A BJP victory in the high-octane West Bengal election could have turned the fortunes in rival Kailash Vijayvargiya favour, reports Sandeep Kumar.
Though different voices are emerging from within the ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh over the issue, several saffron party MLAs, including senior leaders, appeared worried about a possible repeat of the 'Gujarat formula' to overcome anti-incumbency in the central state, where Assembly elections are due in end-2023.
A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva -- all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.
Vijayvargiya, who is also the BJP's Bengal minder, also said that he has received a call from Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who enquired about the party's poor show.
Behind its high-decibel campaign, powered by well-organised party machinery, the BJP also appears to have made a slight departure from its 'next generation' approach to stay ahead of an aggressive Congress and enhance its prospects of securing a majority of seats.
A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul sought response from the West Bengal government on five separate pleas filed by BJP leaders alleging foisting of criminal cases to deter them from political activities and said interim protection from coercive action will continue till the next date of hearing.
The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries, and Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar as secretaries.
The longest-serving Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister and popularly known as mama (maternal uncle) and 'paon-paon wale bhaiya' (foot soldier), Shivraj Singh Chouhan has emerged as the hero of his party's stunning victory in the state assembly elections.
The protest will be held following all COVID protocols across all organisational mandals of the BJP.
Hitting back at Prashant Kishor, Kailash Vijayvargiya remarked that the country will lose a poll strategist after his part forms the government in the state after the upcoming elections in the state.
The BJP is likely to field them in the bypolls necessitated by their resignations.
As Madhya Pradesh goes to polls, all eyes will be on 29 key assembly seats, out of the total 230, where the contest will be keenly watched.
A top Madhya Pradesh government official, however, said on Saturday that no such plan has been finalised.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party leaving its rivals comfortably behind in states like Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the initial rounds of vote counting, its leaders credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governance model for the expected win and said "new history" is being created in UP.
An officer on Friday said that the police registered suo motu first information reports also against state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Arvind Mennon and MPs Arjun Singh and Locket Chatterjee. They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, destruction of public property, criminal obstruction and assault on government servant and breaching the disaster management act, he said.
"The Centre has passed the CAA with the honest intention of granting citizenship to persecuted refugees coming to our country from neighbouring nations," he added.
Bharatiya Janata Party's youth-wing leader Pamela Goswami, arrested in a drugs case, on Saturday demanded the arrest of party colleague Rakesh Singh, accusing him of conspiracy, and sought a CID probe into the matter.
The Indore-3 legislator and son of senior party leader Kailash Vijayvargiya was recently jailed for thrashing the municipal officer, on an anti-encroachment drive, following a heated argument.
The BJP appointed Sunil Bansal, one of the party's key election managers, as its national general secretary and in charge of three opposition-ruled states -- West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana -- in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
The post-mortem repor said that Roy died due to hanging and no other injury mark was found on his body.
With many of his close associates leaving his side, it is virtually a lone battle for Congress stalwart Kamal Nath to help his parliamentarian son Nakul Nath win from Chhindwara for a second time amid the Bharatiya Janata Party's aggressive push to wrest the seat.
The BJP on Wednesday also named its in-charges for assembly bypolls to four seats in Tripura.
He clarified that if the saffron party does any better than what he has predicted, he would quit his work.
In the wake of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra predicting Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh's Chouhan's exit from the top post following the year-end assembly polls, the latter asked people at a rally whether he should become the CM again or not.
'Priyanka would not have been brought into active politics if there was confidence within the Congress in (party chief) Rahul's leadership'
The ruling TMC in West Bengal was rocked by a fresh bout of desertions on Friday with Banerjee quitting the party and several other leaders rallying behind him.
Several protesters and police personnel were injured in clashes. The BJP alleged that a party worker identified as Ullen Ray was 'beaten to death' by the police during a baton charge.
All schemes from Ladli Laxmi' to others being run by the previous government will continue and funds will be transferred to beneficiaries' accounts on the due date, Yadav said.
The exercise will continue till 6 pm in all the polling stations except those in Maoist-affected areas of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori districts where it ended at 3 pm, an official said.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
Roy said he would wait to see the municipal poll results in Bengal. According to sources close to him, the term 'farewell' doesn't mean that he is leaving the party.
"My intention was not to hurt anyone. I take back my yesterday's tweet," he said on Twitter on Wednesday morning.
Thousands of BJP workers from Kolkata and Howrah began marching towards Nabanna to protest the "worsening" law and order in the state.
Bharatiya Janata Party working president JP Nadda and party general secretary in-charge of West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya led a rally in support of the amended Citizenship Act in Kolkata on Monday.
'They are our go-to men, our trouble-shooters.' 'They draw their strength from remaining low-key and accessible only to our workers.'
The Federation of Indian Associations hosted an event to celebrate India's Independence Day at Times Square in New York.
BJP chief Amit Shah had set a target of winning 22 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 seats in West Bengal.
The defeat of Dhami who led the BJP's campaign against the Congress in the state throws up a big question before the saffron party on the issue of choosing the next chief minister.
The state BJP unit, which was divided till last week on the question of inducting Roy into the party, has given up its reservations due to the keenness of the leadership, the sources said.
Senior TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee sought to know if it was an attempt by the BJP to divert attention from 'the historic launch' of the ruling party's report card.
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