Former wrestler Sakshi Malik made some startling revelations in her her recently-released book titled Witness, claiming that their protest developed cracks when 'people close to' Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat began to fill their minds with 'greed'.
Sukanta Majumdar, the state BJP president, said, "Amit Shah has set a target of 35 seats. We will achieve that".
The broad patterns tell us that to sweep UP, the BJP has to retain its voteshares of the past three elections. But to merely win it, the party can do so while losing some voteshare, and perhaps up to as much as 10 per cent, observes Aakar Patel.
He sought to nix speculation that the Congress and the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray were working on a 'Plan B' to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls without his faction of the Nationalist Congress Party.
'Congress and BSP are in the fray, but not in the contest.'
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray will not switch to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, Maharashtra Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar president Jayant Patil asserted on Thursday, seeking to scotch speculation about a possible crossover by his key ally.
'Let Fadnavisji prove to the people of Maharashtra that he acts fairly against one and all.'
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.
Sources in both the BJP and the Janata Dal-United suggested such a possibility but it remained unclear if Kumar, the unquestioned leader of his party, has finalised a deal with the BJP top brass.
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Gujarat was labelled Hindutva's crucible and Modi was to become the chief 'chemist'. A revealing political saga excerpted from Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay's The Demolition, the Verdict and the Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project.
As many as 10 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government failed to win their seats in the 2022 assembly elections, despite the BJP registering an impressive victory.
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.
Both Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan assured voters that they would bring jobs and industrial development to the state. Their alliance batted for a welfare-plus-development model.
'It was a disaster on his part to give an oral remark which allowed ascertainment of the religious character of places of worship.' 'This disrupted the social harmony of the country.'
Before the ceremony, Yogi Adityanath, who led the party to a thumping victory in the just-concluded elections, will be elected as the leader of the legislature party, party sources said.
UP is an important state to roll out the government's agrarian reforms and job growth policies.
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.
On the eve of the counting of votes in Rajasthan, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have started reaching out to independent candidates, including rebels, and smaller parties.
The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to its ally Sena (UBT)'s nominee Narvekar, party sources said. Eventually, Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted.
Here's how some of the heavyweights fared in the Karnataka elections.
Against predictions by most exit polls that the ruling Congress had an edge in the state, the BJP banked heavily on the charisma of the PM.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole on Wednesday slammed ally Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray's MP Sanjay Raut for his remarks on Haryana poll outcome, stressing that accusations against Congress won't be tolerated.
While the Aam Aadmi Party is contesting on four seats, the Congress has fielded candidates for the remaining three seats.
First-time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma was sworn in as the chief minister of Rajasthan at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's top leadership on Friday, 12 days after the party ousted the Congress in the assembly polls.
'No one is propagating RSS ideology as a government officer.'
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday commended Indian financial sector regulators for doing a "world-class job" and bringing greater transparency into the system. Underlining that she is not against questioning or critiquing regulators, Sitharaman said there is a need to be "extremely conscious" about contributions made by them as well. Speaking at the Financial Express Best Banks Awards, the finance minister said, "I strongly recommend that facts are taken on board before we discuss anything to do with the regulators, strictly speaking."
Nishant Kumar's demand that the NDA name Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial nominee is seen as a gambit to consolidate the CM's position in the ruling alliance.
Voters in Muslim-dominated Nuh in Haryana have made the Congress victorious in all three assembly seats in the district, with one of the contestants registering the highest victory margin.
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
Earlier, Modi was given a standing ovation at the meeting following the party's stupendous win in three assembly polls.
There is no sign of it losing popularity with a significant section of the voting population, which appears to be attracted to the party for identity reasons, observes Aakar Patel.
'If the BJP detoxifies the nuclear liability law, it will bring economic, environmental and, most of all, strategic benefits.' 'Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that this Budget promise is met soon -- ideally, before Mr Modi heads to his first meeting with Trump 2.0,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
Is the unusually and unbearably scorching Sun and the general laxity, bordering on laziness, among voters, responsible, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
A democracy is one, only if it has a robust Opposition. And as its actions show, the Modi-BJP combine gives two hoots for that. So, the Opposition must learn to convince people why the BJP must go. Else, it can count down to 2029, points out Shyam G Menon.
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
The Congress is now gearing up to take on the BJP over alleged corruption, jobs and issues tied to tribals, farmers and women.
Nitish Kumar wants to assure the BJP leadership that he will continue to be a part of the NDA. But he also wants to secure a larger number of seats for his party in the 2025 assembly elections in Bihar.
