As many as 14 Maoists were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region on Friday, a senior police official said. However, ANI has put the toll at 30.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the BJP is consistently losing ground, which is why "the PM's love for Muslim League has resurfaced".
The Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in Rajasthan on Sunday, winning 115 seats out of the 199 where assembly elections were held last week.
The city's 24-hour Air Quality Index (AQI), recorded at 4 pm daily, stood at 417, making it the worst in the country. On Friday, the AQI level was 396.
A cache of weapons, including an AK-47 rifle, one SLR (self-loading rifle), one INSAS rifle, one LMG rifle and one .303 rifle were also recovered from the encounter spot.
Lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh have always been touch-sensitive about protocol during official meetings and irrespective of the party in power, complaints of breach of guidelines have often cropped up.
Gaikwad, who was Dharavi MLA before being elected to the Lok Sabha in the 2024 general polls, also alleged the redevelopment project was real estate's biggest scam.
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
In winning a seventh term, the BJP also matched the Left Front's feat in West Bengal.
If Rashid cannot be the king, he could be the kingmaker after October 8 when the results to the J&K assembly are declared.
Gohain claimed that his discussions with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma regarding the delimitation "did not bring any positive outcome".
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Ajit Pawar on Tuesday said he would work for his party till he is alive and scotched speculation that he and a group of MLAs loyal to him might align with the ruling BJP.
Today in 2024, the BJP jails its opponents during an election and still believes, or at least wants us to believe, that it is only following the rules of democracy, asserts Aakar Patel.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to replace its Telangana president Bandi Sanjay Kumar with Union minister G Kishan Reddy, a "softer" leader who can take everyone along, and elevate Etela Rajender, who has switched from the BRS, as its election management committee chairperson hints at a change in the party's strategy in the state.
'We want to ensure that no government in J&K will be formed without our support.'
Shah on Sunday tweeted a picture of their meeting and welcomed the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party leader to the NDA.
'There is some deep rot that has set in the Congress party. This requires an organisational surgery.'
In a big organisational rejig, the BJP named Union minister G Kishan Reddy, Sunil Jakhar and Babulal Marandi as party presidents in Telangana, Punjab and Jharkhand respectively.
For Sikhs, they say, honour is the bottom line; and whatever the state of the SAD's political fortunes today, arrogance will not be helpful in the negotiation.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
Five Parliamentarians from Karnataka including Janata Dal-Secular leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet, on Sunday took oath in the new National Democratic Alliance Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
For that to happen, Moitra's much followed speeches should be heard outside Parliament so that the PR spins of the ruling dispensation are countered with informed debate, argues Shyam G Menon.
Amid talks of cross-voting, three of the 37 Congress MLAs in Maharashtra skipped a meeting called by the party ahead of the legislative council polls on Friday.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Congress leader K C Venugopal and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's T R Baalu walked out of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's office, refusing to endorse NDA candidate Birla without being offered the Deputy Speaker's position.
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'.
Another issue on the party's agenda is the expansion of the ruling NDA, which has seen steady depletion in the recent years with traditional BJP allies like the Janata Dal-United and Akali Dal leaving the grouping.
Saini, 54, a low profile OBC leader, rose through the ranks in the party and was unanimously elected as the leader of the state BJP's legislature group at a meeting held in Chandigarh on Tuesday.
The Karnataka legislative assembly on Wednesday witnessed chaotic and unruly scenes as angry Bharatiya Jansata Party legislators tore copies of bills and the agenda, and threw them at the deputy speaker, who was presiding, following which Speaker U T Khader suspended 10 of them for the remainder of the session.
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.
A Trinamool Congress legislator on Sunday threatened to not support any bill tabled by the government in the West Bengal Assembly in the future and abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in the state if 'atrocities' on his loyalists allegedly by a rival faction continued, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party said the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government was just a matter of time.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
In a dig at Rahul Gandhi, Dubey said that the former Congress president was expected to initiate the debate but did not do so last minute as "probably he got up late".
The senior Paswan sought an appointment and waited for more than three months but Rahul Gandhi did not relent, said Chirag Paswan, who at that time too was keen to leave the UPA and join the National Democratic Alliance.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
'...We should first look at and acknowledge what we have done to ourselves.' 'To not do so opens us to the accusation of rank hypocrisy and also reduces the stature of our globetrotting peaceniks,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
He will be around for another crack at the elections, and a clear majority, predicts Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances