The Congress secured 43.90 per cent vote share as it wrested Himachal Pradesh from the Bharatiya Janata Party, winning 40 seats in the 68-member assembly in the hill state which maintained its tradition of voting the incumbent government out of power since 1985.
A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
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.
Former Bharatiya Janata Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Wednesday said he was not going back to the saffron camp and indicated joining Samajwadi Party on Friday.
Holi was celebrated with pomp and splendor across India on Friday, with people soaking in the festivities by smearing 'gulaal' on each other and exchanging greetings and sweets. Homes and streets wore a colourful look as the revellers splashed colours and feasted on traditional delicacies. Public transport did not ply in the morning in most major cities while metro services started functioning from noon. As Holi coincided with the second Friday prayers during the holy Islamic month of Ramzan, security -- including increased patrolling and picketing -- was beefed up in several states. In Delhi, more than 25,000 security personnel were deployed. Police closely monitored about 300 sensitive areas with CCTV cameras and drones.
Karan Bhushan rejects the charges against his father, saying the "allegations are political and made up. We will challenge them in court".
"Had there been no demolition, probably the courts too would have ordered status quo," he said then. And his last wish, he said, was to live till the temple comes up.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pinned its hopes on the old guard to ensure victory in next month's assembly elections in Chhattisgarh as it gave tickets to 11 sitting MLAs and renominated 13 leaders who lost in the 2018 polls.
SP has already fielded its sitting MLA from Gauriganj seat.
Gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari's alleged aide Sanjeev Maheshwari Jeeva was shot dead on Lucknow court premises on Wednesday, the police said.
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
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.
Replying to the debate on the motion, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party, accusing it again of trying to bring down his government.
Congress in charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that the one who does not follow the ideology of the Congress has no place in the party and the decision to sack Gudha was a collective decision.
Out of the 25 seats, five seats each are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
UP Power Minister Shrikant Sharma stirred up a hornet's nest with his tweet terming the Congress president a 'coward and impotent'.
Suresh Kumar said he was withdrawing his nomination following a direction from the BJP leadership.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
The actress has had more than one encounter of the close kind.
A bench comprising Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy, while allowing the plea of the Pooja Pal, wife of slain leader, asked the probe agency to conclude the probe in the case preferably within six months.
Sacked Rajasthan minister Rajendra Gudha on Wednesday made public three pages of the purported "red diary" which he has claimed contains the details of financial misdeeds of the Congress government and cited their contents to allege corruption in Rajasthan Cricket Association election.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati attacked the Samajwadi Party government over the murder of her party leader, saying that there is total lawlessness in the state and that the Centre should intervene to improve the situation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
10 reasons why the Congress-JD-S government is on the brink of collapse.
The body of the 22-year-old woman, who had gone missing two months ago, was recovered from a vacant plot near an ashram built by Fateh Bahadur Singh, a minister in the erstwhile Samajwadi Party government, police had said on Friday.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
State deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya among 692 candidates are contesting on 61 seats spread across 12 districts in the fifth phase.
Mulayam Singh and Mayawati fell out after their ruling coalition in Uttar Pradesh crashed in 1995, two years after they came together along with smaller parties to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power.
Of the 294 candidates declared with serious criminal cases, 76 were from the TMC, 52 from the BJP, 47 from the CPI-M and 31 from the Congress.
The girl, who belongs to a lower middle class family and is uneducated, received support from the media and politicians.
BJP sources suggest that the upcoming elections will likely revolve around the renewed enthusiasm for the temple unless another theme with religious and nationalist undertones emerges.
The Uttar Pradesh Police is mulling over slapping the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against the six people arrested for the rape and murder of two Dalit sisters in the state's Lakhimpur Kheri.
The party also declared sitting MP Praveen Nishad as its candidate from Sant Kabir Nagar
The crowd at the mosque was larger than usual, unsurprisingly because it happened to be the last "Jumma" (Friday) of the holy month of Ramzan.
The BJP announced names of 107 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
Often credited with his party's victory in the 2012 assembly polls, now 59, he became the youngest chief of the Shiromani Akali Dal, when he was elevated to the post in 2008.
Under the Supreme Court-monitored proceedings, the result of the vote will be given to the court on Wednesday morning.
Senior Congress leaders accused the BJP of trying to bring down the party-led government, which is surviving on support of over half a dozen independent, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs.
Gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad on Wednesday claimed that he was being harassed in the Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat.
'People tell us openly that in 2024 we will vote for Modi.'
