Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday said a "new tradition" of levelling allegations and counter-allegations being observed in Parliament and state Assemblies these days is not proper for the country's constitutional democracy, and stressed the need for constructive debate and discussion in Houses to make democracy "lively and active".
If 74.9 per cent of NRI voters are from Kerala, Andhra Pradesh at 6.4 per cent, Maharashtra at 4.7 per cent, Tamil Nadu and Telangana at 2.9 per cent each follow way behind.
The Odisha government told the assembly over 40,000 workers migrated from the state last year, with the highest number -- 26,151 -- from Balangir.
While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has given tickets to 76 'crorepati' candidates, the opposition Congress has fielded 60 such nominees. They are followed by seven from the Nationalist Congress Party, six from the Aam Aadmi Party and two from the Bahujan Samaj Party.
The transformation of the Modi-Shah baiting Hardik Patel into saffron poster boy.
The desertion of MLAs is worrying for the party which has fielded its senior leader Ahmed Patel for the Rajya Sabha election.
BJP may get up to a maximum of 115 of the total 182 seats and the Congress 65.
The police baton-charged the suspected attackers arrested in the case by holding them against an electric pole in the village square in full public view.
The GMC poll was being seen as a litmus test for the BJP in the backdrop of its sudden and surprising decision to change the state's chief minister and the entire cabinet recently, ahead of the state Assembly polls due next year.
Tata Passenger Electric Mobility (TPEM), a subsidiary of Tata Motors, on Friday announced that it has commenced production at its second factory in Sanand, Gujarat, which it had acquired from Ford India last year. This new facility will unlock an additional manufacturing capacity of 300,000 units per annum, which is scalable to 420,000 units. The new facility is spread over 460 acres and is adjacent to Tata Motors' existing passenger vehicle facility in Sanand.
Kejriwal also targeted the BJP over its state president C R Paatil, and claimed there cannot be a bigger insult of the state's people than the ruling party appointing 'a man from Maharashtra' as its chief.
Gujarat was labelled Hindutva's crucible and Modi was to become the chief 'chemist'. A revealing political saga excerpted from Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay's The Demolition, the Verdict and the Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project.
A total of 851 candidates are in the fray for 93 seats spread across 14 districts in north and central Gujarat, in the final phase of the polls, where 2.22 crore people are eligible to exercise their franchise.
While the Congress is elated to see the new caste dynamics coming to its rescue, the BJP still believes that no one is leaving its ship.
The poll panel said the seizures made since the polls were announced on October 9 are over seven times (Rs 239.15 crore) the seizures made in the previous assembly elections in these states in 2018.
'The same thing takes place in the Congress and we have to call it democracy'
Shah said the people of Gujarat would seek an answer from Congress in December, when the state goes to polls.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal mounted a blazing campaign in the hot summer after he was released from the Tihar jail on interim bail on May 10, drawing huge crowds at rallies and roadshows, but it proved insufficient to propel his Aam Aadmi Party past the Bharartiya Janata Party challenge in the national capital.
In his absence, the party stares at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political obscurity.
The Kolkata Police has booked actor Paresh Rawal under different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on a complaint filed by Communist Party of India-Marxist state secretary Md Salim, who alleged that he delivered 'hate speech' against the Bengali community during an election rally of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat.
On Monday, he will be sworn in as the prime minister of India. Before that, on Wednesday, an emotional Narendra Modi bid farewell to the Gujarat assembly.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Gandhi said Modi was frequently shifting his campaign plank in Gujarat.
Former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel died in Ahmedabad on Thursday after prolonged illness, family sources said. Patel (92) had recovered from Covid-19 recently and was rushed to a hospital in Ahmedabad on Thursday morning following health complications, the sources said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejigged his team only once, in July 2021, in his second term, unlike in his first stint, when he reshuffled and expanded his council three times.
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.
'AAP is more acceptable to sections of the middle class because it has pragmatically tried to accommodate Hindu sensibilities.'
'The lesson the BJP has to learn from the violence in Gujarat is that once you practise the politics of hate against any community, it will surely get back to you some day.'
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Can you imagine that Surat's voters won't have any say now in exercising their fundamental right to choose a candidate of their own choice? This is what the BJP has reduced India's democracy to.' 'With this ugly act, in one stroke, the BJP has disenfranchised the voters of Surat.'
'Kejriwal tries to project that his party is not Hindu virodhi.'
"The IAF played a vital role in five of the seven phases of the general elections, flying over 1,000 hours in over 1,750 sorties," it said.
The counting is underway in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Watch all the political action unfold in these states right here on Rediff.com.
The bill known as the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill-2020 seeks a total ban on the slaughter of cows in the state and stringent punishment to those who indulge in smuggling, illegal transportation, atrocities on cows and slaughtering them, Bharatiya Janata Party sources said.
Brijesh Merja is the third Congress MLA to have resigned since Wednesday and the eight since March.
A statement from the Congress said the party's disciplinary committee decided to suspend Kumbhani after a thorough discussion, adding it had come to the conclusion that the nomination form was rejected due to gross negligence on his part or "in connivance with the BJP".
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
