After days of uncertainty and dragging, the seat-sharing issue between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and left parties for the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly polls was finally sealed on Monday with the Jayalalithaa-led party allotting 22 seats to Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Communist Party of India.
A Kolkata court on Saturday convicted prime accused Sanjay Roy of raping and murdering an on-duty doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, 162 days after the crime that sparked nationwide outrage and led to prolonged protests.
As speculation mounted over whether the Left parties would join the new Congress-led government, the Communist Party of India-Marxist and Communist Party of India on Friday made it clear that the pro-active divestment policies should be scrapped.
18 leaders from 14 parties said it is unfortunate that the government has 'unleashed a misleading campaign to malign the combined opposition' and blaming it for the continued disruption of Parliament proceedings.
With challenges such as raising the legal age of marriage for women, combating malnutrition among women and children, and addressing women's safety issues, the new ministers face a formidable agenda.
'After the 2024 election results, I have had the realisation that electoral politics is simply not for me. I am therefore quitting all forms of electoral politics with immediate effect.'
The Delhi high court on Friday sought a response from the Centre, Election Commission of India, and 26 political parties on a petition seeking to restrain opposition parties from using the acronym INDIA for their alliance.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
India's opposition parties have sharply criticized the Union Budget, calling it inadequate to address the country's economic woes and accusing the BJP-led government of using it to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi ahead of upcoming elections. Leaders from the Congress, TMC, DMK, SP, and CPI(M) voiced their disapproval, highlighting concerns over inflation, unemployment, and the lack of substantial measures to support the agricultural sector and the poor. They also criticized the tax cuts for the middle class as insufficient and coming too late after years of high taxes and rising prices.
Political parties in Andhra Pradesh must help the Centre find a solution to the Telangana issue but they are divided and a solution cannot be thrust down their throats, according to Home Minister P Chidambaram. "This is a unique situation where political parties in Andhra Pradesh are divided down the middle. Congress, Telugu Desam, Communist Party of India Marxist, Communist Party of India, they are all divided," he said.
'...how do they consume and contribute to the GDP?'
With Communist Party India-Marxist and Trinamool workers clashing in South 24 Parganas district and indulging in violence, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday held a high-level meeting at the state secretariat in Kolkata.
'The BJP lacks a credible mass leader who matches Mamata Banerjee's popularity.' 'Given the division of votes among Opposition parties, the West Bengal government's dole-giving strategy, and the consolidation of the poor, significant sections of scheduled caste groups and Muslim minorities behind the ruling party, it will be difficult to dislodge the Trinamool from power.'
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.'
During the Zero Hour of the Lok Sabha, BJP MP Anurag Thakur tried to corner the Leader of Opposition and Congress MP, Rahul Gandhi, by alleging that he has not spoken about ensuring the safety of minorities in Bangladesh.
Nineteen political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, received over Rs 1,100 crore during assembly polls in five states and Union territories in 2021 and spent over Rs 500 crore, a big chunk of which went towards advertisements and travel expenses for star campaigners, a study said on Friday.
Fissures surfaced among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners ahead of the Jharkhand assembly elections as the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Saturday expressed disappointment over the announcement of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Congress contesting 70 of 81 seats in the state.
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.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
'When you have a village which is controlled by the BJP, who are the people likely to perpetrate the attack?'
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.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of entering into a pact with the Communist Party India-Marxist to divide votes of the Trinamool-Congress alliance.
After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress also ended up going into the polls with its original plan of largely going solo.
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
Opposition leaders on Monday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his comments made at an elections rally in Rajasthan, with some leaders also appealing to people to reach out to the Election Commission of India.
Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong met the Indian delegates and stressed that Sino-Indian relations not only conform to the fundamental interests of the people of both countries, but are also helpful to Asia and the world at large
Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan on Sunday said the UDF will take part in all the rehabilitation efforts and work towards restoring normalcy in the lives of the survivors.
APCC president Ripun Bora said following discussions with various parties, it has been decided that the Congress will join hands with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist and the Anchalik Gana Morcha.
Although the company has shown willingness to talk to its workers and accept their key demands, it is CITU that is causing a roadblock to a solution.
Bhuyan Sarma filed the suit at the court of civil judge No 1 of Kamrup metropolitan district on Tuesday and it is likely to come up for hearing on Wednesday, her counsel Padmadhar Nayak said.
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.
The BJP won 74 seats in the 147-member Odisha assembly and was leading in four more seats, the Election Commission of India.
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
The ruling Mahayuti is poised to retain power in Maharashtra with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) also putting up a strong show in assembly polls, most exit polls predicted on Wednesday after conclusion of polling on 288 seats in the state. Jharkhand is likely to see a change of government with BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coming to power in the state, three exit polls said on Wednesday with one poll giving majority to the ruling JMM-led alliance.
Farmers from various parts of the country are protesting at Delhi borders against the three farm laws brought by the Centre, alleging that the legislations will hamper farming.
A delegation of 21 Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc MPs will pay a two-day visit to Manipur beginning Saturday to assess the ground situation first-hand and then make recommendations to the government and Parliament for a solution to the problems in the violence-hit state.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Friday said the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is "not a communal party" and praised the key partner of the opposition United Democratic Front for not agreeing with the Congress on the issue of the alleged move by Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who according to the ruling front, was trying to "saffronise" the universities in Kerala.
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