'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.'
BJP veterans whom K Annamalai has reportedly sidelined are upset over his 'immature' way of handling allies, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AAP has declared candidates on six of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.
Maharashtra's caretaker Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who took ill at his native village in Satara district, is recovering and will return to Mumbai on Sunday evening, an associate said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday snubbed the Rashtriya Janata Dal, headed by his arch-rival Lalu Prasad Yadav, stating that he had forged alliances 'by mistake' with the opposition party which 'did nothing' while in power.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
The Shiv Sena leader also asserted that Eknath Shinde will take any position in the Union cabinet as his interest lies in Maharashtra politics.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Saturday said the results of the assembly elections were historic, and they decided to whom the Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena belong.
As leaders in both the BJP and Congress concede, neither has within their parties a leader to match Arvind Kejriwal's charisma in Delhi.
Targeting the Congress, the PM said those who ruled Madhya Pradesh for a long time did nothing else other than corruption and crime.
'At no point did Kamal Nath and Digvijaya indicate that the Opposition bloc was formed only to fight the Lok Sabha polls.'
Meanwhile, the Congress' data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra.
'That was my mistake.' 'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.' 'Adani was not there in the meeting.' 'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'
Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Patole asserted there are no disagreements within the MVA, adding that discussions on seat-sharing were underway and would conclude soon.
Shiv Sena-Uhhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday said the seat-sharing talks between his party and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar have concluded as these two parties are driven by a desire and mindset to resolve issues.
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.
Akhilesh's fielding candidates from a broad spectrum of castes, not just Yadavs, and with the BJP losing in several seats in Purvanchal, suggests that smaller OBC communities shifted from the BJP to the SP in the region.
'The President-elect firmly believes we can avoid conflict with the Chinese Communist party because they need our markets.'
Political pundits unanimously suggest that the state is not experiencing a discernible Gandhi wave this time around.
'There is ample evidence to suggest that attacks on the PM's probity and his connections with business houses do not resonate with voters.'
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Wednesday dropped hints that the Mahagathbandhan helmed by his party might bring on board former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, whom the National Democratic Alliance has sidelined in favour of estranged nephew Chirag Paswan.
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.
'We pressurised him (to accept the deputy chief ministership).' 'Being out of power would have made him weaker.'
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah was sworn in as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, the first elected government in the Union Territory since 2019 when Article 370 was abrogated.
'Mrs Gandhi had nothing to do in the day-to-day working of Dr Singh's government.' 'People say Mrs Gandhi's office used to give orders, which is nonsense.'
In the Congress's Central Election Committee (CEC) held to discuss ticket allocation for the forthcoming Haryana assembly elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi discussed about the possibilities of contesting elections as INDIA bloc, said sources.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents have decided to house all its newly-elected MLAs together in Mumbai after the Maharashtra election results, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said on Friday, a move aimed at preventing poaching ahead of government formation. Raut said MVA leaders met on Thursday and carried out an assessment of every seat. The counting of votes for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly polls will take place on Saturday. Raut expressed confidence that the MVA would win 160 seats in the elections. The term of the Maharashtra legislative assembly ends on November 26. The opposition fears that President's rule could be imposed in the state if a new government is not formed till then.
The BJP may win more seats in the February 5 assembly election, but not enough to trump AAP, notes Ramesh Menon.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole claimed Thackeray had selected a candidate finalised by Congress for the Nashik Teachers' constituency without consulting coalition partners.
JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in a grand ceremony in Ranchi, amid the presence of a galaxy of INDIA bloc leaders. This is Soren's fourth stint as chief minister. The JMM-led alliance won a majority in the recent assembly polls, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.
The Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP, will decide whether only the chief minister and deputy CMs will take the oath of office on December 5, or whether ministers will also be sworn in. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for the evening at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending. While BJP sources have indicated that Devendra Fadnavis is the frontrunner for the chief minister's post, the BJP legislature party leader is yet to be appointed. NCP chief Ajit Pawar has stated that the chief minister will be from the BJP, with deputy CMs from the Shiv Sena and NCP. The Mahayuti alliance secured a landslide victory in the assembly elections, winning 230 seats out of 288. The government formation has been delayed due to disagreements on the chief minister's position.
The Aam Aadmi Party will fight the 2024 Haryana assembly polls on its own, its state unit vice-president Anurag Dhanda said on Friday, saying the party has a complete organisational structure ready and will soon announce its village-level committees too.
The government and opposition parties on Monday reached an agreement to break the impasse in Parliament with dates announced for discussions on the Constitution in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
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.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
The Parliament session is set to start today, with various issues slated to be discussed, including the Waqf Act (Amendment) Bill.
'Rahul Gandhi is showing an 'I-don't-care-attitude'.' 'He is showing the same attitude towards what is happening in Maharashtra or in various parts of the country.'
The Congress and AAP had fought the Lok Sabha polls together in Delhi, while they contested separately in Punjab.
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.
It is said that Kumaraswamy was in a dilemma, as Nikhil was not keen on contesting but buckled under pressure from party workers.
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