First-time MLA Rekha Gupta will be the new chief minister of Delhi, capping 11 days of suspense over who will get the top post after the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power after over 26 years ending the 10-year rule of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party.
The NCP chief admitted that some MLAs had written to him on joining the Shinde-led government when the one led by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) collapsed following a split in the Shiv Sena. "But no decision was taken," he said.
Omar Abdullah was on Thursday unanimously elected as the leader of the National Conference legislature party, party president Farooq Abdullah said in Srinagar.
The Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party in a ruling alliance? Yes, this unique scenario is currently playing out in Nagaland where Congress and the BJP legislators are now part of the same ruling alliance headed by Nagaland People's Front.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack on AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in a rally in Delhi, comparing him to notorious criminal Charles Sobhraj and accusing him of spreading lies about the BJP government in Haryana mixing poison in the Yamuna river. Modi said Kejriwal's claims are an insult to India and that the AAP is desperate due to the fear of defeat in the upcoming Delhi elections. He also highlighted the BJP's track record of fulfilling promises and urged people to give him a chance to serve them. The attack comes as the Delhi election campaign heats up, with the AAP and BJP locked in a tight race.
The one-year-old Himachal Pradesh Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was expanded on Tuesday with the induction of Rajesh Dharmani and Yadvinder Goma as cabinet ministers.
'We used to discuss how image-conscious Nitish Kumar was and his sophisticated conduct in public life. All this has become a thing of the past.'
Mr Pradhan's understanding of realpolitik and organisational dynamics makes him the ultimate party man, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Former Rajasthan minister Rajendra Singh Gudha claimed that Congress leaders dragged him out of the state assembly on Monday.
Kumar, who heads the Janata Dal-United, moved the motion soon after the House passed a proposal for the removal of Rashtriya Janata Dal's Awadh Bihari Chaudhary as Speaker of the assembly.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. The bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies. The results will be declared on November 23. In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections. In Punjab, bypolls will be held in four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
The party has fielded sitting MLA Rajendra Singh Joon from the Bahadurgarh seat.
The BJP retained power in MP in the November 17 polls emphatically winning 163 seats in the 230-member assembly, leaving the Congress a distant second with 66 seats.
Congress in-charge for Rajasthan Ajay Maken on Monday slammed the MLAs loyal to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for setting conditions for a party resolution, terming it a "conflict of interest", and said their decision to hold a parallel meeting amounted to indiscipline.
The committee has given its recommendations to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who will take necessary action, the sources pointed out.
A video clip of three accused in an extortion case linked to the murder of sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, walking together has emerged on social media. The video also shows a suspended police officer in the group accompanying the accused. The video has sparked controversy and raised questions about the involvement of the police in the case. BJP MLA Suresh Dhas has demanded that the suspended police officer be named as a co-accused in the case and that action be taken against other police officers who have been accused of wrongdoing.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Tuesday asserted that there should be no "fiddling" with the mandate of people in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Centre and the Raj Bhavan must not indulge in any "machinations".
The Maha Vikas Aghadi of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar, and the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Wednesday announced to contest 85 seats each in Maharashtra assembly elections even as deliberations to seal a final seat-sharing pact are still underway.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's speech in Dholpur reflects that his leader is Vasundhara Raje and not Sonia Gandhi, Sachin Pilot said in a no holds barred attack against his party colleague on Tuesday.
'I want to repeat that we have a majority of the MLAs and even our adversaries know this'
Former Union Minister Sharad Pawar has refuted claims made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the BJP's victory in the Maharashtra assembly polls ended the politics of betrayal and treachery started by Pawar in 1978. Pawar stated that he was the Chief Minister in 1978 and was unaware of Shah's whereabouts at the time. He also criticized the lack of communication between current political leaders and called for a return to respectful dialogue. He also highlighted Shah's past legal issues, including being externed from Gujarat. In response to speculation about the future of the MVA coalition, Pawar said discussions will take place within the next 10 days to address key issues. An editorial in the Shiv Sena (UBT) mouthpiece 'Saamana' also criticized Shah's remarks, calling them 'arrogant' and questioning the BJP's actions in relation to Pawar and Balasaheb Thackeray.
A careful calculation of the BJP's support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party's national president chaired a meeting of the "core group" here.
Azad said the government uses north-east 'only for political purposes' and not to provide succour to flood-affected people.
Reacting to the voting, chief minister Kamal Nath said, "The BJP says daily that we are a minority government and one which could fall any day."
Of these 14, all but three won the election on Thursday.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said that India and Pakistan came closer to resolving the Kashmir issue during the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. He added that he does not expect a return to that situation in his lifetime. Abdullah lauded Singh's efforts on Kashmir, including the setting up of working groups on the issue, and said he practically initiated measures for the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. The chief minister also praised Singh's contribution to India's economic development.
Sudhakar and Somashekar were earlier with the Congress. They were among the 17 Congress-Janata Dal Secular legislators who quit and defected to BJP that led to the collapse of the coalition government and paved the way for BJP to come to power.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the BJP was conspiring to poach the MLAs in order to destabilise his government, a charge denied by the saffron party.
Shinde had retained most of the sitting MLAs, who chose to be with him when he led the rebellion two years ago. They delivered for him on Saturday when votes for the state polls were counted.
The cabinet expansion of the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government is likely to take place by December 14, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader said on Wednesday.
The MLAs supporting Pilot cannot stand the repeated undermining of Pilot, also the state PCC chief, by the Gehlot camp and the letter by the police's special operations group sent to the deputy chief minister was to "humiliate him", sources said.
Congress MLAs including women members wore helmets when they entered the West Bengal assembly on Wednesday, a day after a scuffle inside the House spun out of control, even as the Speaker ordered a probe into the role of security men during the violence.
Kumaraswamy rejected a charge by the saffron party that he was trying to poach their lawmakers.
Legislators are said to be miffed and have complained that they had not been able to get work done in their constituencies, and also transfers (of Government servants) as requested, and have expressed unhappiness regarding Ministers, alleging non-cooperation.
Amid intense discussions among Mahayuti allies over the distribution of portfolios and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena's insistence on the home ministry, the clarity on the composition of the council of ministers is expected by Sunday, sources said.
Vicky Nanjappa reports on the dilemma that the Andhra Pradesh government headed by Kiran Kumar Reddy faces in the wake of Congress legislators from Telangana deciding to quit their seats to press for a separate state.
'Shekhawat has no moral authority to continue as a Union minister and should resign so that the investigation is not influenced'
The submission was made before Justice U C Dhyani by advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for the Chief whip, who further argued that the nine were "paraded" before the governor to show the "new majority".
'Pro-incumbency worked big time for the ruling party.' 'It has never happened in the past of pro-incumbency working so much for the ruling party.'
Akhilesh said the alliance's decision was not informed by any seat-sharing math but its pursuit of victory.
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