Modi accused previous governments of not providing people with facilities that were available to people elsewhere in the world even in the 20th century and in Gujarat a few years back.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
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.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday fielded its president J P Nadda for Rajya Sabha polls from Gujarat and former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan from his home state.
The Congress opened another front against the Bharatiya Janata Party, as it raked up the row surrounding allotment of land to Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association during its rule and accused former CM PK Dhumal and his son Anurag Thakur of causing a loss of Rs 100 crore to the state exchequer.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Army, National Disaster Response Force and local rescue teams have been called in for the rescue work, the Kinnaur deputy commissioner said.
All efforts should be on relief, restoration and rehabilitation, Nadda told reporters in Shimla after visiting the rain-affected areas of Poanta in Sirmaur and Shimla town.
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
Amid cross-voting, BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan on Tuesday won the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh, defeating ruling Congress' Abhishek Manu Singhvi, officials said.
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
The one-year-old Himachal Pradesh Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was expanded on Tuesday with the induction of Rajesh Dharmani and Yadvinder Goma as cabinet ministers.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Party sources said United Progressive Allinace chairperson Sonia Gandhi is likely to reach Delhi on Wednesday from Himachal Pradesh and is expected to meet some leaders who are part of the decision-making process in Karnataka.
Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended the swearing in ceremony, while former AICC President Sonia Gandhi was absent. Chief Ministers of Congress ruled states Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Sukhvinder Singh Sukku (Himachal Pradesh) and several top party leaders were also in attendance.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
Shah also challenged the Congress to implement its Lok Sabha election promise of providing Rs 8500 monthly to women in states ruled by the party.
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
BJP leader and caretaker chief minister Pramod Sawant is the clear favourite for the post of the CM but faces some opposition.
Dhami under whose leadership the BJP had contested the February 14 assembly polls was the frontrunner for the post.
BJP president Amit Shah had said during the campaign that the party was fighting the election under Rupani and Nitin Patel.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Tuesday welcomed the Union Budget and said it focussed on youth, farmers, women, and has 'substantial allocations' for Maharashtra, but the opposition slammed the annual financial statement, claiming it neglected the western state and only seeks to please the saffron outfit's partners in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, was conspicuous by her absence at the event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people as the Congress sought to promote opposition unity.
FHe is the only one among 17 ministers from the outgoing council of ministers who lost the Lok Sabha polls to be reappointed minister.
Around 300 people, mostly tourists, are stuck in camps at Chandertal, located at an altitude of 14,100 feet, following rain and snowfall in the region.
Snow and rain lashed Himachal Pradesh on Friday, resulting in a sharp fall in temperature.
As initial trends indicated a Congress victory in Himachal Pradesh, party veteran Virbhadra Singh said on Thursday that he had put in his "best efforts" in the polls and it was for Sonia Gandhi to decide the party's chief minister.
Fresh snowfall disrupted normal life in Jammu and Kashmir, where an avalanche warning was issued in five districts, higher reaches and tribal areas of Himachal Pradesh and the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand on Monday.
The tourist resorts of Manali, Dalhousie, Kufri and Narkanda received 30 cm to 50 cm of snowfall while Solang, Dhundi, Mari and Rohtang were covered under 200 cm to 300 cm of snow.
Vijayvargiya stated that a clear decision on CM candidates will be revealed by December 10, but refrained from disclosing whether the party will select leaders from the newly elected MLAs or bring in outsiders.
They said this was preliminary voter turnout and the final figure may cross 80 per cent as electoral fate of 301 candidates were locked in EVMs which will be opened on March 10 for counting.
The weather department has said that the skies are expected to be partly cloudy for the next few days in Delhi.
24 hours was all it took for the Congress to overturn its decision to boycott the TV debates on the exit poll results. Sudhir Bisht offers an explanation.
'There is ample evidence to suggest that attacks on the PM's probity and his connections with business houses do not resonate with voters.'
This is the first time after 25 years, that Himachal received snowfall on Christmas day, officials said.
The notice was issued to Singh after the Commission received a report that the chief minister had protested against the detention of a vehicle with beacon light and had said that it was illegal on part of the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police to do so. "You had cautioned the officials to behave properly as you had posted them to the district and had further remarked that the model code of conduct is not a law and I know what the law is," the EC said.
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