Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Hemant V Shivsaran/Rediff.com does a deep dive and lists the winners with the highest and lowest margins in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Amid protests in Barak Valley, Morigaon and Dhubri, the crackdown on child marriage in Assam entered the fourth day on Monday, with the number of arrests rising to 2,441.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
The India Meteorological Department has issued a 'Red Alert' and predicted 'very heavy' to 'extremely heavy' rainfall across several districts of Assam over the next five days.
Trawling back into the past, she said her family had an elephant mahal, where the jumbos were kept in large numbers after being tamed and domesticated.
The student was detained three days after the ISIS India head Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi and his associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan were arrested in Dhubri district after they had crossed over from Bangladesh.
'We have already directed our party members and supporters and advised them that not a single vote goes to the BJP'
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Major rivers of the state, including the Brahmaputra, were flowing above the danger level at different places.
The Congress on Tuesday announced its second list of 43 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath once again from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara and Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav Gehlot from Rajasthan's Jalore.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
The toll due to the flood since mid-May is now 101, they said.
Rahul claimed that the Assam CM has taken land in Kaziranga National Park.
The India Meteorological Department has issued a 'Red Alert' and predicted 'very heavy' to 'extremely heavy' rainfall across several districts of Assam till Thursday.
As the police said they have a list of 8,000 accused and the drive will continue, women protested against the move in various districts saying they will face problems without livelihoods.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday said it has secured a large contract to construct the country's longest road bridge across river Brahmaputra connecting Dhubri in Assam to Phulbari in Meghalaya. The contract was bagged by the company's subsidiary L&T Construction. As per the company, a large contract is worth Rs 2,500-5,000 crore.
The flood situation in the three districts of Barak Valley -- Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi -- remained critical as the water levels of Barak and Kushiara rivers continued to rise, inundating vast tracts of land, officials said.
With two more deaths, the fatalities due to flood this year has gone up to 18.
The flood situation in Assam deteriorated on Thursday with one more person losing his life and nearly 7.18 lakh people in 27 districts remaining affected by the deluge, an official bulletin said.
Three persons, including the president and general secretary of the Assam Miya Parishad, have been detained for their alleged association with terror outfits, police said.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday said he would visit places in Nandigram, where post-poll violence was allegedly reported.
The flood situation affected nearly 26.5 lakh people across 28 districts.
The opposition has criticised the manner in which the drive against child marriage was being carried out, equating the police action with "terrorising people".
The total number of people killed in flooding and landslides in the state this year has gone up to 76. While 50 people were killed in inundation, 26 died due to landslides.
The Assam cabinet on Monday decided to book men who marry girls below 14 years in the state under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Dhubri is the worst hit with over 8.72 lakh people affected, followed by Barpeta with more than 4.78 lakh people and Goalpara with around 4.28 lakh population.
The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers along with their tributaries are in spate, even as floodwaters started receding from a few areas, they said.
Several rebel Maharashtra MLAs are currently camping in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Guwahati.
They have been booked under different sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, IT Act and CrPC, a senior police officer said.
Though the legislator of Rupohihat, Nurul Huda, stopped the drive in Sitalmari area of Burachapori Wildlife Sanctuary for a while claiming it was illegal, the exercise resumed later, a senior official said.
Two more died in the state today. With this, the total number of people losing their lives in this year's flood and landslide has gone up to 115 across the state -- 89 were killed in flood-related incidents and 26 in landslides.
The flood situation in Assam worsened on Saturday with four more deaths reported and over 6.5 lakh people being affected in more than 1,400 villages due to incessant rains across the state.
'Bharat Jodo Yatra' is a 'booster dose' for the Congress and a 'decisive and transformational moment' for the politics of the country, senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said in Guwahati on Friday.
Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday claimed that 300-400 BJP workers and their family members have fled their homes in West Bengal amid post-poll violence in the neighbouring state.
The Guwahati Siphung express derailed between Salakati and Basugaon in Assam's Kokrajhar District on Saturday, injuring at least two people.
Many parts of Cachar district's severely affected Silchar town are still waterlogged.
In the last 24 hours, eight people have died after drowning in flood waters -- two each in Barpeta and Karimganj districts, one each in Darrang, Hailakandi, Nalbari and Sonitpur districts and eight people are still missing.
