'We are certainly disappointed by our inability to win a single seat in the valley... We will analyse what led to this kind of dismal -- in terms of seats -- non-performance by the BJP.' 'I certainly don't want to attribute any religious or so-called communal reasons for it; for the simple reason, that even in Ladakh, a Buddhist majority area, we failed to win seats.' BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav, the man in charge of the party's election campaign in J&K, discusses the verdict with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
The parties reiterated that they are bound, wholly, by the contents of the 'Gupkar Declaration', a resolution issued after an all-party meeting on August 4, 2019 at the Gupkar residence of NC president Farooq Abdullah.
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 former chief minister said if there was any danger of his losing from Budgam, then his party colleagues would not have allowed him to contest from Budgam.
'If the BJP does not change its stand, we will hope that those who are in favour of protecting Ladakh come to power.'
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Congress asked the government to clear its stand on whether it intended to hold talks with Pakistan.
'If, as happened in Baramulla during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the youth in the Valley get triggered enough to jump into the wider fray, the end result would be difficult to predict, especially as the state's post-August 5, 2019 political format remains substantially fragmented and foggy,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
Justice Khanna, who will serve as CJI for a little over six months, will demit office on May 13, 2025.
Jammu and Kashmir registered its highest turn-out in assembly elections in the last 25 years with an estimated 65 per cent of voters casting their votes, as the fifth and final phase of polling ended on Saturday. Jharkhand, which also went to the polls along with J&K, broke all previous polling records to witness over 66 per cent of turn-out in the five phases, bettering the previous mark of 54.2 per cent in the 2004 assembly poll.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
The eight-phase DDC polls, which began on November 28, is also the first election after Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 was revoked last year and it was reorganised into a Union Territory.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Noting that elections will be held in four states, she urged party leaders to sustain the momentum and goodwill that had been generated for the party in the Lok Sabha elections.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's tally in Rajya Sabha has dipped below 90 for the first time in several years but the party and its allies are expected to not only recoup the their losses but also make some gains when by-elections to fill the existing vacancies are held in the coming weeks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the passage of bills as a "momentous occasion" in parliamentary democracy and said a new dawn awaits the people there as they are now free from the "shackles" of vested interest groups.
Security forces tightened their cordon around a forest area in the higher reaches of Doda district on Tuesday evening following an encounter with hiding terrorists, officials said.
A united opposition is set to corner the NDA government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case to railway safety.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
In his maiden rally in Kashmir Valley after quitting the Congress last month, he said only a government with a two-thirds majority in Parliament can ensure the restoration of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
She also sought confidence building measures to be undertaken on the lines of those initiated in 2002.
The junior Abdullah would be banking heavily on Shia support as the constituency has many Shia dominated areas that include Budgam, Beerwah, Pattan, Sonawari and Bandipora, among other pockets.
The BJP knows how to play with people's lives and bodies, former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said.
He asserted that the concept of 'one flag, one prime minister, one Constitution' was not a political slogan and the Bharatiya Janata Party firmly believes in the principle and finally implemented it with regard to Jammu and Kashmir.
The Union government has ordered the complete withdrawal of the counter-terrorist commando force NSG from VIP security duties and handing over its nine "high-risk" VIPs to the CRPF by next month, official sources said Wednesday.
The warmth and respect for India were evident wherever I went and noticed how most Latin Americans have Indian gurus either directly or online and yoga was very much in vogue, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the National Democratic Alliance government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.
The Congress has not released a poll manifesto but a declaration of appeasement.
A voter turnout of 10.82 per cent was recorded till 9 am on Saturday in 58 constituencies in six states and two Union territories where polling is underway in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
'The BJP had a big threat from the Congress in J&K, therefore they were threatened by us.'
Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C on Tuesday said that Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi terming the Poonch terror attack, in which an Indian Air Force soldier was killed, a 'poll stunt' violated the model code of conduct.
Addressing a public event in Kolhapur city on Monday evening, Fadnavis pointed out instances wherein women were tricked into inter-faith marriage and subsequently abandoned after they gave birth to children.
'The government is plucking leaves and not destroying the plant.'
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
On his first visit to Srinagar post the abrogation of Article 370, Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that incidents of terrorism have declined and stone-throwing incidents too have ended in Jammu-Kashmir.
The Rajya Sabha chairman asked him to authenticate his assertions and refused to accept newspaper clippings that the Congress leader showed to buttress his points.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Anantnag -Rajouri constituency, his party Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) said.
'The feeling of love, brotherhood and composite culture exists among you all. I feel sad that the RSS and BJP are trying to break this culture,' Gandhi said in his address to Congress office-bearers and workers at a party function in Jammu on the second day of his two-day visit to Jammu.
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