The speculation on whether Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Sonia Gandhi will attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony continued with the party on Thursday saying that their decision would be conveyed at the 'right time'.
The Congress on Saturday named 22 more candidates for the Rajasthan assembly polls and denied ticket to Public Health Engineering Department Minister Mahesh Joshi from his Hawa Mahal constituency in Jaipur.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan administered the oath of office to 61-year-old Netam at a function held at the Raj Bhawan in Raipur.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil will have all the constitutional rights till the next legislature party leader is elected.
The authorisation will be sent to Kharge and the MLAs decided to go by the decision of the party's top leadership, said Shivakumar, one of the AICC observers appointed to coordinate the CLP meetings.
Ministers will not be allowed to hold official meetings and meet visitors in the legislature complex during the session. They will have to conduct their official briefings and meetings in Mantralaya, the state secretariat, he said.
Devendra Fadnavis will lead the new Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar serving as deputy chief ministers. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday evening at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers. The Mahayuti coalition won the recent assembly elections by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
Maharashtra's outgoing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday said the Bharatiya Janata Party will decide on the new CM and assured his full support while ruling out differences among Mahayuti allies over the government formation.
A new cabinet in the state will be in place in the next 48-72 hours.
The firing took place outside his MLA son Zeeshan Siddiqui's office.
"No one is above party discipline. Dinesh Trivedi did not consult me or Mukul Roy (the party all India general secretary)," party insiders quoted Banerjee telling the Trinamool Congress legislature party meeting ahead of the budget session of the West Bengal legislative assembly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the new Mahayuti government in Maharashtra on December 5. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis is considered the frontrunner for the chief minister's post, with the BJP having recorded its best-ever electoral performance in the state. The Mahayuti coalition includes Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party.
Vice Admiral Li Hanjun, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), and Liu Shipeng, deputy chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corporation, have been expelled from the National People's Congress (NPC), the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Congress legislators will spend Thursday night inside the Karnataka legislative assembly and council, demanding the sacking of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister K S Eshwarappa and also that he be booked for sedition for his statement about the national flag.
With a series of Assembly elections scheduled in the next few months to be followed by the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress Working Committee met on Saturday to take stock of the political situation and discuss possible alliances to hammer out a winning strategy.More than 150 delegates, comprising party General Secretaries, Secretaries, CWC members, Pradesh Congress Committee Presidents, Congress Legislature Party along with union ministers deliberated on the political scenario.
Devendra Fadnavis, BJP legislature party leader, will be sworn-in as the new chief minister of Maharashtra on Thursday evening at a grand ceremony in Mumbai. NCP head Ajit Pawar and Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde are also expected to take oath as deputy chief ministers. This is for the third time that Fadnavis will be sworn-in as the CM of Maharashtra. The swearing-in ceremony will be held at the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, where elaborate security arrangements have been made. The formation of the government under Fadnavis comes after two weeks of intense negotiations following the November 20 state assembly polls. Fadnavis, joined by Shinde and Pawar, met with state Governor CP Radhakrishnan to formally stake claim to form the government. Following this meeting, the governor extended an invitation for Fadnavis to lead the new government. The swearing-in ceremony will be a grand affair with nearly 42,000 attendees, including PM Modi, several Union ministers, and chief ministers and deputy CMs of various states.
'People of the state who bless me will give a befitting replay to the Congress.'
The Congress on Saturday appointed 50-year-old Jitu Patwari, who belongs to the Other Backward Classes, as president of the party's Madhya Pradesh unit replacing veteran Kamal Nath.
The Congress' top leadership will deliberate on the Lok Sabha election results and chalk out its future strategy at a crucial meeting of the party's working committee on Saturday.
Security has been tightened in Manipur's Jiribam district ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit on Monday, with authorities imposing a ban on aerial photography using drones, officials said.
At least five Congress MLAs did not attend a meeting of the party's lawmakers in Maharashtra on Thursday, called in the aftermath of the high-profile exit of former chief minister Ashok Chavan that has triggered speculation about more such defections.
Rajasthan minister and key Gehlot-loyalist Shanti Dhariwal on Monday launched a frontal attack on Congress's state in-charge Ajay Maken, alleging that he was talking to party MLAs in a partisan manner and canvassing for Sachin Pilot.
Uttar Pradesh Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur has shot off a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi seeking her intervention. Sharat Pradhan reports from Lucknow
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that Uddhav Thackeray planned to make Eknath Shinde the chief minister of Maharashtra after the 2019 polls, but first the Bharatiya Janata Party and later Maha Vikas Aghadi allies including Sharad Pawar played a spoilsport.
The Congress has appointed observers to coordinate meetings of its legislature party in four states where assembly election results will be declared on Sunday.
Addressing a press conference at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's home in Jaipur, Rohit Bohra, Danish Abrar and Chetan Dudi called themselves "soldiers" of the party and said they will do whatever the top leadership tells them.
Union Minister Raksha Khadse on Sunday lodged a police complaint regarding the harassment of her daughter and some of her friends by a group of boys at an event in Maharashtra's Jalgaon district.
Vice President V V Giri's resignation in 1969 triggered political upheavals that saw the ruling party defy its own presidential nominee, the expulsion of a sitting prime minister by her party president, and a historic split in the Indian National Congress, recounts Utkarsh Mishra.
The Congress on Wednesday expelled former Madhya Pradesh MLA Laxman Singh, who is brother of ex-chief minister Digvijaya Singh, from the primary membership of the party for six years for 'anti-party activities'.
Senior Congress leader and Maharashtra assembly poll candidate Balasaheb Thorat has asserted that the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will win a clear majority and also indicated his chief ministerial aspirations. Thorat, who is among the senior leaders in the MVA after NCP (SP) head Sharad Pawar, said he enjoys cordial relations with leaders of the alliance. He also criticized the ruling Mahayuti coalition, accusing it of corruption and communal politics.
A blame game has begun within the Congress, even as legislators of the newly formed Meghalaya Progressive Alliance (MPA) decided to stake their claims to form the government in Meghalaya. The Congress, which emerged as the single largest party, has fallen short by just six seats to cross the majority threshold in the 60-member Assembly.
Activist Manoj Jarange vows to intensify his hunger strike for Maratha reservation under OBC, while the Maharashtra government seeks legal opinion on the issue.
Uproarious scenes on the concluding day of the special session on Thursday turned the West Bengal Assembly into a cauldron of chaos, as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's speech was repeatedly drowned out by slogan-shouting, leading to the suspension of five Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs and the collapse of two legislators during forcible eviction by marshalls.
Upset over an open rebellion in Rajasthan, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday sought a written report on it from party observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken as the chances of Ashok Gehlot becoming the party chief receded and other names cropped up for the post.
Vast experience in running the government and mass appeal across the state have favoured Siddaramaiah in the tightly contested race for Karnataka chief minister.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday sought to make light of his meeting with Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray head and political rival Uddhav Thackeray a day ago and noted his government was stable with support from deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar.
With the Congress emerging victorious in Himachal Pradesh, state party president Pratibha Singh is considered a key frontrunner for the chief minister's post, closely followed by former party chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and outgoing Congress Legislature Party leader Mukesh Agnihotri.
Senior Congress leader and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee resigned as chief of party's West Bengal unit on Sunday citing "heavy government responsibilities", and Congress Legislature Party leader Manas Ranjan Bhunia was appointed to the post by Sonia Gandhi.
Chief minister aspirant and Karnataka state Congress president D K Shivakumar on Monday cancelled his Delhi trip, hours after confirming he would be flying to the national capital, fuelling speculation that all is not well in the ruling camp over the CM contender issue.