Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
As people queued up across these states to cast their vote, there were some famous faces in the lines at different polling stations.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday hit out at the Congress for blaming the anti-incumbency of his four-and-half-years tenure for the poor show in assembly polls, saying the party's leadership will never learn.
Bribe for Goa project estimated at $976,630
After the Congress' poor performance in all five states where Assembly elections were held, party workers staged a protest outside the party's headquarters, alleging that democracy was being "murdered" through EVMs.
Campaigning for the first phase of the Gujarat assembly elections to be held on December 1 ended at 5 pm on Tuesday.
The entire thing was a planned conspiracy and the Congress is back again at its dirty and habitual game of destabilising duly elected governments, he said.
'Voters did not turn up in large numbers in Bangalore.' 'If more voters of Bangalore had come to vote, we would definitely have reached the magic figure.'
'We get the opportunity for new recruitment and the chance to introspect.'
Modi said at a time when people are about to vote for the future of the state, "I want to offer you gratitude for your blessings and affections."
However, the AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the SC committee has limited terms of reference and 'cannot bring out the deep nexus between' the prime minister and the billionaire businessman.
He was admitted to AIIMS Delhi on August 10; the comedian had collapsed after experiencing chest pain while working out at the gym.
One of the ministers said they are going back to Ranchi for a Cabinet meeting scheduled on Thursday.
'If they call themselves a Hindutva party, then they must sever the alliance with the PDP in Kashmir.'
In the brief history of the hill state of Uttarakhand, there has not been a single instance where a chief minister has lost a by-election, reports Shishir Prashant.
The BJP's rediscovery of its allies, including the PM touching the feet of Parakash Singh Badal, would be interpreted as the party's efforts to keep its flock together if it falls short of the majority mark on May 23.
Firing a fresh salvo at the Bharatiya Janata Party which had accused the Shiv Sena of paying only lip service to the cause of Hindutva, the latter's member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Tuesday claimed that the Sena was the first party in the country to contest an election on the Hindutva plank.
The Goa-based marine engineer booked for anti-Narendra Modi remarks on Facebook on Saturday said his post was a reaction to BJP inducting controversial right wing leader Pramod Muthalik into the party, and maintained the issue had been blown out of proportion.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
Some of our leaders were busybusy over the weekend.
A member of the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning squad, Azad was suspended from the Bharatiya Janata Party for openly targeting the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over alleged irregularities and corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association in December 2015. He joined the Congress in 2018.
The two parties, however, are in a neck-and-neck race in Manipur and Goa.
'Why don't you contest the election for PM's post. You are media, you can also contest'
A handsome victory for the BJP in UP would act as confirmation of its recent political choices. The UP chief minister would be cemented in the popular mind as Mr Modi's chosen heir within the Hindutva fold, and presumably as his successor in New Delhi, observes Mihir S Sharma.
Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik has said that he would try to join Bharatiya Janata Party, from where he was unceremoniously removed only a few hours after his inclusion in Karnataka.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to explain why the political party (Aam Aadmi Party) which was allegedly the beneficiary of the Delhi Excise Policy 'scam', has not been made an accused in the money laundering case.
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who had once courted controversy by indicating that politicians should retire at the age of 65, on Sunday said there was nothing called as era in BJP and it was time for younger generation to take over the party's reins.
'The BJP capitalised on the Left Front's failure and inaction and the Congress' deliberate retreat in Tripura.'
The party said it is for the states to take a decision on it keeping in mind the "sentiments of the people".
Aiming to breach the Bharatiya Janata Party's Gujarat bastion, the Aam Aadmi Party fielded its candidate to contest all 182 assembly seats and carried out a high decibel campaign in the run-up to the polls in Gujarat.
What did Mamata and Yogi, who were seated one seat away from each other, say to each other, we wonder.
"If a film Kashmir Files is made, then at least, there should also be film 'Lakhimpur Files', where farmers were crushed under the wheels of a jeep," the SP president told journalists in Sitapur district on Wednesday when asked for his opinion on the Bollywood movie.
Debates on changing the name of India to Bharat continue to spark a crisis of identity without answering moot questions that stare us in the face. Ramesh Menon asks a few of those questions that do not have easy answers.
Shiv Sena said that the party has no intention to change its political line of contesting all future polls independently.
In a dramatic turn of events, the Ranji Trophy Group C match between Himachal Pradesh and Goa was cancelled but resumed later on Sunday after BCCI president N Srinivasan intervened to sort out a political tug of war.
Ahead of the 2022 assembly elections, Churchill Alemao 'merged' the NCP with the TMC. The 'merger' took place when Mamata Banerjee was in Mumbai talking to NCP supreme leader Sharad Pawar on how to forge Opposition unity!
Senior Congress leaders accused the BJP of trying to bring down the party-led government, which is surviving on support of over half a dozen independent, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs.
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.
Wordsmiths and artists of different parties are working overtime to deliver punches and counter punches in their bid to reach out to voters through different platforms ranging from Facebook to YouTube.
The youth leadership taking the reigns of the states was a rare event in the last century as very few broke the glass ceilings.
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