Reacting to the meeting of former Bharatiya Janata Party chief Nitin Gadkari with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray in Mumbai, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday said if a senior leader from BJP supports Raj or Sharad Pawar, it can affect the alliance.
The Congress and the NCP are not comfortable with the name Maha Shiv Aghadi (a grand alliance comprising the Shiv Sena)
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
The government has convened an all-party meeting on Wednesday to deliberate on a host of issues related to Parliament's monsoon session, which will begin from July 20.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
How many seats would the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance have got had they fought the 2014 elections with their current alliance partners? Our RediffLabs team has devised an Election Sentimeter to how the swing in votes affects the election outcome.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing the National Democratic Alliance partners to form the government at the Centre, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United head Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu have emerged as potential kingmakers.
'If his health was good he would have become CM again after polls.' 'Those who are with Nitish Babu today will remain with him till the elections to use his name for votes and would definitely play games with him after the polls.'
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma believes that the BJP could win more seats in the state by aggressively campaigning in minority-dominated areas. He attributed the party's recent success in the bypolls to its beneficiary schemes, which he claims have garnered support from the minority community. Sarma emphasized that the BJP will continue with its development work for all communities and has no plans for appeasement. He also gave an update on the Guwahati-North Guwahati bridge project, which is progressing well and is scheduled to be opened to the public in July 2025. Sarma also hinted at a possible cabinet reshuffle in the coming months.
Punjab Minister Anmol Gagan Mann on Wednesday said her Aam Aadmi Party will fight on all 13 parliamentary seats in the state.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
The government will come out with a White Paper on the mismanagement of economy prior to 2014 with an aim to draw lessons.
Mani Shankar Aiyar says the Congress party and not then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for unlocking the Babri Masjid gates and claimed that the "Bharatiya Janata Party-planted" Arun Nehru was behind it.
Without revealing details of the proposed programmes, the leader of the Janata Dal-United, a constituent of INDIA, said that a decision in this regard was taken at the just concluded conclave of the opposition alliance in Mumbai.
'When voting clause by clause on Waqf came up in the JPC, the TDP and JD-U supported the BJP on each and every clause.'
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
In the battle for 2024, the place is hogging the limelight, primarily because of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who according to some opinion polls, may turn out to be the dark horse when votes are counted on June 4.
A crowd of Tejashwi supporters that had gathered outside the 10 Circular Road residence of former chief minister Rabri Devi expecting a victory is thinning now.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday appeared all set to make his second political volte face in less than three years, with a highly-placed source close to Kumar saying that the Janata Dal-United president is likely to tender his resignation by Sunday morning.
'The performance of any government is benchmarked on five parameters -- India's external security, the state of the economy, social cohesion, internal security, and India's relations with the world or its foreign policy. On each of the benchmarks in the past nine years, the NDA-BJP government has come up completely short'
Karra, who became the J&K Congress chief last Friday replacing Vikar Rasool Wani, said a call is already there for all secular parties who are opposed to the "hegemonic attitude" of the BJP to unite.
Both the BJP and the Congress have their share of challenges, with finding winning horses on top of this list.
The 33-year-old Prajwal was the National Democratic Alliance candidate in the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, which went to polls on April 26.
The party, however, did not announce as whether it would merge with any other party or become part of some other alliance.
National Democratic Alliance nominee Om Birla was elected as Lok Sabha speaker on Wednesday after a motion moved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was adopted through voice vote, capping intense debate on the issue with the opposition in a rare move proposing its own candidate.
Watch all the debates and discussions live.
All the three leaders expressed their best wishes to her, sources said.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a post on X that his 18-year-long stint in public service has come to an end.
They said they will raise issues related to rising prices, unemployment, corruption and caste census.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a three-day visit to Odisha, is set to meet her counterpart in the neighbouring state, Naveen Patnaik, on Thursday afternoon.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla recognised Rahul Gandhi as the leader of opposition on Wednesday, a day after the Congress communicated its decision to name him for the position to the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday questioned Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the Union Budget and claimed that the plates of all states except Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were empty in the budget allocation.
The ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is surging ahead of the Grand Alliance spearheaded by the Congress in Assam.
The decision on whether to remove the LJD from the UPA will be taken by chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
Amid some Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) constituents switching sides to the National Democratic Alliance, Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Sunday said the opposition alliance is 'strong' and the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting a 'frantic rejig' of the political landscape as it is worried over the collective strength of the coalition.