More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
The list of Congress candidates from Assam may be reviewed following pressure from state party leaders. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan may have played favourites during the selection, reports Renu Mittal.
An umbrella organization of several ethnic groups has decided to launch an agitation opposing the statehood demands raised by a number of ethnic groups in Assam. including Bodos, Karbis and Koch-Rajbongshis.
The BJP chief also sought to know whether the Congress wanted to protect the "illegal Bangldeshis".
'We should let the dust settle and see how the political equation unfolds in Assam'
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
The seriously injured Congress leader was rushed to Guwahati Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead.
'If the leadership goes back to Rahul Gandhi, then there will be a perception problem about the drama about his exit a year-and-a-half ago.'
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said she is saddened at the loss of lives in "sporadic" incidents of violence during the panchayat elections.
Ajmal in an interview to a media house on Friday had commented on women and Hindu men as well as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, purportedly as a rejoinder to his remarks on 'love jihad'.
Unprecedented scenes were witnessed as Congress leaders sat on a dharna near the aircraft at the tarmac and raised slogans such as 'Jab jab Modi darta hai, police ke peeche chupta hai' and 'Tanashahi nahi chalegi'.
High voter turnout was recorded in the assembly polls in Assam and West Bengal where an estimated 82.02 per cent and 79.51 per cent of the voters cast their ballots till 5 pm.
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 Congress has failed to develop Assam despite being in power for such a long period and its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had virtually bade farewell to the people of a part of the state during the 1962 Chinese aggression.
The constituencies spread across lower and central Assam will have 12,699 polling stations where 1,04,35,271 voters will be able exercise their franchise.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has set a two-year deadline to seal the border.
Congress MP from Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh Sanjoy Singh is one of the Congress candidates who have filed nominations for the February 7 election to the three Rajya Sabha seats from Assam.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies are well on the way to power in two north-eastern states, and is almost certain to be part of the ruling dispensation in the third.
The founder of the newly floated Raijor Dal -- arrested in December 2019 over sedition charges - bagged 57,219 votes as an Independent, garnering support from 46.06 per cent of the electorate.
It's great to win election after election on the strength of Modi's charisma and voter appeal, but the larger the Modi myth grows, the more the BJP diminishes, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
In what has turned out to be an embarrassment for the ruling Congress party in Assam, three absconding persons accused in June 30 mob attack on Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Rumi Nath, 33, and her second husband Zakir in a Karimganj hotel in South Assam, were arrested from the official residence of another Congress MLA in the state assembly complex in Guwahati on Thursday night.
The outlawed anti-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam on Sunday took exception to All Indian Congress Committee general secretary, Rahul Gandhi's comment referring to 'suspected illegal migrants from Bangladesh' lodged in camps of violence-displaced people in western Assam as Indian citizens.
The Assam State Women's Commission, in its complaint, said that the former MP, who is known to have sided with a group of dissident Congress legislators, commented that Jorhat Superintendent of Police Sanjukta Parashar's 'unusual proximity' with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was a cause for concern.
Rediff.com takes a look at life inside a relief camp in Kokrajhar, which was the epicenter of the recent ethnic violence, which claimed 77 lives.
The NPP has won six seats and was leading in 19 other constituencies as counting of votes polled in the February 27 polls was underway.
Protesting adivasis will hit the streets of Assam on Friday to highlight their grievances before United Progressive Alliance chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi during her day-long visit to Guwahati. Sonia will be addressing a farmers' rally to be organised by the ruling Congress party, besides attending an award presentation ceremony organised by Assam government in the afternoon.
Encouraged by the decision of the All India Congress Committee to appoint two of his trusted lieutenants as secretaries, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will now get tough on dissident Congress MLAs in the state.
Twenty odd important political figures and civil society leaders from Assam's conflicts-ridden Bodo heartland have joined Bharatiya Janata Party that has started its 'Mission Bodoland' with bang announcing its intention to provide an alternative to Bodoland people who are fed up with misrule of Bodoland People's Front where has been in power in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council over ten years on the trot.
Over 95 lakh voters will decide the fate of 539 candidates, including 43 females, in 65 constituencies spread across the state.
The recent bouts of violence by suspected Bodo militias that killed over 30 hapless 'Muslims, mostly children and women, and rendered several thousands homeless in lower Assam recently, once again offers a shocking glimpse of the horrendous game of violent communalism being played by the Congress government of Assam in furtherance of its cynical power politics for the last several years.' 'The result is, the state is a simmering communal cauldron that sporadically erupts at the slightest real or imagined provocation,' says R N Ravi.
The Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has lodged a First Information Report with Assam police against Enamul Haque Laskar a Congress legislator, and former minister Nurjamal Sarkar for their alleged involvement in financial irregularity involving Rs 270 crore in the state Irrigation Department.
'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.'
The Election Commission of India has announced that elections for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Goa, Gujarat, and West Bengal will be held on July 24.
The AGP had pulled out of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government a day before the bill seeking to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan was passed in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Former MP Dr Ajoy Kumar on Monday offered to resign from the post of president of Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar quit their posts.
'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.'
'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 Telangana issue has rekindled Bodo tribe's demand for statehood in Assam besides adding fire to the long-standing statehood demands of different other ethnic communities including Karbi, Dimasa, Koch-Rajbongshi.
'Now Modi ji is saying it is his guarantee that every corrupt person will be made a minister'
Three persons were injured in a low intensity blast that took place inside the Congress head office in Guwahati, on Monday evening. A grenade was thrown into the office on GS Road in Tarun Nagar in the heart of Assam's capital.
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