With uncertainty looming over the Maha Vikas Aghadi government's stability in the wake of Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde camping in Gujarat with some party MLAs, the stand of 29 legislators from smaller parties and Independents is likely to be crucial.
The Congress has pinned its hopes on many of the old-timers and also given representation to some new faces in its first list of candidates announced for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled next month.
Singh, a veteran Congress leader, was a member of the Upper House of Parliament from Assam for almost three decades.
Nath, 72, will take the office of chief minister for the first time in a distinguished career in politics.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Jailed gangster and former member of Parliament Atiq Ahmad and his wife on Tuesday joined the All India Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen in the presence of its chief Asaduddin Owaisi, drawing a sharp reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party which said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will not allow "Jinnah's jihadi mentality" to flourish in Uttar Pradesh.
Vasundhara Raje, who led the Bharatiya Janata Paty to a landslide victory in the Rajasthan assembly polls, was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister for the second time, in the presence of Narendra Modi and other top party leaders.
A lot is riding on the Rajya sabha polls that are scheduled for Saturday. Major parties are whisking away candidates of other parties, while protecting their own, MLAs are being sent to 'camps' in the final countdown to the polls for 57 seats. Here is a state-by-state look:
Kumaraswamy's meeting with the Congress chief comes in the backdrop of voices of dissent gaining ground in the ruling coalition in the southern state after two Congress MLAs met former chief minister S M Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.
Ahmad, a former Uttar Pradesh MLA and Lok Sabha MP, was brought back to the high-security jail in Gujarat in a UP police van after a nearly 24-hour-long road journey from Prayagraj.
In the past, the House has passed a number of resolutions urging the Central government to transfer Chandigarh to Punjab, Mann said.
The Congress will conduct a caste census in Madhya Pradesh after winning the assembly polls and establish a university in the name of Sant Ravidas, said party president Mallikarjun Kharge, accusing the regime at the Centre of wishing to change the Constitution.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna is on his way out, according to Congress sources, and Union Minister Harish Rawat and state minister Pritam Singh are emerging as the frontrunners for the top job in the hill state.
A white powder was found wrapped in a paper close to the seat of the Leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Choudhry.
Elections to the nine council seats which fell vacant on April 24 were postponed in view of the coronavirus outbreak, but last week the Election Commission set May 21 as the poll date.
Ayurvedic doctor-turned-politician Raman Singh was on Thursday sworn in as chief minister of Chhattisgarh for the third consecutive term.
Speaker refused to let Loni MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar discuss the alleged high-handedness of an official. Even after the Speaker called it a day, some members from both sides kept occupying their seats.
Uttarakhand minister Amrita Rawat, wife of Satpal Maharaj who recently left Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, was on Monday sacked by Chief Minister Harish Rawat from the state cabinet and an Independent member of Legislative Assembly was sworn in as minister.
The EC again rubbished the Aam Aadmi Party's claim that EVMs could be tampered with
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
After a spirited eight-hour debate in which 60 members participated, the Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, with 454 members voting in favour and two against it.
Polling is being held for 224 seats in what is being seen mainly as a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular.
The battle for Maihar in the upcoming bypolls is crucial for the Congress as well as the BJP.
"I am a five-time legislator and it has been allotted to me as a senior member of the state assembly," he said.
The rapprochement could open the door to an anti-saffron alliance for the 2019 general elections, reports Archis Mohan.
The development came against the backdrop of the ruling party accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to poach its MLAs to topple the Kamal Nath-led government, which enjoys a wafer thin majority in the House, and imminent expansion of the state Cabinet.
Facing a truncated strength caused by the en masse resignation of 16 ruling coalition MLAs, Kumaraswamy moved a one-line motion, saying the House expressed confidence in the 14-month old ministry headed by him.
The Samajwadi Party is unwilling to cede ground to the BJP, especially in Amethi, since the Congress is too weak to counter the BJP's well-oiled election machinery.
Accusing Mayawati of not allowing any Scheduled Caste leader to rise in Uttar Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said there is a big opportunity for the Congress to create leadership space in the community and it should ensure that Dalit leadership is created in all fields.
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.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
At 64, the woman who will be India's 15th president, taking over from Ram Nath Kovind, will also be the youngest and India's first President to be born after Independence.
Apprehending that some of its MLAs may not toe the party line, especially as BJP-backed Chandra had claimed support of at least two INLD MLAs, a dozen-odd legislators of the party were on Monday sent off to the hill station in Uttarakhand.
Reacting to the voting, chief minister Kamal Nath said, "The BJP says daily that we are a minority government and one which could fall any day."
"The 2017 state election results in India demonstrate broad-based popular support for the Indian government's policy agenda and will facilitate the implementation of further reforms, a credit positive for the sovereign," Moody's said in a statement.
The government on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment bill reserving 33 per cent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, reviving a proposal pending for years and blending history, politics and societal imperatives on the first day in the new Parliament building.
The Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government will have a total of 30 ministers, including 18 who had resigned earlier.
While Rahul loyalists were keen that he be given the post, a leader known to be close to him said, "If he does not become the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, then he should quit politics."
In Maharashtra, where the 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whereas the ruling BJP is locked in a contest with the opposition Congress and the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
Ajay Kumar Lallu said the party has emerged as the main challenger to the "oppressive" UP government and the 'winds of change' were blowing in the state.
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