'As demonetisation showed us, the Shah-Modi duo can take big risks.' 'Risking economic damage for political benefit, however, is one thing, stoking old fires in complicated Assam is another', warns Shekhar Gupta.
The stage is all set for the second and final phase of polls in 64 Assembly constituencies in 14 districts of Central and Lower Assam amidst tight security on Monday.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on these quaint developments.
Spells of communal as well as ethnic violence, that have become the bane of life in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas of Assam, which have claimed 731 lives since 1993 in the area.
Bodoland Peoples' Front Member of Legislative Assembly Pradeep Brahma, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in the recent violence in Assam, has been granted bail by the Gauhati high court.
The results for the polls will be announced on May 18, Election Commission sources said.
Voting is underway in three Lok Sabha and 33 assembly seats across 10 states where by-elections are being held on Saturday.
Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said people of the state have voted for development and protection of their identity.
What was the "locus standi" of Sonia Gandhi when she along with the then prime minister Manhoman Singh inaugurated legislative buildings in Manipur and Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked on Wednesday while countering the Congress's criticism over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The None of the Above option, like previous polls, had few takers in the assembly elections to West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
'One reason given for the failure of the Congress in Assam was due to the alliance with the AIUDF.'
The rebels have been expelled for six years for anti-party activities; Assam Pradesh Congress committee media cell chairman I P Hazarika said in Guwahati on Monday.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi rejected Tarun Gogoi's offer to resign after the party's poor performance in the state. Anurag Kashyap reports.
Kejriwal charged that the BJP toppled Manipur, Bihar, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra governments.
"There was a knock on the door around 2 am on Thursday. We opened the door and found policemen outside. They took away my husband," Nimee told PTI in a feeble voice, as her one-and-half-month-old son cried in her arms just as he was when his father was being arrested.
The widely expected development underlines the party's preference for continuity as it gears up for the all-important Lok Sabha polls next year, expected in April-May.
FIR was registered against Assam CM Gogoi for poll code violation for holding a press conference when the second and final phase of assembly polls in the states were on
The scribe alleges that she was abused inside the police station.
Assam government will update National Register of Citizens in 42 legislative assembly constituencies in eight districts of Assam in the first phase. According to an official source, the 42 LACs are from Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Lakhimpur, Nagaon and Sonitpur districts.
'People understand Hitlershahi, tanashahi and now Modishahi.'
The Assam police and security forces have seized 344 illegal weapons from extremists from the troubled Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in Assam from 2012 to July, 2014.
The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days, even as the ruling BJP has been striving to break the 38-year-old pattern of alternating governments and retain its southern citadel.
'It is difficult to replace him because if he is replaced, it will lead to a sense of defeat among the Meiteis, rightly or wrongly, and more chaos.'
Tarun Gogoi, who steered the Congress to a spectacular win in Assam, will be sworn-in as chief minister for the third consecutive term on Wednesday, Pradesh Congress Committee sources said on Monday.
In the heart of lower Assam -- Nalbari, Baksa and Barpeta districts -- the battle of ballot is basically confined to the regional Asom Gana Parishad and the ruling Congress majority of the total 14 constituencies, while the All India United Democratic Front and the Bodo People's Front are emerging front runners in rest of the constituencies.
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.
The youngest in the CWC is 31-year-old Neeraj Kundan, who is an ex-officio member of the body as the president of the National Students Union of India, the students' wing of the party.
Banerjee pointed out that the pain and trauma of Partition was such, that people in the state have never commemorated any day as foundation day since India's Independence.
A video of MLA Dilip Lande entering the luxury hotel in Guwahati, where the party rebels have been camping for the past few days, was shared by Shinde's office in Mumbai on Friday.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Monday stated that the ruling Congress in Assam was facing 'double anti-incumbency' this election and the poll results were bound to reflect the people's desperate wish for a change of guard.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Speaker Tanka Bahadur Rai, Deputy Speaker Pranati Phukon and a host of Cabinet ministers and Congress veterans are among the total 485 candidates whose fate will be decided on Monday in the first phase of the Assembly elections in Assam to be held in 62 Local Authorities Constituencies spread over 13 districts.
Thousands of tribals from Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha reached the hills earlier in the day, carrying traditional weapons and beating drums.
Over 1,700 inmates have taken shelter in relief camps in trouble-torn Kokrajhar and Chirang districts of Assam since on Thursday following tension in the wake of a Bodo member of Legislative Assembly's arrest.
Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani on Monday alleged that his arrest by the Assam police is a pre-planned conspiracy "designed" by the Prime Minister's Office to destroy him ahead of assembly elections in the state and termed it an act of "56-inch cowardice".
State BJP chief Temjen Imna Along, widely popular on social media across the country for his sense of humour, and Salhoutuonuo Kruse, one of the two women elected to Nagaland assembly for the first time, were among those who were sworn-in as members of the council of ministers.
The ruling Congress and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) have the highest number of ten contestants each while the ruling party's coalition partner Bodoland Peoples' Front (BPF) has four contestants, including two sitting MLAs, in the fray.
Even as the Centre stayed the Jharkhand government's move to promote tourism at the Parasnath hills after protests by Jains, tribals jumped into the fray staking a claim to the land and asking for it to be freed.
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