The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
The special session is set to commence on a stormy note on account of Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha's stout refusal to resign despite the new ruling dispensation's motion of no-confidence against him.
Another meeting convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday with the floor leaders of the INDIA constituents in Parliament will, however, go ahead according to its schedule to formulate the opposition strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Pappu Yadav has been asserting that he will contest the seat he had won thrice in the 1990s, with the claim of "assurances" from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
The comment comes two days after state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said his party won't beg for seats from the TMC.
A veritable political `storm in a tea cup' has arisen over Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's assertions on Wednesday that all in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were "not bad" and there are many who "do not support the BJP".
The US is looking very carefully at what Modi did when he was in Moscow, a senior State Department official has told lawmakers concerned over the growing India-Russia ties.
Dr Jaishankar, right, appears to look away from Wang Yi, second from right, at the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, July 14, 2023.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samiti has pinned hopes on the development work his government undertook during the past ten years, while opposition Congress and BJP bank on anti-incumbency and the alleged failures of the incumbent.
The padyatra concluded at the Lal Chowk area on Sunday with Rahul Gandhi unfurling the national flag but the official closing would take place on Monday in Srinagar, amid snowfall.
Incidentally, 164 of the total 356 candidates in the fray from the 43 assembly seats of Jammu region got less votes than none of the above, which gives an option to voters to reject all candidates in a constituency.
While Dilip Tirkey is the ruling Biju Janata Dal candidate for the Sundergarh (ST) Lok Sabha constituency, his junior and former India hockey captain, Prabodh Tirkey is the Congress candidate from the Talsara (ST) assembly segment also in Sundergarh district.
The caste survey in Bihar was conducted in two rounds between January 7-21, and April 15-May 15.
Communist Party of India-Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu would be given a state funeral in Kolkata on Tuesday after Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani and a host of dignitaries and commoners pay homage to him.
Her comments come a day after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Geneva that roughly 75 percent of the "disengagement problems" with China are sorted out but the bigger issue has been the increasing militarisation of the frontier.
'We are developing infrastructure on the mountains and deploying the troops on hill borders in such a way that it is ensuring the safety of the people there.'
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Basant Soren, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo Shibu Soren's youngest son, on Friday took oath as minister in the Champai Soren-led government in Jharkhand, along with seven others.
Veteran Congress leader and former Defence Minister A K Antony said on Tuesday that his son, Anil K Antony, who is contesting as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, should not win the election.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
They said they will raise issues related to rising prices, unemployment, corruption and caste census.
With the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) scheduled to meet Tuesday, intra-party consultations in Jammu and Kashmir continued for a second day Monday to discuss the Centre's invitation for an all-party meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 24.
'Although there is a visible dent in TMC's urban votes, especially among women, the CPI-M and the BJP are unlikely to benefit from this'
Less than a month after the historic visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US, a Congressional senatorial Committee has passed a resolution recognising Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
In financial year 2020-21, the BJP declared assets worth Rs 4,990 crore, up by 21.17 per cent to Rs 6,046.81 crore in 2021-22.
More than two decades after deserting their village due to Maoists, around 25 tribal families are planning to return to their native place in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district.
Among the notable absentees were Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's M K Stalin, Telugu Desam Party chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Delhi chief minister and Aam Admi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
The 71-year-old politician has been asked to depose at the agency office in Kochi on January 12, they said.
Local residents have stressed that land acquisition for rehabilitation must be completed promptly, as it has been delayed after estate owners challenged it in the Kerala high court.
"Hemant Soren repeatedly ignored my advice and eventually landed in jail... he has always been surrounded by wrong advisors," Hembrom, a lawmaker from Borio seat in Sahibganj district, told reporters.
Both the Congress and AAP are part of the 16-party United Opposition Forum, Assam, formed to contest the general elections together, but a rift had emerged with members of the forum announcing candidates against each other in various constituencies of the state.
CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI general secretary D Raja said the top leadership will not attend the meeting called by the TMC chief.
'The Bengali middle class, who never fully embraced Mamata Banerjee's policies, are now expressing their deep-seated frustration by spilling out on to the streets.'
Janakrosh, hunkar and khabardar rallies will be brought out by the Communist Party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India-(Marxist-Leninist) in Patna in the next few days. M I Khan reports
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
As the final five phases of polls draw closer, rift among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners, Congress-Left combine and the Trinamool Congress, which are fighting separately has intensified, triggering a fierce contest across half of the remaining 36 constituencies in West Bengal driven by local issues such as Sandeshkhali and the SSC scam.
'Rahul Gandhi is raising the issue of a caste census though his party has been doing injustice on this front from the 1950s.'
He also said that the party "cannot be selective in fighting the communists" and it must do so in all its manifestations, irrespective of religion and colour.
