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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
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.
In a protests against the decision of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to invite BJP to form the government despite falling short of the required numbers, the Congress has been demanding they be called to form the government in Goa and Manipur as it had emerged as the largest party in the 2017 assembly election.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
UP's representation in the government could diminish, given the BJP's decreased seat count in that state.
Raut said they do not require the exit polls as they work on the field and know the "undercurrent".
Nitish slammed the opposition and expressed confidence that they will be defeated in the next Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress would also take inspiration from history as it was from Karnataka that an embattled Indira Gandhi had revived her dwindling political future by winning a Lok Sabha bypoll from Chikmagalur.
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.
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.
'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'
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.
With the assembly poll results in three states being a disappointment for the Congress, some rumblings have begun among the constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) ahead of their meeting on December 6, with many leaders alleging that the grand old party ignored others, but was unable to win elections on its own.
The Congress took the gamble of going it alone but Rahul Gandhi's magic, like it did in Uttar Pradesh, failed this time in Bihar with the party recording its worst-ever performance in assembly elections in the state in last 10 years.
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.
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.
After a marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha that lasted for a month and a half, the results were declared on Tuesday.
The 'Make Rahul Gandhi All India Congress Committee president again' chorus is growing louder in the Congress with half a dozen state units so far seeking his elevation to the top post, even as uncertainty and suspense persisted over whether he would take on the mantle.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday said he was in favour of extending reservation benefits to Muslims but emphasised that it should be based on social backwardness and 'not on the basis of religion'.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
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.
Politicians across the political spectrum graced Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani's wedding ceremonies at the Jio World Convention Centre at the Bandra Kurla Complex in north west Mumbai.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
There are states that could swing either way and change the results of the 2024 general election.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
The Muzaffarpur court had on April 16 issued a notice to the Congress president on a petition alleging that that she had hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus by her alleged portrayal as 'Goddess Durga' in a poster at the party's Muradabad office in Uttar Pradesh.
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