Opposition parties on Wednesday opposed the 'one nation, one election' proposal by calling it impractical and a 'cheap stunt' by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The voter turnout recorded in the 2019 assembly polls was around 68 per cent.
Congress leaders, on their part, are confident that the mobilisation of voters away from the BJP will gain more momentum in the state elections, scheduled for October 1, in the absence of national issues and the 'Modi factor'.
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra on Tuesday claimed that the meeting of the ethics committee of the Lok Sabha was postponed to keep a Congress member away from the proceedings and adopt the report by a majority, prompting a sharp retort from Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey.
The youth -- their dreams of government jobs unfulfilled -- are voicing their frustration.
Days after he defended Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his "puppy" remarks, Bahujan Samaj Party on Wednesday expelled its Hamirpur MP Vijay Bahadur Singh for making statements which went against the "philosophy and principles" of the party.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
The committee headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar is meeting later on Thursday to adopt its draft report in what is likely to be hotly contested by opposition members of the panel.
"Cases were lodged against the Dalits and how many of them were guilty is a matter of investigation," Gehlot said.
He said the Uttar Pradesh police in all likelihood will seek his transit remand and also police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period".
This appears to be a common refrain in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri Lok Sabha constituency where farmers want better prices for their produce and respite from the stray cattle menace and others want political leaders to talk about job creation instead of issues like the Ram temple and Article 370.
The ruling Congress, voted to office in 2018 after 15 years in opposition, and the Bharatiya Janata Party are the main contenders for power in the state, where the Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and some regional outfits are also in the fray.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Thursday pleaded innocence to the 'cash-for-query' allegation levelled against her and told a parliamentary committee that the charge is motivated by animus of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai after she broke off her personal relations with him, sources said.
Congress leader Kumari Selja ruled out the possibility of an alliance with the AAP for the Haryana assembly polls.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
The BSP extended outside support to the Congress to form governments in these two states as it had failed to reach majority on its own.
'The opposition wants the country to run on the basis of Shariat but this cannot happen'
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Opposition leaders have slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party over its Lok Sabha member Ramesh Bidhuri, who is in the eye of a storm for his derogatory comments against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali, being given poll responsibility by the party in Rajasthan's Tonk district.
Senior Janata Dal-United leader Dhananjay Singh pitched for Opposition unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and said party workers in Uttar Pradesh want Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to contest the elections from the state's Phulpur constituency.
In a crackdown on associates of gangster Atiq Ahmed named in the sensational Umesh Pal murder case, the Prayagraj Development Authority on Wednesday demolished the house of a close aide of Ahmed.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
The gangster-politician was booked in 65 criminal cases ranging from murder to extortion and was elected an MLA five times on the tickets of different political parties.
Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina, seeking re-election from Nowshera assembly constituency of Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir, is facing a major challenge from his former party colleague Surinder Choudhary.
Coincidentally, the two first-term members got seats adjacent to each other in the House.
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.
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.
Opportunistic face of SP has come before the people: Yogi Adityanth.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh, where assembly polls are due by 2023-end, are not attaching much importance to the presence of the AAP and the AIMIM citing the largely bipolar politics of the state.
The Supreme Court had last month ruled that any appeal for votes on the ground of 'religion, race, caste, community or language' amounted to 'corrupt practice' under the electoral law.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
Karan Bhushan rejects the charges against his father, saying the "allegations are political and made up. We will challenge them in court".
Instead of harvesting the wrath against the BJP and using it to their advantage by opting for a collective form of leadership, the Congress decided once again to bestow their trust in the Hooda family who were given a free hand in the distribution of tickets. This turned out to be the biggest blunder and this faulty selection was the single over riding factor in the Congress defeat, explains Rashme Sehgal.
The opposition on Tuesday termed as an 'election jumla' the women's reservation bill brought by the government with many leaders raising questions over the proposed legislation, contending it doesn't account for reservation for OBC communities and that it will be effective at the earliest by the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
Dalit votes could play a decisive role in 28-30 constituencies in the 230-member assembly.
A court in Varanasi on Monday convicted gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the murder of Congress leader Awadhesh Rai more than 30 years ago.
All 13 candidates in the fray in Indore against Lalwani, who won by a potentially record margin votes, lost their security deposit, indicating they were clearly rejected by the voters. If a candidate gets fewer than one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency, his/her security deposit is seized by the EC.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak said on Tuesday night that all the eight candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party have won in the Rajya Sabha elections from the state.
The Congress, out of power in Madhya Pradesh for nearly 15 years, has also expressed its willingness to align with like-minded parties to take on the BJP.
Action will be taken against such MLAs, he said.
