The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday named its candidates for assembly bypolls in several states, fielding six disqualified MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh assembly in the state days after they joined the party after leaving the Congress.
Six Himachal Pradesh Congress MLAs who voted against party nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha elections, along with three Independent lawmakers, have shifted to a hotel in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttarakhand amid an ongoing rebellion against Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
Officers and jawans who rushed to the barrack on hearing the gunshot found Naik Kumar lying dead in a pool of blood.
These Congress rebels, who had voted in favour of the BJP nominee in the Rajya Sabha polls, later abstained from voting on the Budget, defying a party whip.
In a jolt to the ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh, state party chief and Mandi MP Pratibha Singh on Wednesday announced that she has decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections as the ground situation was "not favourable" and workers were disheartened.
Though Sukhu has been putting up a brave face and there appears to be no immediate threat to his government, the BJP is looking to bring down his dispensation with bypoll wins amid a view that it may draw more legislators of the ruling party into its fold.
The political crisis arose in Himachal Pradesh during the recently held polling for the Rajya Sabha elections as nine MLAs, including six Congress rebels and three independents, voted in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan.
A case of criminal conspiracy, corruption practices and undue influence on election has been registered on the complaint of two Congress MLAs, police said on Sunday.
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.
The disqualified MLAs are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma.
Rebel Himachal Pradesh Congress MLA Rajinder Rana on Saturday claimed that nine more party legislators 'feeling suffocated' due to Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's style of functioning are in touch with him as he called the chief minister 'liar number one'.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the Himachal Pradesh assembly speaker's order disqualifying the six Congress rebels who had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha polls in the state.
A notification in this regard was issued on Thursday evening which further said that these six MLAs ceased to be members of Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly with effect from February 29.
A row of buildings in Kullu district collapsed Thursday and hundreds of travellers were stranded in relief camps after landslides blocked the road to Mandi in rain-battered Himachal Pradesh.
Hakki Pikkis are a semi-nomadic tribe, traditionally of bird catchers and hunters, from Karnataka. Their knowledge of the forest and traditional medicine is extensive and is prized by the Sudanese community.
"Modi is the first prime minister of the country who served langar to the devotees in the GoldenTemple," Chief Information Officer Gurbachan Singh said.
We definitely want to see more of this stunner!
While the saffron party may not get a majority, the National Democratic Alliance will sail through, said Gujral, who represents one of the BJP's oldest allies in Parliament.
It is for the first time in the history of Independent India that not a single Muslim is part of the Union Cabinet.
China has been commissioning three new destroyers every year while India has barely completed one destroyer every 2-3 years.
'She has just one objective. To win the next election. Nothing else matters.'
Prohibition is resulting in prisons getting overcrowded.
On January 18, the agency had raided his premises and claimed to have seized about Rs 8 crore cash.
'Many already toe the line, those on the fence will be nudged to stand with the government even more, those who are critical will face trouble soon.'
Sukanya Verma lists the memorable use of trees in Hindi movies.
Several Punjab Congress leaders, including Navjot Singh Sidhu, were on Thursday prevented from heading to Lakhimpur Kheri and were detained at a police station in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
A week after violence erupted in Uttar Pradesh over the remarks on Prophet Muhammad by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, no untoward incident took place following the Friday prayers, an official said in Lucknow.
Pargat Singh, Raj Kumar Verka, Gurkirat Singh Kotli, Sangat Singh Gilzian, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Kuljit Nagra and Rana Gurjit Singh are likely to be included in the cabinet, according to the sources.
Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa and Brahm Mohindra will be two deputies to Punjab's Chief Minister-designate Charanjit Singh Channi, said party leader Pawan Kumar Bansal.
On his PIL, the SC had in 2013 directed the Centre and the states to set up a Civil Services Board to decide on transfers of officers.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
The ED on Wednesday said it has seized cash amounting to over Rs 10 crore, including about Rs 8 crore from a relative of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, during raids conducted in connection with an anti-money laundering investigation against illegal sand-mining operations in the poll-bound state.
Pawar and his Manch can deliberate to their hearts' content, but so long as the Congress does not play ball the BJP has little to worry, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's focus on development and inclusive growth was widely appreciated by the audience at the UN.
If the government of the day would like to set in place a smooth and well-planned changeover and facilitate the incoming chief to chalk out his action plan well in advance, the announcement of a successor needs to be done early, observes Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
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