Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayiba could be assisting Maoists in carrying out attacks that have killed troops of the Central Reserve Police Force, the state police force and innocent civilians, said Chattigarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday night condemned the Naxal strike in Chhattisgarh in which 13 CRPF peronnel were killed and said words are not enough to deplore the "brutal" and "inhuman" attack by "anti-national elements."
In both of these Hindi heartland states, the straight contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress.
Vijay Baghel and Jogi accuse the chief minister of prompting liquor vends across the state.
Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and Punjab Deputy CM Sukhjinder S Randhawa had announced that they would visit Lakhimpur on Monday.
The ruling Congress is seeking to retain power in Chhattisgarh by banking on the welfare schemes of the Bhupesh Baghel government, while the Bharatiya Janata Party is hoping to corner it on the issues of alleged corruption, religious conversions and unfulfilled poll promises.
Amid speculation about the agreement to be the chief minister of the state just for two-and-a-half years, Baghel said, "The high command instructed me to take the oath (as chief minister), so I took the oath. When they will say someone else will be the chief minister, then it will be so. Such agreements happen in a coalition government."
Acting on a specific input, the Raipur police apprehended the seer from a rented room near Bageshwar Dham, located around 25 km from Khajuraho town in MP, Raipur Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal said.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pinned its hopes on the old guard to ensure victory in next month's assembly elections in Chhattisgarh as it gave tickets to 11 sitting MLAs and renominated 13 leaders who lost in the 2018 polls.
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.
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.
The plan to relieve NSG from VIP security tasks has been in the making since 2012 when NSG commanders foresaw an event where simultaneous terror attacks could be witnessed at one time on multiple centres in the country and the commandos will have to be rushed in different directions.
Singh Deo will, however, remain the minister for Health and Family Welfare, Medical Education, Twenty Point Implementation and Commercial Tax departments.
Chouhan, who stepped down as CM earlier this week, was also seen getting emotional and in tears as women encircled him and raised slogans in his praise while he was on his way to a famous Hanuman temple in Vidisha, around 55 km from Bhopal, on Thursday.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
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.
After arriving at the Raipur airport from New Delhi on Thursday morning, Singh Deo expressed gratitude to the party for the announcement of his elevation and said 'der aaye durust aaye' (better late than never).
Chhattisgarh Police arrested Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh on Thursday over his alleged derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi, following which a court here sent him to police remand for two days, an official said.
The tussle for power between Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and health minister TS Singh Deo appears to have quietened at the top, but the feud is very much visible at the lower level in the ruling Congress.
The ED said Das stated that his first statement given to the agency on November 3 last year in which he cited Baghel's name was "true and correct".
Amid speculation about a possible change of guard in the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday asserted that his state can never become Punjab, and said the two states bear only one similarity -- that of having numbers in their names.
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.
Asked about the talk of a rift between him and Chief Minister Baghel during the tenure of the government in the last five years, Singhdeo said there were no differences as such.
The India meteorological department (IMD) on Wednesday evening issued a red alert for Mumbai and its neighbouring districts, predicting "extremely heavy rainfall".
As many as 14 Maoists were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region on Friday, a senior police official said. However, ANI has put the toll at 30.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Springing a surprise, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday picked Mohan Yadav, a leader of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and a three-time MLA, as the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, state party president VD Sharma said.
The Enforcement Directorate, which has been investigating the Mahadev app-linked money laundering case for more than a year, alleged in the past that its probe has shown involvement of various high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh, where the two main promoters of the app hail from.
The no-confidence motion moved by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party against the Congress government in Chhattisgarh where assembly polls are due next year, was defeated by voice vote in the state Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
With this incident, 154 Naxalites have been gunned down by the security forces in different encounters in Chhattisgarh so far this year, the police said.
Most of them said 'everything is fine' in the state Congress after landing at the airport in Raipur in a special aircraft.
Don't create an "atmosphere of fear", the Supreme Court Tuesday told the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after the Chhattisgarh government alleged the probe agency is "running amok" and is trying to implicate Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Rs 2,000 crore liquor scam in the state.
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan in Patna.
Women, children and other family members of the deceased were seen crying while women security personnel were trying to console them.
The development comes nearly a month after Chief Minister Baghel said that his government was ready to hold talks with the rebels if they expressed faith in the Constitution.
According to an Andhra government statement, Naidu 'reposed confidence' in the PM's leadership.
Rajasthan is reeling under a huge financial burden with the state's debt having gone beyond Rs 5.59 lakh crores. Rajasthan has increased expenditure on education by 203.4 percent, by 105.4 percent on health, by 227.14 percent on housing. Its expenditure on social welfare schemes has increased by almost 2,475 per cent.
uring the meeting at the Cecil Hotel in Shimla, discussions were being held and feedback taken from MLAs, sources said.
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