Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
The Congress, by and large, focused on local issues in this election and its campaign also was run by state leaders initially.
While the party announced 144 party candidates for Madhya Pradesh elections, it announced 30 candidates for the Chhattisgarh polls and another 55 for Telangana assembly polls slated next month.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh had on Friday announced similar incentives.
Bhupesh Baghel said about his father that he respected his father as a son, but as a chief minister, none of his mistakes that will disturb public order can be ignored.
Out of the 25 seats, five seats each are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked the Congress over party president Mallikarjun Kharge's recent remark on Lord Ram and Lord Shiva, and accused the opposition party of trying to divide Hindus for its appeasement politics.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the people have given his government a mandate for stability and continuity for the third consecutive term after seeing its work of 10 years and accused the Congress of trying to build a narrative that it has defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
The MPs who win assembly polls will have to quit one of their seats in the next 14 days.
Rediff Labs analysed the 2013 assembly election results merged with 2014 Lok Sabha election results to develop a Sentiment Meter for the 2018 electoral battle in Chhattisgarh.
Parliament is set to witness heated debates on a range of issues like the NEET paper leak row, the Agnipath initiative and inflation when both houses reconvene on Monday.
In the video, a man identifies himself as Shubham Soni and claims he is the owner of the Mahadev Book betting app.
'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.'
Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Friday announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, the constituency held by his mother Sonia Gandhi for the last two decades, and Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, will fight from Amethi.
A Chhattisgarh legislator from the Bharatiya Janata Party has suggested that use of bhang and cannabis be encouraged as alternatives to liquor, claiming that people addicted to these substances hardly commit crimes like rape, murder and dacoity.
The scam-ridden Congress government in Chhattisgarh has become a model of misrule and people have decided to root it out in the upcoming assembly elections, he said.
'Every report I filed for Rediff.com on the professor's incarceration, would leave me wondering for days, at the depth of the State's malevolence towards this disabled professor, and his equally deep capacity to tolerate it,' recalls Jyoti Punwani.' 'No country in the world would do what our country was doing to someone so helpless.'
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.
The voting for Madhya Pradesh's all 230 assembly seats was held on Friday, November 17, while Chhattisgarh voted in the second phase of the election.
The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said like other states, the BJP started the game of using money power, power of the government and muscle power to destabilise the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh but has failed.
While some parties including the Trinamool Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Samajwadi Party were keen on having early seat-sharing talks, the Congress delayed the deliberations pending the outcome of assembly polls.
It said the Congress will infuse new blood in leadership roles without creating new fault lines and cementing its ideological moorings.
A Chhattisgarh government employee allegedly drained out 41 lakh litres of water from a weir after his mobile phone fell into it in the state's Kanker district, an official said on Friday.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
The Enforcement Directorate on Friday claimed that a forensic analysis and a statement made by a 'cash courier' have led to "startling allegations" that Mahadev betting app promoters paid about Rs 508 crore to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel so far, and that "these are subject matter of investigation".
Post-Karnataka, it would be a mistake to underestimate the BJP. It should be amply clear by now that the Right-Wing is more an elaborate theatre than a single scene, actor or play, warns Shyam G Menon.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will get a 'decisive mandate' in the Lok Sabha polls and may take even less than 48 hours to decide on its prime ministerial pick, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday, asserting that it stands to reason that the party which gets the maximum seats in the alliance will be a 'natural claimant' for its leadership.
The high-pitched election speeches skipped corporate issues, unlike during the assembly polls about four months ago.
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.
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.
'Rahul Gandhi is going to turn 54 and in India political leaders peak when they are around 60.' 'This 'bhai-behen ki jodi' has done a wonderful job for the Congress.' 'Priyanka Gandhi was a very effective campaigner.'
All the winners in the assembly bypolls were from the respective ruling parties.
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.
There are concerns within the Congress with respect to the articulation of the party's demand for the caste census, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently accusing the grand old party of attempting to divide Hindus through its push for the Other Backward Classes.
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.
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 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 Raipur Police have arrested Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel's father Nand Kumar Baghel from Delhi in a case registered against him for allegedly making derogatory remarks against the community, an official said.