The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday claimed Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was busy playing a game on his mobile phone during a Congress meeting over selection of candidates for the upcoming assembly polls as he knows his party will not retain power in the state.
The Baghel government had earlier said it fulfilled the 2018 promise and waived agriculture loans worth Rs 9,270 crore of 18.82 lakh farmers in the state.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan gave Modi's aggressive campaign ahead of the assembly election for the party's performance.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, in a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will visit Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh next month to launch his party's foray into these states that are slated to go to polls later this year.
According to a party statement, besides Singh, party leaders Saroj Pandey and Vinod Tawde are also being sent to Rajasthan as central observers.
'The biggest change that the BJP can initiate in the run-up to 2024 is appointing new faces as chief ministers.' 'In doing so, it will send a message well beyond 2024.'
The accused, a contractor by profession, was absconding since the murder of journalist Mukesh Chandrakar came to light on January 3, he said.
The BJP has fielded 18 MPs, including four Union ministers, for the latest round of assembly polls so far -- seven each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and four in Chhattisgarh.
The analysis of five candidates could not be completed as their affidavits are either badly scanned or complete affidavits are not uploaded on the Election Commission of India website, they said.
'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.'
The Congress alleged that the claims made by the ED against Baghel are part of a "conspiracy" hatched by the BJP to tarnish the Chhattisgarh chief minister's image and asserted that the people of the state would give a befitting reply to such tactics in the upcoming Assembly poll.
Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo, who is locked in a power tussle with Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, has said he will decide about his future ahead of the state assembly elections which are due in 2023.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
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 counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Vijayvargiya stated that a clear decision on CM candidates will be revealed by December 10, but refrained from disclosing whether the party will select leaders from the newly elected MLAs or bring in outsiders.
Chouhan's fate will be determined by the BJP central command's assessment of the implications of such a move ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday conducted raids at over a dozen locations in Chhattisgarh including at premises linked to state Congress leaders as part of an ongoing probe into the alleged coal levy scam, officials said.
Counting of votes will be held on Sunday in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in what is seen as a semi-final contest ahead of the general elections in less than six months.
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party scored big wins in three assembly polls, talk within the party shifted to the likely chief ministerial picks in these states, with senior leaders holding discussions on Monday.
The saffron party had realised after the first phase of the elections that it was "on the backfoot," Pilot said.
Tandon, son former Chhattisgarh governor late Balramji Das Tandon, assured everyone that he will live up to the expectations and the trust which the BJP has reposed in him.
The party's decision to announce the first list of candidates so early underlines the significance it has attached to five state elections, the last round of assembly contest before the all-important Lok Sabha polls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress remain the most dominant political forces in Chhattisgarh, though the state has several regional outfits that have pockets of influence, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is making a determined bid to challenge its well entrenched rivals and make a mark in polls to the 90-member House.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, chief ministers of Nationalist Democratic Alliance-ruled states and prominent personalities from industry and Bollywood on Thursday attended the grand swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra Chief Minister in Mumbai.
While Chouhan has emerged as a favourite to remain at the helm in MP despite the presence of some challengers, the leadership race is wide open in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, two states where the BJP has snatched power from the Congress.
The BJP has often highlighted the global recognition of his leadership and India's enhanced stature at the international level in its political discourse, an issue which is likely to rise in salience following the G20 meeting.
The 10 who put in their papers include nine Lok Sabha MPs, including Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Prahlad Patel, and the one Rajya Sabha member, officials said.
Nadda claimed his party will form government in all the states with a big majority under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.
Surprisingly, the BJP's nearest rival in ad spend was not the Congress, but the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Ahead of the state assembly elections due this year-end, Baghel made as many as 15 announcements in his address during the state-level Independence Day function at the Police Parade ground in Raipur.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh had on Friday announced similar incentives.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
As the race for Maharashtra chief minister enters the last lap, Hemant Waje looks at several scenarios which can play out.
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.
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