Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
Pawar has summoned a meeting of party leaders in Mumbai on Saturday to finalise its plans for the assembly elections in Karnataka scheduled for May 10.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Beleaguered Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's political credibility will be tested by the outcome of the three by-elections. And cries that he must resign will become shriller if the Congress loses them.
Uday K M, also known as 'Kadalur Uday Gowda, was welcomed into the party fold in the presence of state Congress president DK Shivakumar.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad challenged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday to explain who is secular in the National Democratic Alliance. Lalu's comment came following Kumar's statement that the NDA should declare its prime ministerial candidate in advance and that the candidate should be a secular.
According to the surveys, the Janata Dal-Secular could emerge as the kingmaker in the May 12 election.
Questioning Bharatiya Janata Party's locus standi to make such a demand, he asked the opposition party as to why it doesn't trust the police.
'There is no problem to the government. It will complete (its tenure). You get tensed due to reports in media. It is not like that. '
On whether injustice has been done to Dalits by not giving a DCM post to the community, he said the people, especially the Dalit community, have huge expectations.
Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi held a virtual meeting on Friday evening with leaders of 19 Opposition parties, including the chief ministers of some Opposition-ruled states, amid efforts to boost Opposition unity and evolve a common strategy against the National Democratic Alliance government.
One more rape case has been registered against Janata Dal-Secular MP and Lok Sabha poll candidate from Hassan Prajwal Revanna, taking the number of cases pertaining to the alleged sexual abuse of several women to three, police sources said.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
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.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, the CM said, "There is no situation for revisiting it at the government level. There is no such intention, there is no such proposal."
The current situation in Kerala politics is perhaps best described as a case of the state's traditional two front politics now seeing a third front (the BJP) muscling in with the potential outcome being either a messy three front affair or a renewed endorsement of the two front pattern but with one of the old fronts compromised or quashed, observes Shyam G Menon.
'The Muslims in Karnataka are safe and secure. The state government belongs to everybody.'
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
A Special Court in Bengaluru on Wednesday ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case.
Kumaraswamy's meeting with the Congress chief comes in the backdrop of voices of dissent gaining ground in the ruling coalition in the southern state after two Congress MLAs met former chief minister S M Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.
'When voting clause by clause on Waqf came up in the JPC, the TDP and JD-U supported the BJP on each and every clause.'
The Congress-Janata Dal-Secular coalition faces the threat of losing its majority in the assembly if the resignations are accepted as its current tally is 116 in the 224 member House.
"We have a commitment before the people of Karnataka. Parliament elections are ahead. So, I have to bow to the AICC president and the Gandhi family. In the larger interest of the party (I have agreed to the formula) and why not, because sometimes the ice should break. Ultimately, there is a responsibility towards what we have a commitment to the people of Karnataka and we have to deliver," he said.
Congress leaders and workers from Kolar have been exerting pressure on the Congress legislature party leader to contest from there.
Speaking to reporters after attending the MVA meeting at NCP chief Sharad Pawar's residence 'Silver Oak' in Mumbai, Patil said the MVA -- comprising the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, the NCP, and the Congress -- will work out a seat-sharing formula ahead of the Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra assembly elections, due in the second half of the next year.
Banners have come up in front of Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar's residences in Bengaluru, erected by supporters, congratulating them for Congress win and projecting them as "next CM".
The Opposition Congress on Saturday seemed to be on course to breach rival Bharatiya Janata Party's lone southern citadel Karnataka, inching towards the magic figure of 113 needed to form a government on its own.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna passed away at his residence in Bengaluru early Tuesday morning, his family said.
The Janata Dal (Secular) has offered to join the National Democratic Alliance, provided the BJP allows H D Kumaraswamy continue as Karnataka chief minister for the next 20 months.
With the Congress down in the dumps and the BJP juggernaut on a roll, 'secular' parties are attempting to revive the Janata Parivar coalition to fill the vacuum.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said the decision of the merger has already been taken and there was no question of going back on it.
Modi was born on September 17, 1950 in a small town in Gujarat.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
He said he has directed police to identify, trace and secure the victims in view of the alleged kidnapping of a victim at Krishnaraja Nagar town in Mysuru district.
The state is mainly witnessing a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular).
Can Nitishbabu create an anti-BJP phalanx like Jayaprakash Narayan did in 1977 or will his efforts come undone by Opposition leaders' political ambitions and, of course, the BJP's agency-aided campaign of intimidation?
Police said 52 people have been arrested following Wednesday night's incidents and prohibitory orders preventing the assembly of more than four people have been imposed in Nagamangala town in Mandya district till September 14 as a precautionary measure.
Amid the race to the chief minister's chair, here's a simple graph to show how the 2018 result compares with what happened in the previous election in 2013.
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