Congress leaders were seen giving media bytes at various places at the headquarters, arguing that the trends would change by 1 PM but it did not happen.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's bypoll win in four of the six seats it contested has invigorated the party ahead of assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
In 2019, actor turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent backed by the BJP, won by defeating then Kumaraswamy's son and joint candidate of the then ruling Congress-JD-S alliance Nikhil by 1,25,876 votes.
Striking an emotional chord with the people of Jammu and Kashmir, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday said he considers himself their soldier in New Delhi, and added his doors are always open for party workers -- 'the lions of the Congress'.
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.
'I don't want what happened to me should happen to anyone else,' says Shagun Parihar, the BJP candidate from Kishtwar whose father and uncle were killed by terrorists.
'A first-time politician can only get such opportunities in AAP. Had I been in some other party, I wouldn't even have got a ticket to contest polls'
Union minister Smriti Irani reacted furiously to the Congress leader's barb at the prime minister over the Rafale purchase and the tense situation in Manipur.
'There is no place for Hindutva in the mainstream politics of India. The BJP should realise that,' S Bangarappa on his reasons for leaving the BJP.
Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Chaudhary switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jaipur on Monday ahead of assembly elections due later this year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded two Congress turncoats and its former Union minister Vijay Sampla for next month's Punjab assembly polls as it released its second list of 27 candidates on Thursday.
Vyas was a minister in the BJP government in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was the chief minister.
The rebels, who contested as independents in the assembly polls, marred the prospects of BJP candidates in eight seats while Congress candidates were hit in four assembly segments.
Wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat met former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Wednesday amid speculation that the two star grapplers could be fielded in the Haryana assembly polls by the party.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
The party bagged 11 of the 25 seats, from 20 Local Authorities' constituencies in the state, for which the biennial election was held on December 10, and counting was taken up today, poll officials said.
Not known to share the best of equations with his former deputy, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday came out in support of Sachin Pilot amid allegations by the Bharatiya Janata Party that his father, former Union minister Rajesh Pilot, was involved in the bombings over Mizoram in 1966.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
The withdrawal of the candidature by DPAP leaders on the last day on August 30 is seen as a boost to the NC-Congress alliance.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
Ravi Kishan, the BJP's candidate, is an outsider. The BSP-SP candidate is from the powerful Nishad community. Yogi faces a tough task in ensuring that the Gorakhpur seat, which he represented from 1998 to 2017, stays with the BJP.
The Raidighi legislator, in a letter to TMC state chief Subrata Bakshi, said she will no longer be associated with the party.
BJP MLA from Kaliagnaj Soumen Roy Saturday joined the ruling TMC, becoming the fourth saffron party legislator to do so since the West Bengal assembly poll results were declared in May.
The three seats fell vacant following the resignations of Baburao Chinchansur, R Shankar and Laxman Savadi to contest the assembly elections.
The party, however, chose to play down the incidents calling them 'minor protests', and claimed that there was no discontent among the workers.
Assisted by his personal staff and gunmen, Gowda, with a cannula on his right hand, attended multiple election meetings on Tuesday and addressed people sitting in his chair as he cited knee pain.
Bhujbal stridently opposed Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange's demand for Maratha quota from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) share.
'The local support from our MP is nil. He never comes to see our farms.'
BJP candidate Akash Saxena defeated his Samajwadi Party rival Asim Raja by 33,702 votes.
'They know the people of Karnataka will not accept it.'
The BJP has done extremely well in the Patidar-dominated constituencies of the state, winning almost every seat that has significant Patel population.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to nominate Ananta Rai 'Maharaj', who has been demanding a separate state of 'Greater Cooch Behar' to be carved out of West Bengal, as its candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from the state, has kicked off a fresh storm with the ruling Trinamool Congress accusing the saffron party of fanning separatism in the state.
Moderate to high turnout was recorded in 13 assembly constituencies across seven states where bypolls were held on Wednesday amid sporadic incidents of violence in Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
'Sehwag said he was not interested in politics or contesting elections'
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.
Polling for the third phase of the Lok Sabha election will be held on Tuesday, May 7, 2024.
Suspended Congress leader Nilesh Kumbhani, whose nomination form was rejected over discrepancies leading to Bharatiya Janata Party winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat unopposed, resurfaced on Saturday after 20 days and alleged it was the grand old party that had betrayed him first in 2017.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of hatching a conspiracy to assassinate Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, fearing poll defeats in Gujarat and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and alleged Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari's involvement in it.
