An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
The Congress has tried to inflict capital punishment on true secularism, he claimed, asserting that the Waqf law has no place in the Constitution.
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Union minister Anand Sharma on Friday termed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as a "national embarrassment".
Exit polls on Saturday predicted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power for a third straight term, with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance expected to win a big majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is not a threat to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance but a threat to the Bharatiya Janata Party led-National Democratic Alliance itself, as proved by the developments following his elevation as the BJP poll panel chief, his Assam counterpart Tarun Gogoi said on Saturday. "Modi is not a threat to the UPA. Modi is a threat to NDA itself," he said.
The Haryana victory will be a morale booster for the Bharatiya Janata Party and increase its bargaining power in the Mahayuti's seat-sharing talks for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections, according to political analysts.
Brisk polling was seen for the Wayanad Lok Sabha and the Chelakkara assembly seats in Kerala as they witnessed a turnout of 20.54 and 19.08 per cent, respectively, after the first three hours of voting on Wednesday.
Amid speculation over Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United's next move in the wake of vote counting trends, senior party leader K C Tyagi on Tuesday said they are in the National Democratic Alliance and 'we will be in the NDA'.
He also said that the BJP and Shiv Sena will go by what was "pre-decided" between them on sharing of power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-NDA government in its third term must tackle the problem of unemployment in the country, especially in the unorganised sector and in small and medium enterprises, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. Kumar also emphasised that the government now must finalise the four labour codes as it has been delayed beyond expectations. "We must recognise that post-COVID economic recovery has been a K-shaped recovery.
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.
In the backdrop of suicide of a Dalit research scholar in Hyderabad University, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Ramdas Athawale today demanded that members of the community be allowed to possess firearms given a "vertical rise" in incidents of "atrocities" against them.
Mizoram's outgoing chief minister and Mizo National Front (MNF) president Zoramthanga on Monday said anti-incumbency was the main factor for his party's debacle in the state assembly polls.
BJP-led NDA gave five seats to the Chirag Paswan-led LJP (Ram Vilas).
He is a well-regarded person and he has done a lot of developmental work in his state. He will reply to all the actions that have been initiated against him at the appropriate time, the Bihar chief minister said.
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
Questions are being raised on the future of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) as differences among its constituents come to the fore and several parties call for serious introspection by the Congress after a string of debilitating electoral losses.
Leaders of the JD-U, which has two ministers in the Union government, insist that the resolution also spoke of "special package and other types of help" and that Bihar could still get a lot from Narendra Modi government.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Both the BJP and the Congress have their share of challenges, with finding winning horses on top of this list.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
The two-day deliberations, which will be held at Grand Hyatt in the suburbs, will begin in the evening of August 31 and from 10am on September 1. The meeting will be followed by a press conference, Raut informed.
Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn-in as new chief minister of Maharashtra while allies Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar took oath as deputy CMs at a grand ceremony in Mumbai on Thursday evening.
'It is the first-time voters and the agnostics who are often influenced by political advertising.' 'These swing voters tend to make a huge difference in the outcome of any election.'
Narendra Modi will take oath as the prime minister for a third consecutive term on Sunday evening as President Droupadi Murmu has invited him to form the government.
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
As the first step, senior BJP Vice President and Convenor for the Lok Sabha polls, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, convened an hour long meeting with Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, who is officially with the United National Progressive Alliance. RLD members have been sulking against a non-starter alliance stuck with Bahujan Samaj Party of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.
However, in 950 booths, voting will end at 4 pm, though people standing in the queue at that time will be able to exercise their franchise.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a three-day visit to Odisha, is set to meet her counterpart in the neighbouring state, Naveen Patnaik, on Thursday afternoon.
Shah said the government was committed to ensure development in the country.
Union Minister Farooq Abdullah on Monday backed the Bharatiya Janata Party's demand for according the Bharat Ratna to former prime minister and veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
With polling of votes coming to an end in Bihar, exit poll prediction by various media outlets have started pouring in.
Tharoor suffered head injuries while performing a ritual at a temple in Thiruvananthapuram.
The BJP got the benefit of a split in Muslim votes in some seats of western UP, and its candidates registered wins from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh Lok Sabha seats.
A man with an air gun was arrested on Saturday, an hour ahead of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's rally in Bihar's West Champaran district, police said.
Minster of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayansami today said Centre is examining demands for including coal block allocations made during national Democratic Alliance rule within purview of Central Buerau of Investigation probe.
Asom Gana Parishad President and former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta on Wednesday kept open his party's option of joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party for Lok Sabha polls, saying a decision will be taken soon.
On the last day of the Budget Session, the National Democratic Alliance today created uproar in the Lok Sabha over the issue of alleged corruption involving Union Minister Virbhadra Singh and Scheduled Caste Commission Chairman Buta Singh and demanded action against them.
He said Shiv Sena protected a political leadership for 25-30 years but they (the BJP) didn't want Sena and also the Akali Dal -- the erstwhile members of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
