Gujarat is a tale of woes for the Congress, out of power for over twenty long years, with Narendra Modi performing an electoral hat-trick.
The Congress party may have its eyes firmly set on the Bharat Jodo Yatra, but it kept its fingers crossed as it waited for Thursday's counting of votes for the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
The name of the Maharashtra chief minister will be announced on Wednesday, a day ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of the Mahayuti government, after the Bharatiya Janata Party elects its legislature party leader, a senior functionary said on Monday.
Setalvad was taken into custody on June 25 last year along with former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar and ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in an offence registered by Ahmedabad crime branch police for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame "innocent people" in the post-Godhra riots cases.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole on Monday alleged that the agenda of the upcoming special session of Parliament is to separate Mumbai from the state and declare it as a Union territory.
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for the Gujarat assembly elections which were held in two phases on December 1 and 5 across 33 districts of the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state.
Despite the AAP cutting into its votes, the Congress still polled 27 per cent votes and won 17 seats.
Earlier, another Congress legislator, Arjun Singh Kakodiya, had called Lord Shiva and Bajrangbali, or Lord Hanuman, tribals.
The Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party unit is upbeat and confident of forming the next government in the state with all the exit polls predicting a big mandate for the saffron outfit.
Can ordinary citizens counter this backward march? Can peace activists ensure that the two communities retain their bonds? Do they have a choice, asks Jyoti Punwani.
While the BJP says it is confident Dalits will vote for it in the state assembly polls due this year-end, the Congress says it is paying attention to seats with 10 per cent or more Dalit population.
It was a high-stakes three-cornered fight between the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.
The results are expected to have a bearing on the 2019 parliamentary polls.
Devendra Fadnavis will lead the new Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar serving as deputy chief ministers. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday evening at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers. The Mahayuti coalition won the recent assembly elections by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge distributed sweets among leaders of the opposition bloc INDIA during a meeting in his chamber ahead of the commencement of the House proceedings.
Political analysts say the Congress appears on the backfoot this time after one of its senior tribal leaders from the region joined the BJP, which has a stronghold in urban areas where civic bodies, leaders and the network required to win the election are firmly with the saffron party.
The appointment was made by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi who was authorized by a meeting of the Gujarat Congress Legislature Party in Gandhinagar on Tuesday to select the leader.
Apart from these leaders, the Congress also hinted at forging a pre-poll alliance with Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party and bringing on board Chhotu Vasava, the lone Janata Dal-United MLA from the state.
A court in Surat in Gujarat on Thursday sentenced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to two years in jail in a 2019 criminal defamation case filed against him over his "Modi surname" remarks.
According to Gandhi's lawyer Kashi Prasad Shukla, the Congress MP, who appeared before special judge Shubham Verma, said he never made a statement against anyone that could lead to a case of defamation.
'Can we force somebody to contest and fight an election when they don't want to contest an election?'
Vanzara, a former "encounter specialist", was acquitted in the alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati and discharged in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case.
In a bid to nullify anti-incumbency sentiment, the ruling party dropped 45 MLAs including former chief minister Vijay Rupani.
A Gujarat high court judge on Wednesday recused herself from hearing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's appeal challenging the order of the Surat sessions court that declined to stay his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark.
The two-phase assembly elections will be held on December 1 and 5 while the counting of votes will be taken up on December 8.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head to poll-bound Gujarat this weekend and is expected to participate in at least eight programmes, crisscrossing the state from Saurashtra to Surat.
'All the big things happening today in economic development have their beginning in Dr Manmohan Singh's ideas.'
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.
Suspended Congress leader Nilesh Kumbhani, whose nomination form was rejected over discrepancies leading to Bharatiya Janata Party winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat unopposed, resurfaced on Saturday after 20 days and alleged it was the grand old party that had betrayed him first in 2017.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
The BJP could surpass its previous best showing of 127 seats in 2002 when Modi was the chief minister.
Gujarat voters, spoilt for choice, are eagerly waiting to see what the BJP will offer them.
Despite being lodged in prison, Bishnoi has allegedly managed to execute murders of many high-profile people, including Punjabi singer Siddhu Moosewala in 2022, Karni Sena chief Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi in 2023, besides orchestrating firing outside the residences of singers A P Dhillon and Gippy Garewal in Canada, the officer said.
Opposition Congress on Monday said there was nothing new in Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto, dubbing it as "anti-poor and anti-middle class" and an attempt to "misguide" the people of Gujarat.
As many as 833 candidates are in the fray across 93 constituencies which will go to polls on December 5. Votes will be counted on December 8.
Aiming to breach the Bharatiya Janata Party's Gujarat bastion, the Aam Aadmi Party fielded its candidate to contest all 182 assembly seats and carried out a high decibel campaign in the run-up to the polls in Gujarat.
The Gujarat Assembly on Friday passed a resolution requesting the Centre to take strict action against BBC for tarnishing the image and popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its documentary on the 2002 riots in the state.
The party also announced that Kamal Nath will contest the bypoll for the Chhindwara assembly constituency.
Among the major parties, out of the 25 BJP candidates, four, or 15 percent, have criminal cases against them, with two facing serious charges, as per the data of ADR.
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