Continuing with poll promises in the election-bound Gujarat, Congress on Tuesday announced that it would provide free laptops to every student after class 12th.
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.
Shankersinh Vaghela claimed Patel's victory in the Rajya Sabha polls came through a 'well thought-out conspiracy'.
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.
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.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday asserted that Marathi is the language of Mumbai and Maharashtra and anyone who lives here should learn and speak it. Fadnavis was speaking in the state assembly after Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Bhaskar Jadhav said the government should clarify its stand on senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi's comments that a person coming to Mumbai may not necessarily learn Marathi.
Mumbai-based social activist Teesta Setalvad on Monday appeared before a sessions court in Ahmedabad in a case where she is accused of fabricating evidence to frame "innocent" people and defame Gujarat in connection with the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
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.
In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
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.
Singh will take part in an interactive session on the current state of economy with businessmen and traders during his visit.
A sessions court in Ahmedabad on Thursday rejected activist Teesta Setalvad's application seeking discharge in a case related to alleged fabrication of evidence related to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Modi's claims of Gujarat as an attractive investment have now been questioned by the Congress party.
Months before he demitted office as prime minister in 2014, Manmohan Singh had famously asserted that his leadership was not weak and history would be kinder to him than what the media projected at that time.
It was a high-stakes three-cornered fight between the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Sources in AAP claimed that the party was contacted by the Shiv Sena-UBT and the NCP-SP for campaigning by Kejriwal in Maharashtra.
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 Congress is now gearing up to take on the BJP over alleged corruption, jobs and issues tied to tribals, farmers and women.
Of the 10 MLAs, eight including Vaghela and his son, who had voted for the BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha poll, were expelled by the Congress on Wednesday.
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.
He alleged Union Home Minister Amit Shah had directed BJP leaders in a "closed-door" meeting to "stop" him (Uddhav) and Sharad Pawar politically.
The Gujarat polls are drawing to an end with Tuesday being the final phase of campaigning before the state goes for polling in the second phase on December 14. Results for the 182-seat assembly will be announced on December 18. Ahead of the polling, here's everything you need to know about the candidates.
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.
In a bid to nullify anti-incumbency sentiment, the ruling party dropped 45 MLAs including former chief minister Vijay Rupani.
I should not stay in a party where I am being insulted, ignored and betrayed, Alpesh said.
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.
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.
Earlier, another Congress legislator, Arjun Singh Kakodiya, had called Lord Shiva and Bajrangbali, or Lord Hanuman, tribals.
Gujarat voters, spoilt for choice, are eagerly waiting to see what the BJP will offer them.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
The Election Commission of India has announced that the Delhi Assembly elections will be held on February 5, 2023, with the counting of votes scheduled for February 8. The last date to file nominations is January 17, and the scrutiny of nominations will be done by January 18. Candidates can withdraw their nominations until January 20.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat on Tuesday announced 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in local bodies like panchayats, municipalities and civic corporations on the basis of a commission's report, paving the way for polls in these self-governing institutes.
22 images that captures glimpses of a most unusual Indian who led the nation for 10 years.
The Congress chief took a swipe at the ruling party saying if it had a film franchise it would be called "Lie Hard".
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.
The BJP could surpass its previous best showing of 127 seats in 2002 when Modi was the chief minister.
AAP's presence in both states has complicated the contests for the BJP and its Congress rival.
