A 39-member parliamentary panel has been constituted to examine the two bills proposing simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The panel, chaired by BJP leader Bhratruhari Mahtab, will include prominent members from various political parties, including the BJP, Congress, SP, TMC, and DMK. The panel is expected to submit its report to the Lok Sabha by the first day of the last week of the next session. The government has decided to increase the committee's strength to include more political parties, highlighting the significance of this proposal to reform the election process in India.
A fact-finding team of MPs and MLAs from the Left parties and the Congress, which arrived in Agartala on Friday to look into post-poll violence in Tripura, was attacked in Sepahijala district, police said.
The 19th Congress of the CPI-M in Coimbatore on Wednesday discussed the uneven growth of the party in the country. It demanded scrapping the Article 355, 356.
With an eye on assembly elections in Kerala, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi mounted an attack on the Communist Party of India-Marxist in its stronghold, accusing it of indulging in "politics of violence" on Monday.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat points out that states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have imposed a formal ban on the Naxalite organisations long ago. "But has the situation improved there? Their situation is similar to that of West Bengal," Karat told Business Standard.
Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections has begun across states and Union Territories, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told PTI.
The bench sought a reply within one week and posted the matter for further hearing on September 16.
Just eight months after its good showing in the Lok Sabha polls, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) seems to be running out of steam with internal bickering and conflicting ambitions resulting in diminishing electoral returns that have once again put the Bharatiya Janata Party in the driver's seat in national politics.
CPI (M) veteran Jyoti Basu had on Sunday said that formation of the seventh Left Front government in the state would be a fitting a tribute to Biswas.
The resolution, once finalised, would chalk out the political-tactical line of the CPI-M for the next three years.
The CPI-M slammed the government for merely stating that New Delhi was studying the evolving situation in Serbia as there are 'several legal issues' involved in the declaration.
While the Congress was a unifying force, the Left front was divisive, he said adding "wherever we go, we unify everybody. We are a unifying force. Wherever we go we identify everybody and unite them and make them strong".
After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress also ended up going into the polls with its original plan of largely going solo.
The outrageous remarks by Trinamool Congress leader Tapas Pal reflect the reality of "politics of terror and intimidation" in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on Thursday, as it moved Parliament to seek action against him.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday blamed the Congress' preoccupation with assembly polls in five states for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)'s inability to build on the momentum it had gained in recent months.
The Kerala unit of the Congress instantly gets a headache when Shashi Tharoor lets loose one of his observations showering flowers on enemy territory. With every such action triggering controversy within a nervous Congress party, some feel it is high time Tharoor showed a degree of solidarity with the ideals of his party, notes Shyam G Menon.
In a significant political development, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday that an alliance with the Congress was finalised for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, which is going for its maiden assembly polls after being reorganised into a Union Territory.
According to party sources, the situation is more or less beyond repair. "We can forcibly remove Mamata Banerjee's agitators from Singur within a few hours. But it seems the Tatas have developed cold feet. After whatever has happened over the last few weeks, it is almost impossible to convince the Tatas to stay back in Bengal and restart the Nano project," said a central committee leader of the party.
The two senior most leaders of the Communist Party of India-Marxist are at the loggerhead over alliance or adjustment with the Congress.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday arrested three Communist Party of India-Marxist activists in connection with the September 1 murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader E Manoj in the district, official sources said.
Perhaps sensing mid-term polls, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has reinstated Kerala Chief Minister V S Achutanandhan and the party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in the politburo
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Sunday took on the Communist Party of India-Marxist saying that the language used by them is similar to that of terrorists.
The Left Front government in West Bengal would try to distribute 1.53 crore Below Poverty Line cards in the state.
Communist Party of India - Marxist veteran Prakash Karat was on Monday re-elected general secretary for the third consecutive term at the party's 20th Congress, which concluded in Kozhikode, Kerala. Karat, 64, was elected as general secretary in 2005 at the New Delhi Congress and reelected at Coimbatore for the second term. Attended by over 700 delegates from all states, the meet, which had deliberated on the poll debacle the CPI-M suffered in West Bengal and Kerala.
Attacking the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for its "utter failure" to check rising prices, the CPI(M) on Friday said the Centre's "faulty approach" in blaming states, without taking effective steps to tackle the real issues, would not solve the problem.
Former West Bengal chief minister and a front-ranking Marxist leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will go down in the country's history as a pragmatic communist who kept aside his ideological convictions to woo capital for the industrialisation of his state.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
M P Veerendrakumar, former state president of the Janata Dal - Secular, who quit the party following differences of opinion with the Communist party of India - Marxist over the allocation of Lok Sabha seats, has lashed out at his former ally.Veerendrakumar, who is also the managing director of leading daily Mathrubhumi, stated that the CPI-M leadership has become pro-capitalism and alleged that the party was trying to promote five-star hotels.
'These allegations need to be treated with utmost seriousness.'
The fallout from the Justice K Hema Committee report on harassment and abuse in the Malayalam film industry intensified on Monday as a case was filed against well-known filmmaker Ranjith, and several female actors stepped forward with disturbing accounts of the mistreatment they faced at the hands of their various male counterparts.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
However, the national party count has gone down to six from 14 in over seven decades.
BJP members, including the Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, opposed the resolution, saying it was not part of the listed business.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Friday noted that the letter circulated to defend Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha Professor P J Kurien claiming to bring out the truth is a clever attempt to conceal key facts of the case and to deflect the demand for his resignation from the constitutional position, by dragging the party's name 'unnecessarily'.
Having been outwitted by Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee after she sent the Tata Nano car project packing from West Bengal by demanding that land be returned to unwilling farmers, the Communist Party of India-Marxist is getting ready to do a Singur on Banerjee.
The return of the Communist Party of India - Marxist-led Left Front in Tripura and the victory of the Forward Bloc in Nalhati in West Bengal reflects the "re-emergence" of the Left parties, said senior CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday claimed that pro-Communist Party of India - Marxist state government employees were trying to sabotage her government to give it a bad name, but cautioned the people against taking the law into their own hands.
Trinamool Congress' margin of victory in the Kolkata South Lok Sabha bypoll suggests people's continued support for the state government policies and further disintegration of Communist Party of India-Marxist, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Sunday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday retained Garoth assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district albeit with a reduced margin than in the 2013 assembly polls. The Congress, however, termed the BJP's win with a lower margin than earlier as a "moral defeat" for the ruling party.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances