'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
Karnataka goes to polls in about a fortnight and the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress is going toe-to-toe to win the elections, results of which will be announced on May 15. Here's a simple guide to all things about the Karnataka polls.
The EC announced on Friday evening that out of eight parties only Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and the CPI-M accepted the dare. Friday was the last date to enlist for the challenge.
Congress candidate Ashok Chavan, BJP's Gopinath Munde, NCP's Padmasinh Patil and All India Youth Congress chief Rajeev Satav cash in on their charisma and image. Sanjay Jog
The fifteen constituencies that will go to polls are: Athani, Kagwad, Gokak, Yellapura, Hirekerur, Ranibennur, Vijaynagara, Chickballapura, K R Pura, Yeshwanthpura, Mahalakshmi Layout, Shivajinagara, Hosakote, K R Pete and Hunsur.
The final figure of polling could increase and it will be available on Tuesday, officials said.
A day after a Trinamool district president allegedly asked party men to attack the police with bombs and burn houses of Independent candidates, a TMC member of Parliament on Thursday asked party activists to "beat up Communist Party of India-Marxist workers with shoes".
The new entrants in Tamil Nadu politics, actor-turned-politicians Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, have decided to stay away from the elections, reports T E Narasimhan.
In a first, the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) officers reached out to several ministries in the last week of April as part of a confidence-boosting measure. The meeting brought the CAG officials and those from the ministries across the table to discuss the pain points in their relations. CAG of India Girish Chandra Murmu took this novel step because of growing tensions between those audited and the auditor.
Putting up a spirited performance in the assembly by-polls despite its Lok Sabha debacle, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu has won nine of the 22 segments where elections were held in two phases in April and May.
SP has gained a majority in the 100-member Uttar Pradesh legislative council. The party had earlier faced difficulty pushing through its legislative in the upper house due to lack of numbers.
The elections are not only a means for TMC to prove its wide, unopposed mass allegiance but also a way to bargain for national leadership among regional political parties in the road to New Delhi.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday lashed out at Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for seeking resignation of vice chancellors of nine universities in the state.
In another display of the politics of threat in West Bengal, a ruling Trinamool Congress Member of Legislative Assembly openly threatened to "behead" a Congress leader in Birbhum district.
Till he took over, political parties ferrying people to the polling stations was considered quite 'normal', and it was during Seshan's stint that it became impossible with the model code being made sacrosanct.
While the common man is facing all these issues, those in power at the Centre are not ready to pay attention to these issues
In a series of tweets, the Home Department of the West Bengal government said the Governor's act of making the letter public was "violative of all established norms, and disrupts sanctity of such communications".
By aligning with the BJP, even if they were arm-twisted into doing so, the AIADMK leadership has yielded their political space in the state to the aunt-nephew duo of Sasikala-Dinakaran, and the parliamentary election to the DMK-Congress combine, says A Ganesh Nadar.
Some believe she should no longer be the face of the struggle to free Myanmar from the new military dictatorship, observes Prakash Bhandari.
Citing the complaint, the Bharatiya Janata Party said in New Delhi asked Gandhi to come clean on the matter.
The Sri Lankan government has appointed an advisory committee comprising eminent economic and fiscal experts to provide guidance on addressing the current debt crisis and engaging with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other lenders as the country struggles to combat the unprecedented shortage of foreign reserves.
The finance minister said he said, "The judgement has upheld the primacy of one basic structure -- independence of judiciary -- but diminished five other basic structures of the Constitution, namely, Parliamentary democracy, an elected government, the Council of Ministers, an elected prime minister and the elected leader of the opposition."
"Azad saab (Ghulam Nabi Azad) had spoken on behalf of all of us that we don't accept this timeline -- we don't accept delimitation, election, statehood, we want delimitation, statehood and then election. If you want to hold polls, you'll have to restore statehood first," said Omar Abdullah.
'Hurt' at the Bharatiya Janata Party's silence while he battles challenges from within his party, Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan said on Tuesday his relations with the saffron party cannot remain 'one-sided' and he will consider all possibilities about his future political steps if attempts to corner him continue.
'This amendment, if passed, will bring the Information Commission firmly under the authority of the government.'
Bihar is no stranger to being at the centre of a tectonic shift in national politics fuelled by turbulent regional forces.
Fighting as an independent, Dinakaran was up against ruling AIADMK's E Madhusudanan and DMK's N Maruthu Ganesh.
The perception is rapidly gaining ground that though the chief minister is from the Shiv Sena, the government is being run by the NCP.
If the parliamentary representation of radical Islamic parties goes up dramatically in 2018, what will this do to Pakistan's army?
The constituency fell vacant after the death of sitting member and then Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on December 5 last.
Geetanjali Krishna explains why this may slow down India's fight against corruption.
Pakistan's political crisis deepened on Monday with cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri giving a fresh 48-hour ultimatum to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down after a former top election commission official backed protesters' allegations of rigging in last year's polls.
Nine candidates on Wednesday filed nominations for Pakistan's presidential election, with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's India-born nominee Mamnoon Hussain emerging a clear frontrunner for the poll to be held on July 30.
KCR will continue as caretaker chief minister until the new government is formed.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who went on a whirlwind tour of the state to ensure the victory of his party candidates, described it as a "historic win". He attributed the victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision and BJP chief Amit Shah's guidance.
The JuD will contest the election on the platform of a little known "dormant" political entity, Allaha-u-Akbar Tehreek.
"There are 99 per cent chances that he committed suicide," Nithiyanandam said.
The poll holding exercise has witnessed a whopping jump by 80 times to Rs 846 crore since 1952 when it was mere Rs 10 crore.
Maithripala Sirisena, who scored a stunning victory, was on Friday sworn-in as Sri Lankan president, bringing the curtains down on the 10-year rule of Mahinda Rajapaksa, marking a smooth transition of power.
Delhi's Election Commission has detected instances of "paid news" relating to five candidates in the run-up to assembly election and added expenditure in this regard in their poll expenses.
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