>Rohini Acharya, Lalu Yadav's daughter who donated her kidney to her father in December 2022, is on her introductory campaign trail in the constituency that has been represented by her father four times.
As polling begins on Friday for the remaining 25 Rajya Sabha seats in six states, here's a list of some of the bigwigs who are seeking to be elected to the Upper House of Parliament.
Jaishankar, a career diplomat and a former foreign secretary, was inducted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his government as external affairs minister.
"Any patriotic person should discuss Indian politics within India. It does not suit the leader of any party to go abroad and discuss the country's politics and criticise the country. Rahul baba, you must remember that people of the country are watching it closely," Shah said.
'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.
The BJP on Wednesday approached the Election Commission seeking removal of the None Of The Above or NOTA option in the upcoming Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat, a day after the Congress made a similar demand.
Thackeray had addressed the audience as his deshbhakt and deshpremi brothers and sisters" instead of the traditional invocation of "Hindu brothers and sisters" at the Shivaji Park gathering in Mumbai.
'It is this fear that is behind all that has happened to Rahul Gandhi.'
'I am not a person who would do such things from behind the scenes.' 'I don't believe in taking somebody else's support for speaking out my mind.'
Chief ministers of 3 Congress-ruled states, other national and state party leaders are also likely to accompany Rahul to the court.
By-elections for four Lok Sabha and five assembly seats in four states went off peacefully on Sunday. Results of these by-polls, which will be announced on June 5, will be keenly watched in the run-up to the 2014 general elections.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is expected to attend the next meeting of opposition parties in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said on Monday.
BJP-led govt will need regional parties' support in Upper House to get legislation cleared. Archis Mohan reports
BJP strategists know it may not repeat its 2014 performance in its traditionally strong bases in the north and the west. This is where the success in the north east and east is so important.
Elections for 18 of these 24 seats were deferred due to the coronavirus pandemic. Of these 18 seats, four each are from Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, three each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, x'two from Jharkhand, and one each from Manipur and Meghalaya.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a big victory for Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party Wednesday snatched all two Lok Sabha and four assembly seats from the Congress in Gujarat where by-polls were held on Sunday.
Angry members of the Congress and other opposition parties forced adjournments of the proceedings as they questioned the NOTA provision for these elections.
Modi said Gandhi, during his cross-examination, not merely failed to make any dent in the prosecution's case, but practically admitted the defamation of all persons bearing the Modi surname.
In Gujarat, Amit Shah's tactic of spiriting away Congress leaders and MLAs is jocularly called 'shop-and-buy votes'. Although haemorrhaging the Congress is a vital aspect of his election blueprint, an aide said, "Amitbhai wants to win on our strengths and not by weakening the Congress."
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's disqualification as a Lok Sabha member was against the basic tenets of the Constitution and was a 'condemnable' move that highlighted the curtailment of democratic values, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has said.
Newly elected mayors will campaign for the party in poll-bound Gujarat.
The resignation of Balwantsinh Rajput (who was also the chief whip), Tejashreeben Patel and Prahlad Patel reduced the Congress's tally to 54 in the 182-seat assembly.
Azad said the government uses north-east 'only for political purposes' and not to provide succour to flood-affected people.
The government on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment bill reserving 33 per cent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, reviving a proposal pending for years and blending history, politics and societal imperatives on the first day in the new Parliament building.
The Bharat Ratna for him comes nine years after the honour was bestowed on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders together spearheaded the journey of the Jana Sangh and then the BJP for over five decades.
According to a Union home ministry notification, those Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians residing in the districts of Anand and Mehsana in Gujarat will be allowed registration as a citizen of India under Section 5 or will be granted certificate of naturalisation under section 6 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and in accordance with the provisions of the Citizenship Rules, 2009.
Union Minister of State Kailash Chaudhary was among the first to cast his vote, exercising his franchise in Balotra.
Shankersinh Vaghela claimed Patel's victory in the Rajya Sabha polls came through a 'well thought-out conspiracy'.
In a major organisational rejig ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Saturday appointed Avinash Pande the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, replacing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while Sachin Pilot was made the general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh.
BJP derided Gandhi saying he "always talks trash" and claimed that unemployment was at its lowest in the last six years.
It sent shock waves in the party -- a political greenhorn had taken on Modi in his home turf of Gujarat. Smriti had clearly tried to choose sides, in this case Vajpayee's camp. Many felt that this would end Irani's career. A revealing excerpt from Nidhi Sharma's new book She, The Leader: Women in Indian Politics.
The HM said that Rahul went on foreign tours and informed the SPG at the eleventh hour, creating problems for it to provide proper security.
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 14th Lok Sabha will go down in history with the dubious distinction of having expelled as many as 11 members, the latest being Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Babubhai Katara last week. Two years back, ten members from the House as also one from the Rajya Sabha were expelled for misconduct in accepting money for raising questions in what has come to be known as the 'cash-for-query' scam exposed by a sting operation on a news channel.
'Modi has to lead the BJP. There is no alternative,' a senior BJP leader tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Rajya Sabha member Pravin Rashtrapal, who has been re-nominated by the Congress from Gujarat for the biennial elections to the Upper House, on Friday filed his nomination papers in Gandhinagar.
"I sometimes think of leaving it, but the chief minister's post doesn't leave me," Ashok Gehlot famously said earlier this year, in part as a signal to the Congress top brass not to pick someone else for the job if the party wins the assembly polls.
'I hope the anger that Gujarat farmers have demonstrated is also reflected in other parts of the country in ensuing elections.' 'Only then will the ruling parties accept that something is terribly going wrong in the hinterland.'
On the other hand, Congress' vote share has risen to about 41.4 per cent this time
