Early trends from counting of votes on Tuesday threw up disappointing results for the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections, which appears to be losing heavily in its strongholds of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan although it is expected to form the government with about 290 seats.
As part of the programme, 14 states have been identified in the first phase in which there are 64 districts.
'Barring Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the BJP will may make inroads in Karnataka, Andhra and Telangana in 2024.'
As Modi takes guard for a third term with trusted and seasoned hands around him, the BJP is hopeful that he will prove his detractors wrong and continue to fuel the party's expansion horizontally and vertically with his inventive policies in government and new set of ideas in politics with the core of Hindutva, development and welfarism remaining intact.
As results were declared for assembly elections in four states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana -- here are how some of the prominent candidates fared.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was given a rousing welcome by thousands of people, including United Democratic Front leaders and workers, at Kalpetta in Wayanad on Wednesday as she prepares to make her electoral debut by filing nomination papers for the coming Lok Sabha bypoll.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his whirlwind Lok Sabha poll campaign with a rally in Punjab's Hoshiarpur on Thursday, closing out his electioneering the way he began -- by focussing on a region where he has invested heavily over the years for the Bharatiya Janata Party to make a mark outside its strongholds.
The reverses for the BJP in the Hindi heartland threw wide open the 2019 Lok Sabha elections which until a few months ago appeared to be in the grip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party.
The sources said the opposition leaders would now plan joint rallies that were put on hold due to the assembly elections.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
A case has been registered in Hyderabad against Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Raja Singh for his remarks which allegedly defended the attacks on Dalits in Gujarat's Una and supported the cow vigilantes involved.
Both the BJP and Congress understand that coalitions and alliances are not just about numbers, but have symbolic value.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan noted that Kavitha has been in custody for around five months and the probe against her by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was complete in these cases.
'There is some deep rot that has set in the Congress party. This requires an organisational surgery.'
Deputy leader of BJP in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and senior party leader M Venkaiah Naidu in the Rajya Sabha raised the issue in Zero Hour saying the government should bring a bill in right earnest.
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
The four TRS MLAs, who were allegedly lured with money to quit the party and join the BJP, complained of receiving threat calls by unidentified persons, police said on Monday.
BRS leader and former Telangana minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy claimed that Kavitha was taken to Delhi on a flight at 8.45 pm.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
The appointments holds significance as a large number of senior leaders, who had no organisational post currently, have now been given new responsibilities.
A new realignment should be expected in equations between the non-BJP, non-Congress parties and the government at the Centre. Aditi Phadnis reports.
After taking oath, he hailed his state Telangana, Bhimrao Ambedkar, apart from raising the AIMIM's slogan for Muslim, along with the West Asian country.
The Congress now knows that it is the only force -- however weakened it might be -- that stands between the BJP and India's evolution into a single-party Republic. Because, once it is out of the way, the BJP could sort out the other regional powers: Co-opting some, demolishing others, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
He referred to the Modi government scheme providing five kilograms of ration to the poor every month and said, "The Congress brought the Food Security Act, you did nothing."
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
In the run-up to the 2024 parliamentary elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party's minority morcha on Wednesday launched a year-long Muslim outreach programme -- "Sufi Samvad" -- with a special focus on the Muslim-dominated districts in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala and Telangana.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as the Congress is in power there.
Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Goud told reporters in Delhi that it was a painful decision to resign from TRS and cited alleged inaccessibility of leadership and others as the reasons for his decision.
'This is what happens when you do politics in between personal foreign trips and nightclubbing'
As the Rajya Sabha passed the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill 2014 on Thursday, giving birth to India's 29th state, Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt takes final stock of how it was accomplished.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's own charisma exceeds that of his party, but 2024 is proof that no party can ultimately depend on one person to deliver victory all the time, points out R Jagannathan.
He asked if DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, "who speaks of Tamil culture, such a serious allegation has been made--will DMK snap ties with Congress, for Tamil pride and the Tamil people."
'Revanth Reddy mounted a spirited campaign in Telangana which turned around the fortunes of the Congress in six months.'
The suspended Bharatiya Janata Party MLA was picked up under Act No.1 of 1986 (Preventive Detention Act), police said.
A local court in Hyderabad has rejected the remand of three people who were arrested by Cyberabad Police on charges of allegedly trying to coax four TRS legislators into defecting, over not following the procedure of issuing a notice before the arrest.
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