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.
The total worth of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal's assets, both movable and immovable, have increased by over 71 per cent since the last assembly polls in 2016, despite not having bought any new immovable assets.
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.
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 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.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi will launch her nationwide election campaign in Assam along with party Vice president Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh by the end of the month.
The BJP which stormed into Mamata Banerjee's fortress earlier this year by bagging 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats faced immense flak when the final NRC in Assam left out Bengali Hindus in large numbers.
Normal life disrupted in Assam during a statewide bandh called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
'Is it not a fact that all good leaders in the Congress have left the party?'
'The BJP portrays a make believe world.' 'The Tripura victory is being seen by some as a result of bahubal and money power -- but that would be a very simplistic explanation.' 'Money and muscle power can play a role up to a point, but the BJP's victory is remarkable because it replaced a party that was in power for 25 years.'
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
The party is better at winning elections than at governance and it remains intent on pushing ahead with its trademark social and political agenda observes T N Ninan.
Former chief minister Tarun Gogoi demanded a CBI inquiry into the episode
The former Union minister said the population debate is 'utterly misplaced' and half a century out-of-date as a large majority of Indian states have achieved replacement levels of fertility.
Getting ready to fight the next assembly election in Assam in 2016 on the 'U-turns' on state issues made by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the Centre, the ruling Congress government in Assam has brought out a handbook for its party workers highlighting the 'failures' of the Narendra Modi government to fulfil promises made to people of the state.
'If the BJP does not change its stand, we will hope that those who are in favour of protecting Ladakh come to power.'
'The significance and timing of the PM's start of the campaign journey from Silchar is a clear message that the Barak valley is a priority in his scheme of things,' notes Subimal Bhattacharjee.
'In Assam we have lost 2,358 sq km to erosion by the Brahmaputra river! Do you know how much area is 2,358 sq km is? This is four times the size of Bombay. But who is concerned?' 'Didn't the BJP say that as soon as we come to power the Bangladeshis will have to pack their bags? Go to Google and search for 'Modi + Bangladeshi' and see exactly the statement he made... I am asking what has happened to it.'
Sarma's eyes, according to those close to him, were always set on the top job in Assam. However, the leader who owed his early rise to two former chief ministers from the Congress had to toil for many years with dogged determination to achieve his goal.
With 32 people being killed in Assam, the Centre on Sunday said it is determined to curb attacks on minorities as the violence there was aimed at starting a "full-fledged communal conflagration".
'Had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh's leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.'
The Election Commission has expressed "displeasure" over 'hate speech' made by an Assam Cabinet minister and inflammatory statement made by a sitting MP while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections.
The defeat of their leaders has stunned party workers of the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party to silence.
Criticising the saffron party for "undermining democratic values" in the country, the chief minister said, "Democracy exists in Bengal but it is under threat in several other parts of the country."
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.
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Joining hands with smaller parties with a political base in different castes was a part of the BJP strategy as it won big in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday asked for a probe by the National Investigation Agency into the violence by Bodo militant group NDFB(S) in the state and vowed to apprehend those responsible for the killings.
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 implementation of the NRC as nothing but a political vendetta of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, she told the assembly.
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.
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.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
Delhi and Punjab are ruled by the AAP and these are the only two states that have free electricity supply, he said.
The PM also took a swipe at 79-year-old Gogoi who had called the assembly election as a direct fight between him and Modi, saying he can only pay his respects to the elderly leader.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
The leaders of the saffron party also posted their wishes and religious prayers for Modi on Twitter, using the hashtag "LongLivePMModi".
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
