Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
"Rai is a grass root worker, who is a sitting Congress MLA and has fought a number of elections successfully and he will be the best candidate in Varanasi", party spokesman Randeep Surjewala told reporters announcing the candidature.
Breaking with past practice, the Congress on Thursday released its first list of 24 candidates for the Delhi assembly polls repeating all its eight members of Legislative Assembly and 12 others who were runner-ups in the 2013 assembly election in which the party had suffered a setback.
Centre has announced a compensation of Rs five lakh to the next of kin of each victim.
The results of this election, largely touted as a three-cornered contest among a spirited AAP, a confident BJP and a hopeful Congress, may have ramifications beyond the national capital.
The political drama in Rajasthan over leadership change continued on Monday with MLAs loyal to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot remaining non-committal on holding a meeting with Congress observers, who are likely to return to Delhi to apprise the high command about the developments.
Some of them have also endorsed Sachin Pilot as chief minister. However, they added that whatever decision the party high command takes in this regard, they will accept it.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
Former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, who had to resign from the government in the wake of the Iraqi food-for-oil scam, on Wednesday announced his resignation from the Congress. Natwar made the announcement in the presence of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia at a Bharatiya Janata Party-sponsored Jat rally in Vidyadhar Nagar. He also launched a blistering attack on Sonia Gandhi.
Clashes between BJP supporters and Congress workers marred the last leg of his visit.
Voting for 117 assembly seats in Punjab and 59 assembly constituencies spread across 16 districts of Uttar Pradesh were held on Sunday.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
Former National Students Union of India President Alka Lamba has quit the Congress and could be joining the Aam Aadmi Party, a development that the ruling party sought to downplay saying it was long that she held any post in the party or was fielded in any election.
On January 18, the agency had raided his premises and claimed to have seized about Rs 8 crore cash.
Soon after meeting, Raut hinted at a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in UP and Goa, stating that the parties are thinking of working together in both the states that are scheduled to go to assembly polls early next year.
Adequate security and Covid safety measures have been put in place for the electoral exercise.
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
The Congress on Monday joined other opposition parties, including the DMK and the PMK, in boycotting the June 27 by-election.
The 40 per cent commission charge has once again come to the fore to haunt the Basavaraj Bommai-led government in Karnataka, with the state contractors association on Wednesday stating that they will be writing another letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard.
The West Bengal government said the situation was under control in Baduria, Swarupnagar, Deganga and Basirhat, which had witnessed violence. Prohibitory orders are in force there. No untoward incident was reported.
Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to Mann in the swearing-in ceremony that took place at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of legendary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh in Punjab's Shaheed Bhagat Singh (SBS) Nagar district.
In veiled criticism of the Ashok Gehlot government on Tuesday, Congress leader Sachin Pilot called for zero tolerance to incidents like the recent killing of a Dalit boy and called for action against local officials for an alleged lathi-charge on the victim's family.
Dilip Pandey, Atishi and Raghav Chadha, who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, will also contest the assembly elections to be held on February 8.
NCP leader Malik was arrested by the ED last month in a money laundering case. Following a complaint filed by the minister's son Amir Malik, the V B Nagar police registered the FIR late Wednesday night, he said.
An interesting multi-cornered contest is on the cards for the urban local body elections in Tamil Nadu scheduled for February 19 with opposition parties, which were with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam till a few days ago, set to take on the ruling DMK banking on their respective party's own strength.
The situation is worse in the Gandhi family pocket borough -- Amethi and Raebareli.
The fight for Mumbai's green lung continues through the Ganesh Utsav festival.
The drama unfolded early in the morning as the Chhattisgarh Police came face to face with their counterparts from Ghaziabad and Noida, who, they claimed, prevented them from arresting Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan despite an arrest warrant and court order against him.
P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal were among the 41 winners declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel resolved issues of merger of other princely states, but 'one person' could not resolve the Kashmir issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, in a veiled attack on India's first PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Delhi Congress Chief Arvinder Singh Lovely will not contest the upcoming assembly elections in the national capital, where the party has been pushed to the third place behind Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party, and instead look after its organisation of the polls.
The FIR was lodged under The Epidemic Diseases Act for not maintaining social distancing and not wearing face masks.
'I have voted in several elections and now this is the first time I have been told that my vote is not here'
When there is a state government committed to development, it is important that Mumbai has a civic body that, too, shares that goal, Modi said.
Only three of its candidates -- Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar, Devender Yadav from Badli and Abhishek Dutt from Kasturba Nagar -- managed to save their deposits.
Of the 59 seats, the BJP had won 51 in the 2017 Assembly elections, four had gone to the Samajwadi Party, and three to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Elections to local governing bodies can be held now with OBC quota in Maharashtra, with the Supreme Court giving its nod on Wednesday, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in Mumbai.
Addressing the annual Dussehra rally at the iconic Shivaji Park ground in Mumbai, Thackeray lashed out at Shinde, whose rebellion in June this year brought down the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government in the state.
Notably, after coming to power in November 2019, the then MVA government scrapped certain policy decisions of its predecessor BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Fadnavis.
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