No government in the past initiated the process of policy making for its next tenure even before going in for elections. Once the Model Code of Conduct is enforced by the Election Commission, should the government of the day refrain from taking an active interest in policy making for the next five years and let that be the function of the new government?, asks A K Bhattacharya.
In its first list for the upcoming assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling BJP has focused on seats it lost in 2018 and some of them even in 2013, and has reposed faith in 14 candidates, including three former ministers, who lost last time.
Tewari's consideration to contest comes amid the reports of several party top leaders being in the fray.
Sharma claimed he has received complaints that neither any virtual nor any physical meeting was held to finalise the electoral rolls, the sources said.
'I hope that Macho Man agrees to debate her, because I think she will do spectacularly well in the debate.'
The Congress has pinned its hopes on many of the old-timers and also given representation to some new faces in its first list of candidates announced for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled next month.
The government has notified new Lokpal search committee rules, giving it more freedom to recommend names for chairperson and members of the anti-corruption body outside the list provided by the Department of Personnel and Training.
Controversial Punjabi singer Sidhu Mussewala, who joined the Congress sometime ago will contest from Mansa and actor Sonu Sood's sister Malvika Sood from Moga.
Amritpal Singh, the chief of the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit, who is lodged in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act, has thrown his hat into the ring as an Independent.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has cleared the first list of 45 candidates for the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, five of his ten ministers and 15 sitting Members of Legislative Assembly figure in the list cleared by the Central Election Committee, chaired by party president Nitin Gadkari and attended among others by patriarch Lal Krishna Advani.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is unlikely to cut the benchmark interest rate at its upcoming monetary policy review meeting, taking place soon after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election results, amid inflation challenges, said experts. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may also refrain from rate cut as economic growth is picking up, notwithstanding the elevated interest rate of 6.5 per cent (repo) prevailing since February 2023. The meeting of the Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das headed MPC is scheduled for June 5 to 7.
With his induction into the Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary board, the party's highest decision-making body, Narendra Modi's prime focus will be on the next Lok Sabha polls, a state BJP leader close to the Gujarat chief minister has said
Besides the bills, the government has listed the first batch of supplementary demands for grants for 2023-24 for presentation, discussion and voting during the session.
The notification for the Congress president's election will be out on September 22 by when all the PCC delegates will be finalised and electoral roll published and the election, if required, will be held on October 17.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Friday kept away from BJP's Central Election Committee that met to finalise tickets for Karnataka polls, amid rumours that he did not want to get himself involved in the campaign where the party may not fare well due to corruption charges.
The Centre is considering a proposal on increasing coverage under the Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 10 lakh from the current Rs 5 lakh.
'The strategy of frontal organisations of the Maoists is to create unrest and ensure that such unrest leads to a law and order problem.' 'To cover such acts it was necessary to bring in a different definition of unlawful activities which is different from the definition of unlawful activities in the UAPA.'
The credibility of the examination system has also come under question, they said.
The parliamentary panel, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party's Sushil Kumar Modi, has also decided to examine remote voting and e-postal ballots for Indians residing abroad.
A week after her return from the United States after surgery, Sonia Gandhi will be back to active party work by presiding over a meeting of the Congress's Central Election Committee. Party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said that Gandhi will be participating in Thursday's CEC meeting to finalise tickets for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections scheduled early next year. This will be the Congress president's first public appearance after she returned to Delhi from the US.
The opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in Maharashtra on Tuesday announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray securing a substantial portion with 21 seats, while the Congress will contest 17 seats, and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar 10 seats.
The parliament duty group of the CRPF wound up its entire administrative and operational paraphernalia -- vehicles, weapons and commandos -- from the complex on Friday and its commander, a deputy inspector general-rank officer, handed over all the security points in the complex to the incoming CISF group, the sources said.
Shivakumar also said that the central observers have spoken to Sukhu, party MLAs and state unit chief Pratibha Singh and all differences have been ironed out.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday declared its second list comprising 81 candidates for Uttar Pradesh, along with candidates for 48 seats of Uttarakhand and 20 seats of Punjab for the forthcoming assembly elections in these states.
Sonia will likely be assisted by two vice presidents: Ashok Gehlot in charge of party affairs in north India with probably P Chidambaram doing likewise for south India.
With his three-week temporary bail for poll campaign ending, Aam Aadmi Party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be back in Tihar Jail on Sunday as a court here put off till June 5 its order on his plea seeking interim bail on medical grounds.
The seat-sharing issue is being discussed with the central leadership, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule told PTI.
Smriti Irani, actor-turned politician of the 'saas-bahu' TV serial fame, was on Tuesday appointed as head of Bharatiya Janata Party's Women's Wing while Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal's son and Member of Parliament Anurag Thakur will head the Youth Wing of the main opposition.
The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party will meet on Thursday to finalise its first list of candidates for five assembly polls, with top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to attend the meeting.
The leaders of the Opposition INDIA bloc are meeting on Monday morning ostensibly to redraw their strategies to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP both inside the Parliament and in the electoral arena.
In instructions for polling issued on Saturday, Congress central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry had said Pradesh Congress Committee members 'will mark '1' on the ballot paper against the name of the candidate and fold the ballot paper to put it into the ballot box'.
After a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, which was stormy at times, the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest policy making body, authorised incumbent chief Sonia Gandhi to schedule the internal elections after the conclusion of assembly polls in five states due to be held in April-May.
China on Sunday ruled out allowing open nominations in elections for the Hong Kong's next leader, in a move that could ignite tension in the Asian financial hub where the democracy advocates have threatened to shut down the main business district in protest.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
The generational shift in the Bharatiya Janata Party was complete on Tuesday with its founders Atal Behari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi being dropped from the Parliamentary Board, the highest decision-making body, which has the stamp of Prime Minister Narendra Modi all over now.
In its election manifesto -- 'Sankalp Patra' -- the Bharatiya Janata Party has vowed to implement the Union Civil Code (UCC), maintain peace in the Northeast, among other key poll promises.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
Bharatiya Janata Party's firebrand leader Sushma Swaraj will contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections from Bhopal or Vidisha constituency in Madhya Pradesh.The final decision about her nomination will be taken by the Central Election Committee on February 26, she told rediff.com.
The bill to amend the law governing Waqf boards proposes far-reaching changes in the Wakf Act, 1995, including ensuring the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies.
Upset over Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari ticking her off at a his press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, a sulking Lok Sabha Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj tried to lodge her protest by skipping a meeting of the Central Election Committee held on Thursday to decide candidates for the upcoming assembly elections.
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