Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
The bill to amend the law governing Waqf boards proposes far-reaching changes in the Wakf Act, 1995, including ensuring the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies.
'Democrats don't care about those on H-1B visas. They don't care about the Green Card backlog.' 'President Trump wants to stop the massive flow of illegal immigrants and focus on a robust and legal immigration system.' 'Indian Americans would thrive in such an immigration system.'
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and African heritage, has formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination becoming the first Indian-American to win the nomination from a major political party, and chose Minnesota Gov Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday.
JD-S leaders have already dropped enough hints about the party being open to such a possibility.
'We will be happy if Nitishji becomes convenor of INDIA.'
Despite failing to secure a simple majority in Parliament, we will continue to see him on TV, newspapers, magazines, bill boards, vaccination certificates, railway stations, bus shelters, airports, sea ports, on the highway and on rural roads, sighs A Ganesh Nadar.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
This is the biggest action taken against rebel leaders close to Yadav by the JD-U in Bihar.
Leader of the opposition in the assembly, Vijay Kumar Sinha of the Bharatiya Janaat Party, sat next to Choudhary and he was seen exchanging pleasantries with Kumar.
Ram Vilas Paswan was no fool. He knew very well about the ownership tussle going on beneath this veneer of congeniality. At all costs, he wanted to keep the lid on the family drama. He did not want it to come in the way of his son's coronation.
The BJP hopes to deepen its support among backward castes, especially the Extremely Backward Classes, in Bihar following the announcement of Bharat Ratna for former chief minister Karpoori Thakur, a leader who enjoys admiration from backward satraps of various hues.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
Kumar said that Rahul Gandhi's claim that the caste survey in the state was held under the Congress' pressure was 'nonsensical'.
There is also speculation within the BJP that its national president J P Nadda, whose extended tenure will end by this month and who was among the leaders meeting Modi, may also be brought back in the government.
Ali said the JD-S did not have a large organisational structure in Uttar Pradesh, which sends most lawmakers to the Parliament.
Asked about the challenges of an interfaith marriage, she said, 'There are a lot of things that we just agree on, I think, especially when it comes to family life, how to raise our kids. And so I think the answer really is, we just talk a lot.'
Modi enthusiastically waved at a large number of cheering crowd, who had lined up on both sides of the route, as the ruling BJP appeared focused on winning a good number of seats in Old Mysuru region, where it is traditionally weak.
He is not just under attack from his opponent Shiv Chandra Ram of the RJD, but also by his uncle Paras.
In the absence of the Revanna family, the SIT team summoned his lawyer, Gopal, for the spot inspection.
Deve Gowda indicated on Sunday that they were ready to compromise.
'Nitish Kumar has no vision for the people of the state. He also had no justifiable reason for ditching us and going back to the BJP-led NDA'
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 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.
'Despite being Bihar chief minister twice and an MLA for over three decades, he and my mother used to stay in a jhopri in our village.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
It is a double century with a difference for the cricketer turned politician, who is the lead campaigner for the Opposition Mahagathbandhan in the state.
The formula of Lok Sabha polls this year wherein JD-U and BJP had both fought 17 seats each, leaving six for Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, which joined the National Democratic Alliance in 2014, a year after Kumar's exit, could not serve as the basis for the assembly polls, said the poll strategist.
The exit polls on Saturday predicted the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance winning most of the seats in Congress-ruled Karnataka in the Lok Sabha elections and the Congress not putting up a good show.
The bill was defeated by a voice vote on February 23 in the upper house, where the Opposition has a majority, after it was passed by the assembly on February 21.
Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, BJP will contest 20, while the JD-U, LJP and RLSP will contest 12, five and two seats respectively.
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
While there are some new faces in the cabinet, leaders such as BJP president JP Nadda and Jual Oram have returned as ministers.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
The newly-elected legislators of JD-U met at the residence of Nitish Kumar and elected him as its Legislature Party leader.
Seemingly expressing his displeasure against ministers demanding three more deputy chief minister posts in Karnataka, state Congress president D K Shivakumar on Tuesday said the party would respond to them appropriately.
Hours ahead of Janata Dal-Secular MP Prajwal Revanna's scheduled return from abroad to face the law over sexual abuse allegations, the Karnataka government on Thursday said the next course of action, such as cancellation of his passport, will follow if he fails to show up as promised.
In its exit poll released after the voting on May 10, India Today-Axis My India predicted a clear majority for the Congress with 122-140 seats and gave the BJP 62-80 seats. It gave 20-25 seats to the JD-S.
Moderate to high turnout was recorded in 13 assembly constituencies across seven states where bypolls were held on Wednesday amid sporadic incidents of violence in Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal also said that no visa is required for diplomatic passport holders to travel to Germany.
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