Clearing the air before the end of the monsoon session on Tuesday, the CM said, "Shradha is a physiotherapist sent by my sister late Gita Mehta to take care of my physical fitness."
Sixty-eight Rajya Sabha members, including nine Union ministers, are completing their tenure this year, triggering a race of sorts among leaders across political parties to eye a six-year term in the Upper House of Parliament.
The BJP and Congress are the top two beneficiaries of the electoral bonds, followed by the Trinamool Congress.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
Odisha's Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das died of bullet injuries on Sunday, Apollo Hospital officials said.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
This is the first bill passed by the Lower House of Parliament in the Winter session, which began on Monday.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu swept the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality in Rairangpur, in this nondescript, tribal-dominated town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, ahead of her journey to Delhi.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties will make all-out efforts to thwart the government's move to pass the bill even as the numbers are stacked in favour of the NDA with BJD and YSRCP pledging their support to the government on the bill.
A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
The survey will encompass various indicators of backwardness such as occupation, educational qualification along with the type of educational institutions attended by members of the households to gauge the social and educational conditions of the backwardness in Odisha, the official said.
With the all-party meetings called by Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla producing no breakthrough to end the deadlock in Parliament, Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Pralhad Joshi accused opposition parties of repeatedly 'insulting' Dhankhar.
The Bill allows stopping of transmission and intercepting messages in case of public emergency, in the interest of the public, to prevent incitement for committing offence.
Among the seven seats which witnessed a stiff contest between the BJP and the regional parties, the saffron party held three and the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each.
Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill to regulate the appointment and service terms of Chief Election Commissioner and election commissioners incorporating key amendments like retaining their status at par with Supreme Court judges, upgrading the search committee and inserting a new clause to protect them from court cases while discharging their official duties.
iyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Ashwini Vaishnaw and Biseswar Tudu are the 5 Union minsters.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
Mamata Banerjee's sights are not on the next month's Presidential election. She is focusing on another election that will take place in 2024.
The upcoming Opposition meet in Patna scheduled for next week will not discuss a possible prime ministerial candidate and will focus on deciding the common agenda for the parties to work on in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
Sparks flew on the first day of the debate on the no-trust motion moved by the Congress with the Opposition on Tuesday asserting that it was forced to do so to break Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'maun vrat' (vow of silence) on Manipur and the treasury benches hitting back saying it was a no-trust vote against a 'poor person's son' who has worked for the welfare of the people.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
The two main factions in Karnataka's Congress party -- one led by Siddaramaiah and the other by D K Shivakumar -- are both contenders for the chief ministership. Both groups have fought hard to get their choice of MLAs the party ticket, notes Aditi Phadnis.
From issuing whips to arranging ambulances for their ailing leaders, opposition parties from the newly-formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc are making all-out efforts to ensure that they get 100 per cent attendance of their MPs in the Rajya Sabha to give the Bharatiya Janata Party a tough fight on the Delhi services bill next week.
The ruling BJP in UP, however, lost Khatauli to Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday appealed to the opposition for the unanimous passage of the women's reservation bill and said shortcomings, if any, can be rectified at a later date.
Various opposition parties like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Communist Party of India, and the Communist Party of India-Marxist raised vociferous protests in the upper house while opposing the resolution and the bill.
'...a more capable State -- one that operates with greater capacity, greater efficiency, and greater clarity of purpose.' 'But I also see a more despotic State -- one that places more constraints on speech, assembly, dissent, and critique.' 'It may run 'better', but on the regime's rules.'
At 64, the woman who will be India's 15th president, taking over from Ram Nath Kovind, will also be the youngest and India's first President to be born after Independence.
Biju Janata Dal president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday appealed to all members of the Odisha assembly to support the National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu in the upcoming presidential election, describing her as the daughter of the state.
Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge has given his resignation to party chief Sonia Gandhi as the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha as he is contesting the election for the post of party president.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
The social and educational conditions of 208 OBC communities enlisted by the state government will be collected during the survey, which will be followed by a special drive to ensure that none were left out across the state, an official said.
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 by voice vote following a walkout by opposition members over the Manipur issue.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
Margaret Alva claims she is unable to make phone calls after dialing 'friends in the BJP'
