The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
Both the BJP leaders asserted that Gandhi's disqualification was a natural outcome of the law as the Supreme Court has made it clear that a lawmaker stands disqualified from the time of his conviction.
The encounter took place when the troops of Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group of J&K Police launched a joint cordon and search operation at Dhari Gote Urarbagi in Desa forest belt, some 55 km from Doda town, late Monday evening, the officials said.
The AGP, an ally of the BJP, voted for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, after Amit Shah's assurance. However, the scale, intensity and, persistence of the anti-CAA protests since then have taken it by surprise.
The BJP is committed to implement the 36-year old Assam Accord and a committee set up on the implementation of its Clause 6 is a step in that direction, Modi said.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
According to an official release, the voting percentage is likely to go up when reports from all polling stations are obtained, as polling was scheduled until 6 pm in many constituencies.
The tragedy had struck the tea gardens of the twin districts of Golaghat and Jorhat after a large number of their workers consumed the spurious liquor on Thursday night.
Government sources said Modi will also chair meetings to review the aftermath of the Cyclone Remal, especially in the north east region hit by natural disasters.
'As soon as the violence broke out, they should have stepped in and sent a message that the state is there to stop this violence.' 'Had they done it right there, the situation would not have gone out of control.'
The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party will meet on Thursday to finalise its first list of candidates for five assembly polls, with top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to attend the meeting.
The satta market is accepting bets on how many times Modiji will mention Nehru at his election rallies, says A Ganesh Nadar with a wink.
"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.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will get a 'decisive mandate' in the Lok Sabha polls and may take even less than 48 hours to decide on its prime ministerial pick, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday, asserting that it stands to reason that the party which gets the maximum seats in the alliance will be a 'natural claimant' for its leadership.
Senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday asserted that her party, if voted to power in Assam, will bring a new law to 'nullify' the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
Sarma, while responding to reporters' questions on high price of veggies in Guwahati, had said, "Vegetables are not priced so high in villages. Here the Miya vendors charge us more. Had it been Assamese vendors selling vegetables, they wouldn't have fleeced their own people."
However, the saffron party's hold of the landmark may be tenuous as polls to around 52 more seats will be held soon, and it is expected to suffer reverses in states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand.
The party is eyeing at expanding its footprint across the country and has tied up with the Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls against the BJP in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat.
Gogoi and Sarma have been locked in a war of words on 'X' since Wednesday on the issue of the chief minister's wife's company allegedly being given a credit subsidy of Rs 10 crore.
The meeting, which lasted for over four hours, was attended by chief ministers and deputy chief ministers of 18 states.
The police, however, denied the charge saying they were only investigating a case of alleged terror links of two persons, now absconding, who were teaching at the seminary.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
'Is it not a fact that all good leaders in the Congress have left the party?'
Doctors have advised the 85-year-old politician to stay in home isolation.
Gangmei in his appeal said the HAC "was a necessary and proper party and the proceedings before the high court were vitiated on account of not making the HAC a party".
'If the BJP does not change its stand, we will hope that those who are in favour of protecting Ladakh come to power.'
They warned that the 'prime minister and his cabinet colleagues will be stopped from entering the state' if their interests were harmed.
PM Modi's assurance came against the backdrop of violent protests against the CAB.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur hit out at Gandhi over his claims of being under surveillance by intelligence agencies and accused him of maligning India on foreign soil.
The JD-U has five members in the Rajya Sabha, including deputy chairman Harivansh whose fate now hangs in the balance as he may have to resign since his party has moved out of the ruling alliance.
'In enacting the citizenship law, the BJP's focus has been so much on consolidating its Hindu vote bank all over the country to divert attention from the economic downturn that the party forgot that there are Hindus and Hindus and that one group of Hindus may not always be warmly embraced by another,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
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..."
After a revolt in the Shiv Sena, party president Uddhav Thackeray was ready to align with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra if the dissidents dumped rebel leader Eknath Shinde, a proposal that was unacceptable to rebel MLAs and the national saffron outfit, legislator Deepak Kesarkar claimed on Friday.
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.
An Independent Rajya Sabha MP on Monday lodged a police complaint against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader has made a "hate speech" against the 'Miya' community on the previous day.
