'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is ahead in 20 seats in Manipur, with Chief Minister N Biren Singh leading by a handsome margin of more than 16,000 votes against his nearest Congress rival in Heingang constituency, Election Commission data showed.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday took a major step to implement its key plank of "one nation, one election" as the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the concept of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, sources said.
The government has convened an all-party meeting on Wednesday to deliberate on a host of issues related to Parliament's monsoon session, which will begin from July 20.
If the idea was to garner AIADMK votes with or without the three faction leaders after the party broke ties with the NDA, it may not work after all, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'We are seeing an era where only what Modi wishes is going to happen.' 'A clear message has now been sent to others that if this fate could befall on Nitin Gadkari, then just think what could happen to lesser mortals.'
Despite failing to secure a simple majority in Parliament, we will continue to see him on TV, newspapers, magazines, bill boards, vaccination certificates, railway stations, bus shelters, airports, sea ports, on the highway and on rural roads, sighs A Ganesh Nadar.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
What is to be done to resist the twin thrusts of the BJP's ideology, majoritarian and a strong centripetal instinct against federalism? asks Aakar Patel.
Hegde said NDA winning more than 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls would eventually help in mustering a similar majority in the Rajya Sabha, and coming to power in two-third of the states.
Sanjay Jha's importance lies in his connections to senior BJP and RSS leaders to maintain a smooth relationship within the NDA government in Bihar and at the Centre and to contest the 2025 Bihar assembly elections together under Nitish Kumar's leadership.
The DMK leader's reference made was to one of the INDIA bloc meetings in which Nitish Kumar reportedly stressed on use of Hindi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party asked former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress to answer allegations of "improper compromises" by three former chief justices of India during the United Progressive Alliance rule, saying the matter was "unfortunate".
Karra, who became the J&K Congress chief last Friday replacing Vikar Rasool Wani, said a call is already there for all secular parties who are opposed to the "hegemonic attitude" of the BJP to unite.
All 13 candidates in the fray in Indore against Lalwani, who won by a potentially record margin votes, lost their security deposit, indicating they were clearly rejected by the voters. If a candidate gets fewer than one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency, his/her security deposit is seized by the EC.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday said the Preamble to the Constitution is very well there in NCERT textbooks of Class VI as he refuted charges made in this regard by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to achieve a clear majority in Rajya Sabha after bye-elections for 12 seats scheduled next month, which would help the party get the nod for key legislations such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The KPCC made this decision simultaneously as Sarin announced a press conference in Palakkad, declaring his intention to work with the Left Democratic Front moving forward.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
When several opposition MPs expressed their desire to ask questions about the Centre's vaccination policy such as increasing the gap between two doses, the BJP MPs strongly opposed it and few of them even demanded postponement of the meeting and walked out, the sources said.
The new BJP dispensation under party president Nitin Gadkari is likely to continue with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as chairman of NDA and adopt an "accommodative approach" towards out-going senior office-bearers at the Centre and in states by giving them other responsibilities.
'There is some deep rot that has set in the Congress party. This requires an organisational surgery.'
The cash-for-vote scam rocked both Houses of Parliament Thursday with Bharatiya Janata Party objecting to the arrest of two of its "whistleblower" former MPs and demanding suspension of Question Hour to discuss the issue.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
'They want to snatch the land and give it to their friends'
A fresh plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, claiming it was a "blatant intrusion" into the rights of a religious denomination to manage its own affairs in the matter of religion. The plea, filed by Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema, argues that the amendments would distort the religious character of Waqfs and irreversibly damage the democratic process in their administration. Several other petitions have been filed in the apex court challenging the validity of the bill, including those by Congress MP Mohammad Jawed, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, and AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan.
For Adityanath, it's not just a chance to reaffirm his dominance in Uttar Pradesh, it's an opportunity to solidify his narrative as a vote-winner.
That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who has been under attack from the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, on Tuesday reached out to the Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Parliament and walked with one hand on her shoulder, ostensibly to win support for the passage of crucial Bills.
The prime minister during his party's parliamentary meeting, said that the bill will be written in golden letters for people who are persecuted on the basis of religion
The grand old party alleged that these namesake candidates are backed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Bharatiya Janata Party to confuse voters.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's first list of 24 candidates for Lok Sabha from Madhya Pradesh featured former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, while Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur was replaced by another candidate.
The Pal-led committee is currently on a tour of five states to speak to various stakeholders though opposition members have boycotted it.
For the BJP, the RSS' organisational heft is a prized asset, considering the slew of elections it faces this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2024.
The Election Commission on Monday rescheduled from November 13 to November 20 the assembly bypolls to all nine and four seats in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, respectively, and one seat in Kerala in view of festivals, an official statement said.
Rajiv Kumar, the 25th chief election commissioner of India, has demitted office after a nearly three-year tenure marked by both electoral successes and allegations of bias from opposition parties. Kumar oversaw the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, among other major elections. During his tenure, he implemented reforms across various aspects of the Election Commission's functioning, including structural, technological, capacity development, communication, international cooperation, and administration. However, he faced criticism from opposition parties and activists on several issues, including the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines, alleged fudging of voter data, and being "lenient" on the ruling BJP. While the Commission responded to the allegations, Kumar often defended himself and the poll authority through poetry. In his farewell address, Kumar expressed concerns about the timing of petitions raising doubts over poll processes and the impact of freebie promises on the fiscal health of the state. He also criticized the practice of showing early trends on counting day by news channels, calling it "nonsense". Kumar's tenure was marked by numerous controversies, with opposition parties and activists alleging bias and irregularities. While the Election Commission defended its actions, the allegations cast a shadow over his time in office.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Tuesday asserted that there should be no "fiddling" with the mandate of people in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Centre and the Raj Bhavan must not indulge in any "machinations".
Police sources said the girl's mother had, in the past, lodged over 50 complaints against various people including the then Bengaluru Police Commissioner Alok Kumar, and his staff, for allegedly manhandling her and abusing her.
After public opposition by senior leader Sushma Swaraj, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday decided against merging the BSR Congress with it but approved the nomination of party leader B Sreeramalu for the Bellary Lok Sabha seat.
