Heads rolled in the Chhattisgarh police administration on Tuesday with the government suspending Bastar Superintendent of Police Mayank Shrivasta and shunting out Bastar range Inspector General of Police Himanshu Gupta, in the wake of the Maoist attack on Congress leaders.
What are the political equations, the challenges, and the threats?
Opposition Congress and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party continued to exchange barbs over the Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh on Sunday, with the BJP demanding a narco test on Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Kawasi Lakhma, who was reportedly spared by the insurgents while other senior leaders were killed.
Singh has questioned the reliability of the EVMs on more than one occasion following the Congress' defeat in the recent assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took a swipe at critics, saying they may remain happy with their arrogance, lies, pessimism and ignorance but people should be beware of their divisive agenda as an old habit of 70 years cannot go away so easily.
Earlier, Modi was given a standing ovation at the meeting following the party's stupendous win in three assembly polls.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
The party decision means that Union minister Vishnu Deo Sai and seven times Lok Sabha member and former Union minister Ramesh Bais will not be fielded in the polls.
Former leader of opposition in Chhattisgarh assembly Mahendra Karma sustained minor injuries after his vehicle was blown up by suspected Naxalss in Dantewada district of the state, police said.
'Every Indian who is concerned about the unity, integrity and the map of India should be worried about this growing divide.'
Kanugolu had also made forays in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh following a directive from the party's central leadership but regional satraps Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath reportedly were not on the same page as the poll strategist.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday said his party would pull off a spectacular victory in the state assembly elections, but evaded a direct reply to a question whether he would be the chief minister for the fifth time, as he just said 'Bharatiya Janata Party Zindabad'.
That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
The Enforcement Directorate on Friday conducted fresh searches in poll-bound Rajasthan as part of its money laundering investigation into the alleged Jal Jivan Mission scam.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has set its sights on winning an 'unprecedented majority' in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking key organisational leaders to work towards boosting the party's vote share by 10 per cent, sources said.
In Chhattisgarh, the Satnami sect voted for its own candidates in 21 constituencies, leaving the Congress trailing the Bharatiya Janata Party in its own strongholds. R Krishna Das evaluates the role the Satnami community played in the Congress loss and BJP victory in a tightly fought election.
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Populism gains momentum during election periods, and this trend is evident in at least four states: Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Yadav, who returned from the national capital on Thursday after a trip that lasted three days, asserted that there was "nothing new" in the summons, even as he alleged that the central agencies were acting as per the directions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
'If I don't fulfil promises made in it, I can be sent to jail,' he said.
First-time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma was sworn in as the chief minister of Rajasthan at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's top leadership on Friday, 12 days after the party ousted the Congress in the assembly polls.
Sukanta Majumdar, the state BJP president, said, "Amit Shah has set a target of 35 seats. We will achieve that".
Since 2018, the BJP has failed to win a majority in any of the state polls. It lost power in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2018 followed by Maharashtra and Jharkhand. The party managed to form government in Karnataka by winning over opposition MLAs and in Haryana by allying with a regional party.
Ayurvedic doctor-turned-politician Raman Singh was on Thursday sworn in as chief minister of Chhattisgarh for the third consecutive term.
BJP candidate and minister Kunvarji Bavaliya defeated his nearest rival Congress nominee Avsar Nakiya by a margin of 19,979 votes, officials said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister R P N Singh and Sudhanshu Trivedi -- the only outgoing MP renominated by the party.
All 40-odd rooms at the resort have been booked for the guests from Jharkhand for the next two days, Congress sources said.
The Congress needs to reorganise itself at the grassroots, infuse younger blood, and have more boots on the ground. Just offering freebies is not the answer anymore. Leadership matters, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The move comes a day after the government called a special session of Parliament between September 18 and 22, the agenda for which is under wraps.
Noting that the assembly election results being very disappointing is an understatement, the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson urged party MPs to channel their disappointment into positivity for next year's general elections.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh is all set to be elected as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party Legislature Party in Raipur on Wedesday paving the way for his heading the party-led government for the second successive term.
'Akhilesh Yadav made voters think why is the BJP asking for 400 paar.' 'They understood his words and believed the BJP wanted 400 paar only to demolish the Constitution and end reservations.'
A joint team of the Border Security Force and the Chhattisgarh police on Friday busted a bomb-making unit of the banned Communist Party of India - Maoist and seized around 300 kg of explosives and equipment used for assembling IEDs. A joint team of the BSF, Special Task Force and Kanker district police raided a Maoist hideout in the forest between Beenagunda and Uchhekoti villages in Abuzamad area, where they came under hostile fire, said Kanker district police chief.
Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
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.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
