct when the BJP was led by Vajpayee and Advani.' 'That was a different culture. But with Modi and Amit Shah nothing is sacrosanct.'
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
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.
Bodo tribals influence as many as 30 seats. No wonder, national parties are keen to forge alliances with Bodo groups.
Cricketer Yusuf Pathan will contest from the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat, whereas Kirti Aazd will fight from the Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency.
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
While the BPF and the UPPL are considered rivals in the Bodo-dominated areas, there was no pre-poll alliance among other parties as well.
Assam's outgoing Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday tendered his resignation to Governor P B Acharya following Congress' defeat in the just-concluded assembly polls.
The state police on Thursday appealed to the people not to believe in rumours as some elements are trying to create confusion.
Former CM Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday accepted his responsibility for the Congress' debacle in Assam assembly polls.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday said the accused in the Kanhaiya Lal killing case in Udaipur were 'linked' to the Bharatiya Janata Party and should have been 'hanged by now' but the investigation by the National Investigation Agency was not progressing as it should.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
Addressing a press conference, BJP Assam president Ranjeet Kumar Dass said that the government will bring in a legislation to safeguard the Indian citizens if the Foreigners Tribunals deliver adverse judgements against the appeals.
The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.
The 14-year political journey of Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra has encountered both upheaval and elevation, as her expulsion from Parliament in a cash-for-query case marked the culmination of her tumultuous parliamentary term.
Legislative assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state are due next year.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
'Kerala voters vote from their mind rather than their heart.'
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