Although the authorities had maintained till the last minute that Mevani and his supporters did not have permission to hold the event, it seems the rally organisers and Delhi Police reached a compromise later.
Such is the force of his oratory that many Muslims, even those who don't vote for him, have come to believe that Asaduddin Owaisi is the first and only politician who speaks up for Muslims since Independence, observes Jyoti Punwani
In the BJP veteran's home district, some feel he has been harmed by his party, while some think he never gave back to the place he belonged to, and then there are some who believe son Manvendra Singh will have a tough time living up to his name.
'The involvement of policemen in either committing the crime or shielding the accused in Kathua and Unna points to a crumbling civil and moral order,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'For the Shiv Sena, Hindutva is like a shawl which can be put on and discarded at will.'
Though EPS has sworn peace for now, or so it seems, his camp is said to be considering the possibility of calling an early meeting of the party's general council, to get a mandate in his favour before things went out of control. Ground-level indications are that OPS had lost his limited base, which alone had forced him to patch up with the other, reportedly at the instance of the BJP ally at the Centre, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A total of 851 candidates are in the fray for 93 seats spread across 14 districts in north and central Gujarat, in the final phase of the polls, where 2.22 crore people are eligible to exercise their franchise.
Launching a counteroffensive against the Bharatiya Janata Party for its 'return of jungle raj' remark, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav on Wednesday said if the killing of a youth in a road rage incident symbolised that, then even the national capital was no different.
'At the moment the anti-defection law works only in favour of Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, the original Shiv Sena.' 'The Eknath Shinde camp is at a disadvantage unless they merge with another political party.' 'Otherwise, they will not be saved (from being disqualified).'
Radhika Vemula, Rohith's mother, who was accompanied by the 'dadis' and former JNU student Umar Khalid unfurled the national flag. They sang the national anthem along with thousands of people, including women and children who had gathered at Shaheen Bagh to celebrate the occasion.
A total of 89 seats -- out of 182 -- spanning the Saurashtra and south Gujarat regions, are up for grabs in the first phase with 977 candidates in the fray, including Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
While addressing a joint press conference with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai, NCP chief Sharad Pawar paraded 3 MLAs to display that all are with him.
'Who's providing all this money to the BJP? And who's providing all this money to the Congress?' 'Where did all this money come from?' 'Who is enabling all these MLAs to be bought for Rs 50, 60 crores?' 'There's one MLA on whose behalf somebody claimed that the BJP invited him for Rs 60 crores. Whose money is this?'
By-elections to Lok Sabha and assembly seats in the states of Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil and West Bengal passed off peacefully on Saturday amidst tight security.
Laxman Chandra Seth, believed by the vast population of the area to have been the villain of the historic anti-farmland acquisition movement in 2007, said the two built their political careers by misleading the innocent people of Nandigram. Now their lies are back to haunt them.
Trinamool Congress will go it alone in next month's Assembly election in West Bengal, party supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday said and declared the list of TMC candidates which included sports personalities, actors and journalists.
BJP claimed close to 116 lawmakers from rival parties appeared to have voted for Kovind.
A down-to-the-wire contest is likely in some of the seats in the high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in seven states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana, where the fate of candidates including senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and senior lawyer R K Anand is being decided on Saturday.
The meeting at SP headquarters was attended by Akhilesh, his uncle Shivpal Yadav, senior leader Azam Khan and party office bearers.
'Hindutva doesn't teach you to stab someone in the back.'
In the last ten years, 96 per cent of the sedition cases against 405 individuals pertained to making critical remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, points out Ramesh Menon, author, Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.
The Aam Aadmi Party's Party's East Delhi candidate Atishi talks on her competition against the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, the former cricketer -- Gautam Gambhir, and her agenda for the polls.
It will not be a cakewalk for three-time Congress MLA and Uttarakhand Sports and Forest Minister Dinesh Agarwal to win Dharampur constituency in Dehradun this poll season with BJP fielding two-time mayor Vinod Chamoli from the seat.
"It is very wrong and condemnable that Gurmehar has tried to do politics over her father's martyrdom," Vij, a five-time MLA said.
According to an insider, "Winning is all that matters to the BJP. The leaders were warned that he was an undesirable character but they said look at his victory margin."
Paul, who was in Mumbai to visit his daughter, complained of chest pain at the Mumbai airport during his return to Kolkata and was rushed to a hospital in Juhu but died around 4 am, they said.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed the director general of police to instruct all the superintendents of police to take strong action against those who carried arms in the rallies.
The results, while bringing the Congress back to power in this state, also end the rule of the 66-year-old BJP stalwart, who has earned several monikers during his 15-year-long tenure -- Doctor saheb being a trained Ayurvedic medical practitioner, chaur wale baba for his popular rice scheme and the 'Mobile Wale Baba' for giving free smartphones to 50 lakh women and students.
'The Congress should have accepted our demands.' 'Gone are the days when it could decide how many crumbs to throw at us.' 'Now, we make the demands.'
'It marks the start of an era where the BJP must now campaign on its own record rather than against the misrule of another party.'
'The BJP is not the party it was 10 years ago. It has changed. It is emerging like the Congress.' 'Sometimes, I feel the BJP has taken the Congress' space.' 'Its politics is also resembling the Congress.'
UDF, LDF raise voice against cow slaughter ban backed by BJP leadership.
"Stalin is the future of the party," said late Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M Karunanidhi about six years ago at a party meet when his son was party treasurer.
Aam Aadmi Party Legislators on Wednesday sent a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, seeking the expulsion of party 'rebels' Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav.
As Som, who is an accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case, and Samajwadi Party leader Atul Pradhan took out separate rallies, prohibitory orders were enforced across Shamli district and borders of Kairana sealed and paramilitary forces deployed. Both the rallies were stopped by authorities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Kumar on being sworn in as the chief minister.
Kejriwal, the AAP national convenor, indicated that the party may contest the next assembly polls in Gujarat, alleging that an "atmosphere of suppression" was prevailing there and people wanted to overthrow the BJP regime.
Noting that it was his government that had recommended a CBI probe into the actor's death, Kumar said the incident saddened both the state and the country.
At a time when senior Congress leaders are shying away from contesting the April 24 Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu and despite a lack of enthusiasm among cadres, there is a race to get tickets to contest from select constituencies perceived as "winnable", party sources said.
There have been more than 49,000 fire incidents in Mumbai in the last one decade, killing over 600 people, the Maharashtra government had told the assembly in November 2018.
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