Former West Bengal chief minister and a front-ranking Marxist leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will go down in the country's history as a pragmatic communist who kept aside his ideological convictions to woo capital for the industrialisation of his state.
An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
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.
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.
Police, assisted by security forces, immediately sealed the area and a hunt has been launched to nab the militants involved in the killing, the sources said.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
The close assembly election results in Kerala -- where the CPM is the single largest party but won't form the government -- is thanks only to VS's line, which insists that the primary obligation of the party is not merely toward electoral politics but toward the vast segments of dispossessed, marginalised, humiliated, impoverished people, says MK Bhadrakumar
A total of 517 candidates have withdrawn their candidature till on Monday, even as parties faced "rebel trouble" in several segments.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
The India-US nuclear deal was aimed at ending India's nuclear isolation and nuclear apartheid, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
Kharge said the leaders of INDIA parties have come together as democracy is under threat under the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
'I had to persuade him. I think he was a sceptic to begin with, but later on he was convinced that what we were doing was the right thing to do, that there was no other way out.'
All eyes are now on the Sena factions, led by CM Shinde, backed by the BJP, and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, and their performance in the coastal belt in the November 20 polls.
The meet will be held in Delhi on November 20-22.
China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, close to the Indian border. The USD 137 billion project, which is expected to dwarf even China's own Three Gorges Dam, has raised concerns in India and Bangladesh, the downstream riparian states. Concerns in India are centered around China's potential to control water flow, potentially enabling the release of large amounts of water to flood border areas in times of hostilities. The dam is part of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, and the Chinese government claims that the project is safe and prioritizes ecological protection.
Suresh Gopi registered a historic win for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala by winning the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat
On April 3, Gandhi's roadshow, on the way to filing his nomination in Wayanad was visibly different from that of 2019 in the hill constituency when the green flags of ally IUML outnumbered the Congress's in the crowd. There were no flags of any party or affiliated organisations.
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.
'I will win the election. The Congress and BJP are fighting for second place.'
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.
'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.'
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.
Union Minister Suresh Gopi on Wednesday described former PM Indira Gandhi as the 'mother of India' and late Congress Chief Minister K Karunakaran as a 'courageous administrator'.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said his party was discussing the seat-sharing arrangements for the Lok Sabha polls with the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, and the issue would be "resolved".
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is poised to form the first elected government in Jammu and Kashmir, having secured a victory in the assembly elections by securing 49 out of 90 seats on which polls were held for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 five years ago.
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.
The total income of national and regional parties from unknown sources for 2020-21 stands at Rs 690.67 crore.
The assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
He said, during a press meet in Kannur, that during the LS polls, alliances were being formed in various states as part of the platform and its result was that the Bharatiya Janata Party was being largely isolated.
Wary of disgraced Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai staging a comeback with pro-Maoist rhetoric at a later stage, the Party, which is holding its Congress next month to select once in a decade leadership, dropped "Mao thoughts" from a key document, according to a media report.
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.'
Donald Trump's exaggerated opinion of his dealmaking capacity can get him into trouble, observes R Sriram.
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.
Jaishankar briefed the leaders of all parties about the situation in the violence-hit nation and the steps taken by the Indian government.
South Korean declared an 'emergency martial law' on Tuesday with President Yoon Suk Yeol, accusing the opposition of plotting an 'insurgency' and 'trying to overthrow the free democracy' in the country, as reported by the New York Times.
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.
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.
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.
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