Kovind spoke to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over phone and thanked him for supporting his candidature.
The two senior most leaders of the Communist Party of India-Marxist are at the loggerhead over alliance or adjustment with the Congress.
'If any party talks too much about Muslims, it will lose.'
She also hit out at the government for posting retired bureaucrats, who she alleged were its 'yes men', as head of institutions.
Yadav is all set to approach the Election Commission of India to claim the election symbol of the party -- 'arrow'.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu announced in the House that the election will be held at 11 am on August 9.
'He has attacked our enemies in their own backyard.'
Once considered the unlikely heir to the political legacy of the Gandhi family, Sonia has earned the distinction of being the longest serving president of India's grand old party.
Tributes poured in as news came in of the death of the 10-time Lok Sabha MP who had joined the Communist Party of India-Marxist in 1968. Chatterjee was speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009.
Allegations of electronic voting machines malfunctioningreturned to haunt the Election Commission as four Lok Sabha seats and nine assembly constituencies went for bypolls on Monday across 10 states with moderate-to-heavy voting amid prestige at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Prime Minister Modi described the DMK chief as a prolific thinker and a deep-rooted mass leader who stood for regional aspiration and national progress.
Over 70,000 people are expected to turn out for the event on November 13.
'Amit Shah was, briefly, a stockbroker before devoting himself to politics. By instinct or training, he knows the value of keeping blue chips in one's portfolio.'
Trouble is brewing for government in the monsoon session of Parliament, which is expected to start next month, with the Congress on Monday hinting at stacking up ammunition on issues like failure at the Nuclear Suppliers Group, terror strikes and diatribes of Subramanian Swamy.
The Congress on Monday stepped attacked on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj alleging there was "quid pro quo" involved in her "assistance" to Lalit Modi in obtaining British travel documents and demanded that the scam-tainted former Indian Premier League commissioner be brought back and tried in India.
Five time MP from Bangalore South Ananth Kumar says he feels no threat from Nilekani. "People may seek change, but the change they want is at the Centre", a confident Kumar tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa in this exclusive interview.
Shah said that the BJP hoped the Dalit nominee would be unanimously selected as the President.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena refused to blink, the opposition, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party are keen to take the benefit, reports Sanjay Jog.
She has been appointed general secretary for Uttar Pradesh (East), while Jyotiraditya Scindia holds charge of UP West.
Shashi Tharoor has been removed as Congress spokesperson after the party high command received complaints that he had embarrassed the party with his praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi and Shah's next focus will be South India, and the Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections. Shah is unlikely to abdicate control over the party even after he joins the government. Modi and Shah both know only too well that the party makes the government, and not the other way round.
The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill and The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill passed amid din.
Rajya Sabha also rejected an opposition sponsored motions to send the bill to a select committee of the House and for making triple talaq a civil offence with 100 votes against it as compared to 84 in favour.
This was the first major election in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, the women of Bihar were not intimidated by the pandemic and came out in large numbers to vote.
Kovind may bag over 62 per cent votes but fall short of the 69 per cent votes polled by incumbent Pranab Mukherjee in 2012.
The BJP is still short of the halfway mark of 123 in the 245-member House, but can now muster a 'working' majority with help of allies, friendly parties, some Independents and nominated members.
Despite the Congress having nearly four times as many members in the Rajya Sabha as the TMC (48 to 13), Derek O'Brien has been informally leading the coordination of Opposition parties, rallying other parties to demand a discussion on electoral reforms and to protest the government's disinvestment plans, report Rahul Jacob and Archis Mohan.
After a 6.5-hour debate, the upper house clears the bill. Amit Shah said the bill is not anti-Muslim and Indian minorities have nothing to fear from its passage.
He said the NDA's work culture was different from that of the previous governments.
While it is the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) which chose Kovind, Narayanan, a diplomat-turned politician, became vice president in 1992 and the president in 1997 courtesy active support from the Left, which had proposed his name first
The opposition parties snatched the high-profile Kairana LS seat in from BJP with a united force.
Opposition members tried to corner the government in both the Houses over the Supreme Court decision that states are not bound to provide reserved seats for the SCs, STs and OBCs in appointments and promotions.
Congress leaders were in for a rude shock on Monday when the media sidelined their much-touted Jawaharlal Nehru birth anniversary event, and instead turned its full attention to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was addressing thousands of supporters in Sydney's Allphones Arena
Earlier, the BJP leader had to take back his tweets saying Shah Rukh's soul is in Pakistan.
'The central learning of the day was that if the BJP leadership can cajole, coax and convince regional parties to vote for bills, it would not be a stretch to see the same votes cast in favour of the land bill,' a senior Congress leader from a northern state told Rediff.com
Inaugurating the Defence Expo in Thiruvidanthai in Tamil Nadu, Modi said the Defence Procurement Procedure was revised with many specific provisions for stimulating growth of the domestic defence industry.
'While censorship of any sort is anathema to the creative spirit, political correctness has become more and more the norm rather than the exception,' notes Uttaran Das Gupta.
Congress has repeatedly alleged a "scam" in the purchase of Rafale fighter jets claiming the cost per aircraft in 2012 was agreed at Rs 526.10 crore while the one signed by the Modi government costs 7.5 billion (Rs 1,670.70 crore per aircraft).
Modi accused the TMC of killing the aspirations of the middle-class people in the state and said the ruling party in West Bengal is known for 'triple T -- Trinamool Tolabaji Tax'.
The Samajwadi Party on Thursday pulled out of the 'grand alliance' in poll-bound Bihar, saying it felt "humiliated" as it was not consulted while deciding seats and would contest the assembly elections in the state on its own.
