It was only last month that Ranaut faced backlash for advocating the return of the three farm laws repealed in 2021.
'The allegations of government involvement in targeted assassinations abroad are likely to help, not hurt, the ruling party.' 'True or false, they convey a sense of muscularity and, in some quarters, are celebrated as a harbinger of 'great power' status.'
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday quashed two separate FIRs registered against former AAP leader Kumar Vishwas and BJP's Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga by the Punjab police over their statements against AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
Prominent among these include former sports minister and sitting MLA Gurmit Singh Sodhi, MLA Fatehjang Singh Bajwa and former minister Anil Joshi.
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.
'I won't be surprised if a third alternative to Badal and the Congress is swept to power in Punjab in 2022.'
Kejriwal's centralised way of governance might work in Delhi, but Punjab will call for delegation, observes Sanjeev Nayyar.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
A recent pre-election survey suggests that AAP may win 53 seats in the 117-member Punjab assembly and reduce the Congress to just 43.
'Politics is in a mess. Good people have to join to clean it up.'
BJP leaders Manohar Lal Khattar, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Ravneet Singh Bittu may be among the new faces in the Union council of ministers which will be sworn on Sunday evening along with Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi.
'Had the Congress made Sidhu its CM face, they would have won 80 out of 117 seats.'
Bagga's father alleged that Punjab Police personnel didn't even allow his son to wear a turban while they were arresting him.
JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in a grand ceremony in Ranchi, amid the presence of a galaxy of INDIA bloc leaders. This is Soren's fourth stint as chief minister. The JMM-led alliance won a majority in the recent assembly polls, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.
A social activist, a young law graduate, a debutante, and an eye surgeon -- Punjab polls gave gave birth to a number of giant killers from the Aam Aadmi Party, who drubbed such stalwarts as Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Badals, and even Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's unexpected announcement on Sunday that he will resign after two days drew mixed reactions from parties, with some saying it was a compulsion due to bail restrictions on his functioning and others hailing it as a right call to go back to the people.
Modi brought up the emotive issue of the gurdwara in Kartarpur Sahib, a place sacred to Sikhs as Guru Nanak Dev spent the last years of his life there, and blamed the Congress for country's partition, saying they did it for sake of power.
Singh, 80, had floated the PLC last year after quitting the Congress following his unceremonious exit as chief minister, but his party failed to win any seat in the state assembly polls.
"Making a person belonging to Dalit caste as the chief minister of Punjab is nothing but an election stunt. I have come to know through the media today that assembly elections in Punjab will be fought under a non-Dalit leader and not under Channi," Mayawati told newspersons in Lucknow
Swaraj India president and former AAP leader Yogendra Yadav on Thursday termed the Arvind Kejriwal-led party's performance in Punjab as "spectacular and extraordinary", but said it's more "an indictment" of the "entire political establishment" rather than the success of a party in the electoral battle.
With its landslide victory in Punjab assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party has achieved a major milestone in its journey so far and emerged as an alternative in the national politics.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
The Sikhs love a good fight, and that's what the Modi government has given them.
They stated that when a soldier fights for the nation, he does so not as a Hindu, Muslim, or any other religion, but as a patriot.
The actor-politician said she must remember that she is not only an artiste but also a BJP member now and her statements should be in line with her party's policies.
Amarinder Singh failed spectacularly in these assembly elections -- his new party failed to open its account, his ally BJP fell flat and he failed to even win his own constituency.
Aam Aadmi Party calls Bhagwant Mann its people's choice for CM candidate in Punjab. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com traces what makes Mann so indispensable for his party.
The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the Bombay high court verdict cancelling the caste certificate of Amravati MP and BJP leader Navneet Kaur Rana.
Purohit said he had invited Mann for the civic reception.
As part of country-wide fill-the-jail campaign against fuel price hike, a number of BJP leaders and workers on Friday courted arrest in Punjab and Haryana.
'A government whose policies are focused around making the life of ordinary citizens, specially the most deprived sections, richer; a government that prioritises education, health and transport, that doesn't treat its citizens as subjects who must come to it for everything, is rare in our country.' 'When such a government is thrown out, one is left stunned,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
The incumbent Congress could win only 18 seats, with Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi losing both seats he contested -- Chamkaur Sahib as well as Bhadaur.
As Parliament gears up for a stormy start next week over the Adani issue, the government has listed 16 bills, including one to amend the waqf law and five new ones, for the winter session.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
Both the BJP and Congress understand that coalitions and alliances are not just about numbers, but have symbolic value.
Punjab's 117 assembly seats are going to be a keenly-watched contest with the Congress, the AAP, the SAD-BSP alliance, and the BJP-PLC-SAD (Sanyukt) battling to form the government in the state, with a probable entry of farmers' front in the form of Sanyukt Samaj Morcha.
Union Minister Arun Jaitley while releasing the document said BJP's manifesto is particularly aimed at improving the social infrastructure in Punjab, even as he slammed Congress for its policies which he alleged paved way for militancy in Punjab in 1980s and termed its 2002-2007 tenure in power as "most dishonest and corrupt".
