'Laluji is like my father and I am like his son.'
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties, led by the Congress, staged a walkout from both Houses of Parliament on Wednesday, in protest against all states except two being 'ignored' in the budget, an allegation termed 'outrageous' by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamanm, who said all the states never found a mention in any of the previous budgets, including those presented by the Congress.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The BJP may win more seats in the February 5 assembly election, but not enough to trump AAP, notes Ramesh Menon.
This negated the gain of more than a dozen seats in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that she has been admitted to hospital due to an illness and hence would not join the party's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra on Friday.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
A Mumbai court on Monday remanded the third person arrested for the killing of Nationalist Congress Party leader and former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique to police custody till October 21.
The opposition on Sunday asked the Centre to allow discussions in the Parliament on the United States prosecutors' bribery charges against the Adani Group even as Union minister Kiren Rijiju made it clear that the matters to be taken up in the two Houses will be decided by their authorised committees with the consent of the respective Chair.
While its performance in Bihar, has boosted fund collections, corporate contributors are still waiting to see its performances in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal before committing funds to the Congress.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
Congress leaders say that after the huge drubbing received by the party in Bihar, this is just the beginning of what is in store.
BJP's IT department head Amit Malviya said there is a certain propriety and protocol one associates with these all-party meetings.
Delhi is set to get its third woman chief minister, after Congress' Sheila Dikshit and Bharatiya Janata Party's Sushma Swaraj, as Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi has been chosen to succeed Arvind Kejriwal.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as the Congress is in power there.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
The Congress on Sunday demanded a thorough probe into Siddique's murder and said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who holds home portfolio, should take moral responsibility for law and order "failure" and resign.
Police scoured places of worship in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain and Khandwa in their hunt for the third shooter wanted for Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Siddique's killing.
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.
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.
Over 50 people have been arrested after the communal violence in Maharajgaj town, officials said on Tuesday, as markets remained shut and people stayed indoors for a second day in a row amid heavy deployment of police and other security personnel.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing the National Democratic Alliance partners to form the government at the Centre, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United head Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu have emerged as potential kingmakers.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have called his MLAs and ministers and said 'this should not happen in India. Manipur is not a part of any banana republic, I will not allow this to happen, talk it out, what is the problem'
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
KC Venugopal mentioned that the Congress's goal is to diminish the BJP's representation in Uttar Pradesh by securing half of the seats in the state.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
UP's representation in the government could diminish, given the BJP's decreased seat count in that state.
Nitish slammed the opposition and expressed confidence that they will be defeated in the next Lok Sabha elections.
Raut said they do not require the exit polls as they work on the field and know the "undercurrent".
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
BJP leaders hit back at the DMK and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi if he agreed with the insulting remarks of its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner against the north Indians.
The sources said the Congress is the binding force for the opposition bloc and the stronger the Congress emerges the better for the alliance.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
Saini's elevation as Haryana chief minister fits in with a pattern that has gathered pace in the BJP after the Congress and its allies like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar began making an aggressive bid to woo the largest group of communities and politically most significant, especially in Hindi-speaking states, by pushing for a caste census.
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