'Our approach is forward-looking. The central leadership wants young leaders to lead the charge now. This will also send a clear signal that lapses will not be tolerated. We are targeting beyond 2025.' Satyavrat Mishra reports.
The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from its lone southern citadel with a comfortable majority in a morale booster win that will be key for reviving its electoral fortunes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Kannauj, the party announced on Wednesday, two days after it had declared another candidate for the Uttar Pradesh seat.
"Special circumstances" exist in Punjab, Wasnik said and added that in view of these, the AAP and the Congress have decided to fight the Lok Sabha polls separately in the state.
From putting up a decent performance in the last Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh winning 10 seats stitching an alliance with arch rival Samajwadi Party, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party drew a blank in the current general elections, dealing a severe blow to its reputation of representing the voice of Dalits in the state.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party managed to notch up a morale-boosting win on its 'Mission Northeast' on Thursday by retaining Tripura emphatically, despite anti-incumbency and newcomer Tipra Motha playing spoilers to its party, while also piggy-backing to power in Nagaland on Neiphiu Rio-led NDPP's shoulder.
Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Harda on April 24, Modi praised Chouhan saying the two had served together in the party organisation and also as chief ministers.
In line with exit poll predictions, the Bharatiya Janata Party has taken an early lead in Uttar Pradesh, after one hour of counting.
'What matters is policies, not personalities like Priyanka, Rahul or Modi.'
The BJP has won just eight out of the 40 zila panchayat seats in Ayodhya, a disappointment for the ruling party in the district on which the Centre and the state government have lavished much attention.
The party's national executive meeting chaired by its president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar flagged price rise and unemployment as "burning issues"
The Lok Sabha member from Dakshina Kannada met family members of Krishnappa, a BJP worker who was allegedly hacked to death, while his wife and son were grievously injured in the attack after they protested against bursting of crackers outside their house in Bengaluru Rural district's Hoskote on Sunday.
Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda on Thursday met leaders of the party's allies in Uttar Pradesh -- Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal-S and Sanjay Nishad of the Nishad party -- at his residence in New Delhi as part of its government formation exercise.
'My suspicion is that most of the bonds were given by companies who had got contracts or who had benefited from policy changes by the government.'
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
'The BJP will take time to come to power in Andhra.'
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
So far 14 Kashmiri Pandits have filed nominations to contest from the valley for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, aiming to ensure the return and rehabilitation of their fellow community members, whose number run up to 3 lakh.
Will Andhra Pradesh follow the Odisha model, voting differently in Lok Sabha and assembly elections? Or will Odisha follow Andhra Pradesh, voting in new faces in both?
'We want to ensure that no government in J&K will be formed without our support.'
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
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.
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.
The pressure on Delhi mellowed Lucknow's ruling dispensation's initial enthusiasm to try and draw electoral mileage from the developments in Afghanistan.
AIADMK insiders see the very idea of an NDA conclave as a measure of the BJP's current electoral assessment, stemming from relative weakness in 2024 compared to 2014 and 2019. In their reckoning, the BJP now needs allies more than the other way round, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
Karnataka, by reposing its faith in BSY, remains a Hindutva stronghold, reports R Rajagopalan.
Singh asserted that Deshmukh set a staggering collection target of Rs 100 crore for his officers, specifically from Mumbai, while also discussing plans to target key opposition figures, including former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
There is a limit to ignoring genuine aspirations of the people and suppressing their legitimate voice in running the affairs of the state, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'If they harp on it again, they will begin to lose votes.' 'They have not lost this time, but they will lose next time.' 'Your committed votes will never be enough to guarantee victory for you.'
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
No major glitches in electronic voting machines were reported and the voting passed off peacefully with high security observed at the 3,360 critical booths in 493 locations where more than 25,000 police personnel, nearly 13,000 home guards and 100 companies of paramilitary forces were deployed, officials said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept three of the four wards in the Patparganj assembly segment and all three in the Shakur Basti constituency held by senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain -- both targets of sustained attacks over corruption by the saffron party -- in the MCD elections.
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Scores of people, some armed with sticks, walked in the funeral cortege of a youth killed during a Durga idol immersion procession in Bahraich amid cries for justice from the family and others on Monday, as tension escalated with shops being burnt down and angry crowds out in the streets.
AAP's presence in both states has complicated the contests for the BJP and its Congress rival.
The BJP is not taking the AAP challenge lightly. Amit Shah has cautioned party insiders to ensure that AAP does not cross a vote share of 24%. He has always seen AAP as a much more significant challenge than the Congress, observes Ramesh Menon, author, Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.
'Gujarat should have been a breeze. But the Patidar agitation and economic uncertainty queered the pitch.' 'Yes, the BJP won and its rank-and-file will take great comfort in the assembly victory. But the leadership is taking stock for a very tricky set of elections coming up in 2018.'
How Modi retrieves the situation and how he enlists new allies in the next two years will show if the BJP is fighting fit, report Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
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