The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to achieve a clear majority in Rajya Sabha after bye-elections for 12 seats scheduled next month, which would help the party get the nod for key legislations such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The BJP has announced its candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections across multiple states, including Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, and Haryana.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
Opposition parties have not been given the chairmanship of any of the four key parliamentary panels including the committee on home affairs and information technology, which were with the Congress, in the latest rejig announced on Tuesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's first list of 24 candidates for Lok Sabha from Madhya Pradesh featured former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, while Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur was replaced by another candidate.
The JD-U and the Opposition RJD are united on a caste census in Bihar, which the BJP is opposed to.
Rupesh Kumar Singh, 40, was sprayed with bullets while he was inside his SUV waiting for the gates of his residence in Punaichak locality in the city to open after his return from office on Tuesday evening.
With many of his close associates leaving his side, it is virtually a lone battle for Congress stalwart Kamal Nath to help his parliamentarian son Nakul Nath win from Chhindwara for a second time amid the Bharatiya Janata Party's aggressive push to wrest the seat.
Some analysts also pointed out that "outsourcing" political management to regional satraps such as Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana may have proven counterproductive and micromanagement by the Gandhi family was needed.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
Senior Congress leaders Anand Sharma, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kapil Sibbal, Raj Babbar, Vivek Tankha, Ghulam Nabi Azad will address an event in Jammu on Saturday which Manish Tiwari is also expected to join.
The swearing-in ceremony, attended by Chouhan, was kept low-key in view of the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Social distancing norms were followed at the ceremony.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
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