'Akhilesh Yadav made voters think why is the BJP asking for 400 paar.' 'They understood his words and believed the BJP wanted 400 paar only to demolish the Constitution and end reservations.'
With the CAA rules being issued, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from the three countries.
Credited with bringing insurgent group United Liberation Front of Asom to the negotiating table and hauling Assam back from the brink of bankruptcy, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has combined administrative and political acumen with his simple demeanour to help Congress retain power for a record consecutive third term.
Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
'We are in a dilemma if the central government supports this ethnic violence and Biren Singh.'
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The National Testing Agency, under fire over the lapses in the conduct of NEET and UGC-NET, is gearing up to conduct on Sunday a retest for the medical entrance exam for 1,563 candidates who were earlier awarded grace marks to make up for the loss of time at six centres.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
The encounter took place when the troops of Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group of J&K Police launched a joint cordon and search operation at Dhari Gote Urarbagi in Desa forest belt, some 55 km from Doda town, late Monday evening, the officials said.
From April 1 next year, over 600 state-run Madrassas will be converted into upper primary, high and higher secondary schools with no change of status, pay, allowances and service conditions of the teaching and non-teaching staff.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday assured that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will not be implemented in Assam if the party is voted to power in the state in the coming assembly poll.
Government sources said Modi will also chair meetings to review the aftermath of the Cyclone Remal, especially in the north east region hit by natural disasters.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
While Himanta Biswa Sarma scotched rumours that he would be the king this time, political sources in Guwahati maintained that he, and not Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, had a bigger say in choosing candidates, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Sixteen per cent of the candidates contesting in the first phase of Assam assembly elections have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The CPI-M leader was the chief minister of the state from 2000 to 2011.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
The party is less forthcoming about who the chief minister will be if it stays in power.
'Gogoi will be remembered as someone who recovered Assam as a state, as a people and society from the fear of insurgency that had struck the state from the 1980s till 2000.'
The first time the Election Commission has taken cognisance of a model code of conduct complaint against a sitting prime minister.
According to an official release, the voting percentage is likely to go up when reports from all polling stations are obtained, as polling was scheduled until 6 pm in many constituencies.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
'The Congress is not listening to its young leaders. That is why the situation of the party is worsening in all states'
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the rescue mission in the landslide-hit Mundakkai region of Wayanad could take a few more days, and appointed a cabinet sub-committee of four ministers to coordinate the rescue efforts.
After the 18-member 'Assam Advisory Committee' suggested the two organisations to form a political party, a source close to the development said the new outfit will be launched within the next 10 days.
Nandita Saikia, a BA student at Moridhal College in Dhemaji district, was attacked by Rintu Sharma while she was returning home from her college on Saturday, police said.
The saffron party won 60 of the 126 seats, its allies Asom Gana Parishad nine and United Peoples Party (Liberal) six. Congress bagged 29 seats, its partner All India United Democratic Front 16 and Bodo Democratic Front four.
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.
Of the 20,831 voters in this assembly constituency, an overwhelming majority of around 18,000 are not tribals.
Banerjee also appealed to the people of West Bengal not to get provoked over matters concerning the current situation in Bangladesh.
Radical Sikh preacher and Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh's brother Harpreet Singh has been apprehended by Jalandhar police in a drug case, a senior police official said on Friday.
"The voting percentage is likely to go upwards when reports from all polling stations are obtained as polling is scheduled till 6 pm in many constituencies. Final figures will be known on Saturday after the scrutiny of form 17A," the EC said.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The immediate challenge for the Centre and the home ministry is to ensure the conduct of assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir and restoration of its statehood.
The anti-talk faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom on Friday blamed "infighting" within the ruling Congress party in Assam for the violence between Bodos and minorities. The outfit claimed that people in Bodoland Territorial Area Districts are being made "political scapegoat" for the sake of individual ambitions of leaders.
While the Aam Aadmi Party is contesting on four seats, the Congress has fielded candidates for the remaining three seats.
Displaying a washing machine on its press conference dais, the Congress on Saturday taunted the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filing a closure report in a 2017 corruption case against Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel and said the ruling party's 'fully automatic washing machine' works on the principle -- 'join BJP, case closed'.
The BJP-led alliance in Assam is all set to form the government for the second successive term winning 72 of the 102 seats declared so far and is leading in three others.
Separately, the poll panel also issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, asking him to respond to the complaints filed by the BJP against him and the main opposition party's senior leader Rahul Gandhi regarding their remarks.