Distancing himself from the comments, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the LDF's stand is not to personally attack Gandhi.
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Eknath Shinde-led faction if its move to go against the Shiv Sena party's wish to continue with the coalition in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) amounted to indiscipline leading to disqualification.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
The saffron party won 60 of the 126 seats, its allies Asom Gana Parishad nine and United Peoples Party (Liberal) six. Congress bagged 29 seats, its partner All India United Democratic Front 16 and Bodo Democratic Front four.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dropping references to the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the killing of Muslims in Gujarat riots and Hindutva, and tweaking the reference to Manipur's merger with India are among the latest set of revisions made public by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in its textbooks.
Tej Bahadur through his plea sought direction to allow him to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Varanasi seat.
'They fear their caste privilege will be exposed if there is an OBC caste census.'
The Election Commission said July 18 is the last date to file nomination paper.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
BJP candidate and former chief minister Bhajan Lal's grandson Bhavya Bishnoi on Sunday defeated his nearest rival and Congress nominee Jai Prakash in the Adampur assembly seat by-election, retaining the family bastion.
The Election Commission on Thursday announced results for 261 constituencies of the National Assembly or lower house of the Parliament. The results of the remaining 11 constituencies will be declared later.
The BJP has won just eight out of the 40 zila panchayat seats in Ayodhya, a disappointment for the ruling party in the district on which the Centre and the state government have lavished much attention.
Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 15 of 20 seats up for grabs in the politically crucial province of Punjab on Sunday, dealing a major blow to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his 13-party alliance led by the ruling PML-N.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
...educated people are better decision-makers must be rejected, the CJI said.
Jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz with 64 and former president Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party with 43 seats are placed at number two and three respectively, the Election Commission of Pakistan said.
Police personnel in Gujarat cast their votes for the upcoming state assembly elections on Sunday.
Sixty-six former bureaucrats in a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind said that the 'polling body's independence, fairness, impartiality and efficiency are perceived to be compromised today'.
Former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi on Wednesday suggested an annual compulsory audit of funds and donations received by political parties. "We want that all political funding should be transparent and checked. There should be annual compulsory audits by an independent auditor to be picked up from a panel suggested by the Election Commission," Quraishi said.
A commission of inquiry is likely to be ordered by the Centre into the alleged "snooping" on a woman in Gujarat allegedly at the behest of Amit Shah, a close aide of the Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
According to the data released in Patna by Development Commissioner Vivek Singh, the state's total population stood at a little over 13.07 crore, out of which the EBCs (36 per cent) were the largest social segment followed by the OBCs at 27.13 per cent.
The two rival Senas took over each other a day after the party's 57th foundation day celebrations which saw Thackeray and Shinde holding separate events in Mumbai and trading charges.
Counting of votes is underway in assembly byelection to 58 seats in 11 states including Madhya Pradesh where the results will decide the fate of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud acknowledged that the Madras high court's remarks were 'harsh', but did not expunge them, saying they do not form part of the judicial order.
The panchayat polls or those for district panchayat chiefs are not held on a party symbol but candidates enjoy the tacit support of various parties.
Thackeray also took a veiled dig at chief minister Shinde as the allocation of portfolios is yet to be done though the cabinet was expanded recently after a long wait.
On Thursday, the BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 20 seats in the 40-member assembly, just one short of the majority mark, and later said it has secured support from regional outfit MGP, which bagged two seats.
'One big leader said you might get 3 lakh votes and still lose.' 'I said if I do I will make sure you are sleepless because it will be me and three lakh people.'
The parties which lost their registration also include Revolutionary Party of India-Khobragade faction, led by Uttam Khobragade and Uttar Pradesh-based Peace Party.
District election officer Mahendra Bahadur Singh said Aman Giri won by a margin of 34,298 votes. He received 1,24,810 votes while Tiwari got 90,512 votes.
Justice Mukul Mudgal was on Thursday elected as head of FIFA's governance committee at the world football governing body's 67th Congress in Bahrain's capital city of Manama.
The opposition alliance believes "compulsive abstention" has no place in presidential elections.
As Pakistan celebrated its Independence Day on Thursday, the fear of violence loomed large with the capital turned into a fortress ahead of two massive anti-government rallies, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and fresh elections.
'However, to establish a quid pro quo, one can potentially see several things, like whether they got any benefits from the party that they gave money to. That is something that people (of India) will gauge. But to finally establish that there was money paid as consideration, it would require an investigation, a proper investigation, to be able to come up with such conclusions.'
Against the backdrop of the recent controversy between the Election Commission and the Law ministry over the latter claiming control over it, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi on Monday made it clear that this cannot happen as EC is a Constitutionally independent body.
In a jolt to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party won four of the six seats in the state legislative council, including Nagpur, and wrested the Akola-Buldhana-Washim seat from the Shiv Sena.
Alleging that the Chief Election Commissioner's controversial recommendation for removal of his colleague has eroded the credibility of the poll body, the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Friday claimed the CEC himself has violated the independence of the Election Commission.
Of the 9 results declared, 7 has been won by BJP while Janata Dal-United scored victory at two places, Election Commission said.
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