Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and a strong team of Union ministers figure in the list of the party's 40 star campaigners for Karnataka assembly elections next month.
Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor has predicted that JD(U) president Nitish Kumar will contest the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar in alliance with the BJP but may switch sides later, with hopes for another term as the chief minister. Kishor, founder of the Jan Suraaj Party, also asserted that Kumar's popularity has declined and he is unlikely to win a fifth consecutive term. He challenged the BJP to declare Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate, arguing that they would struggle to win seats if they did so. Kishor also criticized Kumar's leadership, accusing him of being "physically tired and mentally retired" and of "bringing disrepute to Bihar" by touching Prime Minister Narendra Modi's feet. He said his new party will enter the fray to pull Bihar "out of the political rut" and that the state's much-touted prohibition policy is an example of the BJP's duplicity.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, chief ministers of Nationalist Democratic Alliance-ruled states and prominent personalities from industry and Bollywood on Thursday attended the grand swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra Chief Minister in Mumbai.
Polling on three graduates and two teachers constituencies of the council was held on January 30 and counting of votes by ballot began on Thursday evening and was completed on Friday.
Shah pulled no punches in lambasting the RJD supremo for alleged nepotism, accusing him of making his wife the chief minister, getting his daughter elected to Parliament and "now both his sons want to become the CM".
For the first time, non-upper castes are in a majority in the board, as the party continues with its outreach to traditionally weaker and backward sections of society.
The newly-inaugurated Kashi Vishwanath Corridor in Varanasi is being largely hailed as a symbol of resurrection of India's spiritual consciousness but a section of people here claims that the mega project is being showcased so that the ruling party gets a "political edge" in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Delhi faces a severe financial crunch and the deficit is largely due to numerous welfare schemes without adequate revenue flowing in. The success of welfare schemes and electoral promises will need careful financial planning and out of the box thinking to whip up additional revenue, notes Ramesh Menon.
Accepting demands of the aspirants, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) on Thursday postponed Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) exams, and announced to hold the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) preliminary exam on the old pattern.
More than 48 lakh candidates appeared in the examination conducted on February 17 and 18 across the state.
This has invited sharp reaction from the Opposition, with the Samajwadi Party saying that the BJP was afraid of its defeat in Milkipur due to which it moved the court for "stalling" polls on the assembly seat.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday criticised Uttar Pradesh government for withdrawing sedition charges against Kashmiri students studying at a private university, saying the Samajwadi Party government is only bothered about its vote bank.
Tandon, son former Chhattisgarh governor late Balramji Das Tandon, assured everyone that he will live up to the expectations and the trust which the BJP has reposed in him.
Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are majority shareholders of Young Indian with 38 per cent shares held by each one of them. They were questioned for hours by the ED in this case a few years back.
Stressing that the Apna Dal-S stands for social justice, Union minister Anupriya Patel on Monday dissociated her party from "Hindutva and all those issues" and said it is ideologically different from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sources said BJP working president J P Nadda called up Singh to inform him of the party's decision and asked him to make an announcement.
This would give BJP the chance to explore Constitutional options for government formation if there is no clear-cut mandate, explains Sheela Bhatt.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
'Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli?'
Rajbhar said the seat-sharing talks with the BJP remained unsuccessful.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
If Meena resigns, it is likely to put pressure on other ministers whose areas also saw poor performance in the general elections.
'They were very vocal on the defence of the Constitution, reservation, SC/ST Act and democratic rights.'
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
'We want to send a notice to the BJP that Rajputs are no longer their slaves.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party faces an uphill task of repeating its performance of the last assembly election of winning 53 out of 58 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh where polling will be held in the first phase on February 10.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi on Sunday described farmers, who have been protesting against three farm laws, as 'our own flesh and blood' and suggested that the government should re-engage with them in reaching common ground.
The Gyanvapi issue has been at the centre of a long-drawn legal battle with the Hindu side arguing that the Gyanvapi mosque was allegedly built on the remains of a pre-existing temple, while the Muslim side has contested the claim.
The BJP lost 15 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Union ministers have been deployed in all 15, tasked with turning the result around.
Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, have not been renominated by the party for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
While the Congress top brass has declined an invitation to the January 22 consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the party's Uttar Pradesh unit stuck to its plan to offer prayers in the holy city on Makar Sankranti.
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
Nadda said the investigating agencies had nabbed one accused from Azamgarh and another from Jaunpur.
Three Lok Sabha MPs, including its former Telangana president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, figured on Sunday in the BJP's first list of 52 candidates.
BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra in a grand ceremony at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
Debutant legislator Rekha Gupta was sworn in as Delhi chief minister along with six ministers on Thursday in a grand show of strength full of colour and spectacle to mark the Bharatiya Janata Party's return to power in the city after more than 26 years.
Saini said he had resigned from Yogi Adiyanth government because 'for five years Dalits, backward classes were suppressed, their voices were suppressed'.
