The OBC face of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra and former deputy chief minister, Gopinath Munde, who had joined the Union Cabinet for the first time a week back, was all set to spearhead the party's campaign in the upcoming assembly polls in the state to wrest power from the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine.
Independent MLA Balraj Kundu, who has been vocal against the BJP-led government on several issues, remained firm in his decision to abstain from voting.
In a major political development in Karnataka, three independent legislators -- G Shekhar, Sangadgi, and Narendra Swami -- on Monday called on Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa at the latter's residence in Bangalore. The BJP needs the support of three more legislators to achieve simple majority in the 224-member Karnataka assembly.
With this, the ruling BJP has so far declared candidates for 136 seats. Earlier, the BJP had announced 79 candidates, including two lists of 39 each, and another list of one nominee.
Ahead of his Dussehra rally, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday tweeted a couplet by famous Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, which said that whosoever is his heir will be his son and not vice versa.
All the suspended legislators are contesting against the official BJP nominees as independents or as candidates of other political parties. The two-phase polling will he held on December 11 and 16.
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel tendered his resignation along with his entire cabinet on Friday to pave the way for formation of a new government in the state after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) landslide victory in the assembly elections.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
Shah, while releasing the saffron party's manifesto 'Sankalp Patra' for the upcoming assembly elections in Jharkhand, announced that a Displacement Commission would be formed to ensure rehabilitation of people displaced by industries and mines in the state.
"Pawar saheb had last week said that he wanted the opposition parties to come together. It is not important who will lead the front. That can be decided later. But, the opposition needs to come together," Malik said.
With the NCP hit by multiple desertions ahead of the Maharashtra polls, Sharad Pawar assumed charge of the campaign and traversed the state.
Dissension surfaced within the Bharatiya Janata party over choice of leader of opposition in the Bihar Assembly with a section of legislators protesting selection of Nand Kishore Yadav to the post without discussion with members of Legislative Assembly.
Sources said the Congress, which has 19 legislators in the Bihar assembly, will go by what the Rashtriya Janata Dal decides and its presence will help strengthen the coalition.
The Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday revoked the suspension of the five legislators who had allegedly assaulted a policeman on the assembly premises in March this year.
Congress legislators in Maharashtra disrupted Governor Vidyasagar Rao's address to the joint session of the state legislature, protesting the manner in which the 13-day-old BJP government won the trust vote on Wednesday.
Five MLAs -- four from the BJP and one independent -- were also sworn in as ministers. However, former home minister and six-term MLA from Ambala Cantt, Anil Vij, has not found a place in the new cabinet.
The Karnataka cabinet on Thursday decided to promulgate an ordinance to give effect to the contentious law against religious conversions.
Setting aside their political differences, the ruling CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front and Opposition Congress headed United Democratic Front, once again came together to launch a joint fight against the Centre on the CAA, which has seen unprecedented protests all over the country.
Anil Vij was administered the trial dose of the indigenous COVID vaccine Covaxin last month
Singh, a veteran Congress leader, was a member of the Upper House of Parliament from Assam for almost three decades.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday said a "new tradition" of levelling allegations and counter-allegations being observed in Parliament and state Assemblies these days is not proper for the country's constitutional democracy, and stressed the need for constructive debate and discussion in Houses to make democracy "lively and active".
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Aiming to breach the Bharatiya Janata Party's Gujarat bastion, the Aam Aadmi Party fielded its candidate to contest all 182 assembly seats and carried out a high decibel campaign in the run-up to the polls in Gujarat.
The state is mainly witnessing a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular).
The study showed the ruling BJP has 132 crorepati MLAs, followed by 14 of the Congress, all three Independents, and one each of the Aam Aadmi Party and the Samajwadi Party.
Patnaik's decision would mean that the ruling BJD will field women candidates for at least seven out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
In a rare gesture, not only the legislators of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)-headed Left Democratic Front and Congress-led United Democratic Front, but the lone Bharatiya Janata Party member in the 140-member state assembly, O Rajagopal, also supported the resolution against the Centre, saying 'it is the democratic spirit'.
In his letter to Ajit Pawar, who too is a deputy CM, Fadnavis said Malik has the right to attend the assembly as an MLA and added that "we (the BJP) do not harbour any personal animosity or grudge" against him.
Except for the Devendra Fadnavis- led government during 2014-19, Anil Deshmukh has managed to find a berth in the state ministry irrespective of which party came to power in the last over two decades.
The 71-year-old leader from Madhya Pradesh has almost four decades of legislative experience.
A parliamentary committee on Friday batted for reducing the minimum age to contest Lok Sabha and assembly elections, saying it would give the youth equal opportunities to engage in democracy.
It's 'brand Shivraj' on which the Bharatiya Janata Party is banking to make a hat-trick in Madhya Pradesh, where discontent against sitting MLAs of the party threatens to snowball into a crisis in a number of constituencies.
After being outwitted by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the ruling Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is now facing another challenge of getting all its six candidates elected to the state Legislative Council in the June 20 polls, which has once again put the spotlight on Independents and smaller parties.
The Congress on Monday nominated Bharatiya Janata Party turncoat Ashish Shukla against the saffron party's nominee, Sanjay Sinh, from the high-profile Amethi assembly seat in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
Both the Independent legislators were absent on the first day of the session.
Ending weeks of acrimony between the former saffron allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena will on Friday resume talks on the issue of the latter joining the four-week-old government in Maharashtra.
His comments drew angry reaction from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which said he should resign from the assembly and join separatists or migrate to Pakistan.
Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson and former Union minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, who got elected to the Bihar legislative council last month, was on Tuesday sworn in as a member of the Nitish Kumar cabinet.
The Punjab cabinet has approved the summoning of a special session of the assembly on September 22 to bring a confidence motion.
Delhi has emerged as the youngest assembly in terms of age of elected legislators from the four states, with an estimated average age of about 43 years for members of Legislative Assembly elected in the national capital.
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