Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had suffered decimation in the last general elections, was leading in five seats, out of 23 where it had fielded candidates.
Earlier in the day, rich tributes were paid to Yechury at the Communist Party of India (Marxist) headquarters at the AKG Bhavan here, where his mortal remains were brought from his residence in the morning.
Eighteen more people lost their lives after allegedly consuming illicit liquor in dry Bihar's Siwan and Saran districts, taking the toll in the tragedy to 24, officials said on Thursday.
'The political situation in the country will depend on the electoral outcome in Maharashtra.'
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
The Opposition INDIA bloc on Friday finalised a 14-member coordination-cum-election strategy committee comprising members of various parties, and it will function as the alliance's highest decision-making body and start work on seat-sharing immediately, sources said.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
After they met in New Delhi on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, INDIA bloc leaders decided to sit in the Opposition for now...
The collegium system has shut the doors of judgeship in the higher judiciary on Dalits, OBCs and even the poor among the upper castes
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
'We made a mistake. We misunderstood. Now all is well.'
As many as 37 ministers have been dropped from the government in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third term and these include seven with cabinet rank -- prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane.
The former Union minister drew the analogy of romance at a symposium he attended, besides Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist has called for 12-hour Assam bandh on Friday protesting murder of its leader Gongaram Koul at the Panitola tea estate in Tinsukia district of Assam on Tuesday night by unidentified persons.
The first time the Election Commission has taken cognisance of a model code of conduct complaint against a sitting prime minister.
The incident might be the result of a struggle between CPI-ML and Ranvir Sena for establishing supremacy in Ara, the police said.
The Vishwaguru who addressed the maximum rallies and boasted of being blessed with divine energy, who promised guarantees in his own name, turned out finally not invincible, points out Jyoti Punwani.
Asked how many seats the Congress would fight on, Singh said they would be flexible in seat sharing.
According to the police headquarters in Patna, "more than a dozen police personnel and power department employees" sustained injuries in the incident that took place barely "100 meters away from Barsoi police station".
'People understand Hitlershahi, tanashahi and now Modishahi.'
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
'Now they're talking about changing the Constitution; they feel they have no reason now to hide their intentions.'
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
'It is very unfortunate that the AAP seems to be looking at the issue through the prism of rivalry with Congress in Delhi and Punjab'
Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's Dara Singh Chauhan in the bypoll to the Ghosi Assembly constituency in Mau district with a margin of 42,759 votes on Friday.
The upcoming Opposition meet in Patna scheduled for next week will not discuss a possible prime ministerial candidate and will focus on deciding the common agenda for the parties to work on in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
All political parties were asked at the dinner meeting on Monday night to suggest names for the alliance and the same would be discussed and consensus would be arrived at during the deliberations.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday called for a "main front" of all non-BJP parties to take on the ruling alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and asserted that the decision on its leadership can be taken later.
The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal demanded Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's resignation over the horrific triple train crash in neighbouring Odisha.
'We have got together to save the democracy, Constitution and brotherhood. The country's constitutional institutions are being misused and the country's wealth is being sold out'
Amid the raging Israel-Hamas war, a group of opposition leaders, including MP Danish Ali and former parliamentarians Mani Shankar Aiyar and K C Tyagi, visited the Palestine Embassy in New Delhi on Monday to express solidarity with Palestinians.
BJP candidate Kedar Prasad Gupta defeated Manoj Singh Kushwaha of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United by 3,645 votes in Kurhani.
'With vendetta politics as its main plank, the BJP will be looking out for every opportunity to destabilise this Mahagatbandhan government.'
Most leaders agreed for early finalisation of poll plans for 2024 stressing that there was no time left with them and mere meetings would not help.
It had meant nothing but moments of intimacy, sweet but transient moments. An intriguing excerpt from Manju Kapur's new novel The Gallery.
Five days before the Big Opposition rally in Patna, one of the Mahagathbandhan's allies will walk out of the ruling alliance.
Veteran Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Awadh Bihari Chaudhary was on Friday unanimously elected as speaker of the Bihar legislative assembly.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances