Besides the four ministerial berths, the Congress has also sought the post of Speaker of the state assembly, but Kumar is not keen on giving that, sources said.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
Separate cases have been registered in Kerala against popular Malayalam actors Jayasoorya and Maniyanpilla Raju following an allegation raised by a female actor that they had sexually assaulted her, police said on Thursday. Multiple FIRs have been registered against many high profile Malayalam film personalities following allegations of sexual harassment against various directors and actors in the wake of revelations in the Justice K Hema Committee report. In a Facebook post, the woman actor had said, 'I am writing to report a series of incidents of physical and verbal abuse I suffered at the hands of 1 Mukesh 2 Maniyan Pilla Raju, 3 Idavela Babu, 4 Jayasoorya (Jayasurya), 5 adv Chandrasekaran, 6 production controller Noble and Vichu, in the Malayalam film industry.'
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
The consent is akin to a blanket nod for the agency to probe scheduled offences specified in the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DPSE) Act, 1946.
Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Wednesday held a meeting with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and is understood to have discussed the evolving political situation in the wake of the controversy over the ordinance to protect convicted lawmakers.
On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Modi had announced the decision to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes with the ultimate aim of reducing corruption and black money in the economy.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Pointing out that this is the first time that a complete alliance has been formed by the major Left parties in Bihar, the Communist Party of India state secretary Rajendra Prasad Singh said top Central leaders of the three parties will campaign together for the by-elections.
The Kerala unit of the Congress instantly gets a headache when Shashi Tharoor lets loose one of his observations showering flowers on enemy territory. With every such action triggering controversy within a nervous Congress party, some feel it is high time Tharoor showed a degree of solidarity with the ideals of his party, notes Shyam G Menon.
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.
Brisk polling was seen for the Wayanad Lok Sabha and the Chelakkara assembly seats in Kerala as they witnessed a turnout of 20.54 and 19.08 per cent, respectively, after the first three hours of voting on Wednesday.
Amid widespread outrage over the brutal ragging incident at the Government Nursing College in Kottayam, the Kerala Nurses and Midwives Council (KNMC) on Saturday decided to bar all five accused students from continuing their studies.
Kejriwal said that the ordinance must be defeated collectively in Parliament where it is likely to come up for voting as a law in the forthcoming session.
The meeting also discussed possibilities of forming a non-BJP government including regional parties with the support of the Congress.
The leaders will also raise the issue of alleged "use of religious symbols" by the Bharatiya Janata Party in their campaign, they said.
"I will not be contesting for the post of president any longer. The elections for the post will be held on December 5. It is time for the new generation to take over the responsibilities," Abdullah told PTI.
"I do not answer hypothetical, speculative questions... This is purely imaginary at the moment," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters.
The JD-U Rajya Sabha MP said Nitish Kumar has built his image such that makes him the best fit for being the convenor of the opposition grouping.
The 65-year-old leader had taken over as general secretary of the CPI-M from Prakash Karat in the 21st party congress, which was held in Visakhapatnam, in 2015.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
Breaking his silence over the matter, Vijayan on Tuesday sounded tough and said a high-level probe by a top-ranking officer would be held into the charges raised by the MLA.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
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.
If she cannot recast the party, bring together the factions opposed to her, and present herself as her brother's true challenger, there will be little left for her in politics, notes Aditi Phadnis.
In a memorandum submitted to the EC, the INDIA party leaders submitted a list of recent instances of central agencies targeting Opposition parties and alleged an absence of a level playing field for the opposition.
The BJP president hit out at Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, alleging that the maximum killings of BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers have taken place in the latter's home district.
At least three people were killed and several others injured in a blast near the venue of senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee's rally in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district, police said on Saturday.
12 of the 20 MPs with the highest winning margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have not been re-nominated by their parties for the 2024 general elections.
Yechury said reconstitution of various bodies represented an attempt at fulfilling the ambition of creating a Hindu rashtra by "subverting" secular democratic structures.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
The conference was seen by many as a show of strength by the Opposition with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav joining in to raise their voice against oppression of backward classes.
Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday said though there is no pre-poll adjustment with the Tipra Motha, there can be local-level understanding with the tribal party, which has emerged as the third pole in the upcoming Tripura elections.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist on Saturday demanded a judicial probe into the killing of Maoists in a recent operation by police and Central Reserve Police Force personnel in the dense forests of Chhattisgarh, claiming they were "innocent tribals".
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".
Tripura Trinamool Congress president Pijush Kanti Biswas said TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister will arrive in Tripura on February 6 to campaign for party candidates.
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.
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
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.
