The 84-year-old priest-activist Stan Swamy, arrested under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the Elgar Parishad case, died at a Mumbai hospital Monday in the middle of his fight for bail on health grounds.
'My feeling is that these parties will not learn their lesson despite their electoral drubbing. They cannot put forward a leader. They have no record of improving their constituents' lives by providing basic services. All they offer is their "'secularism",' says T V R Shenoy.
A Janata Dal-Secular municipal councilor finds himself in trouble after a video footage purported to show him assaulting a woman, an Independent councillor, has gone viral.
"The central paramilitary forces have arrived in the city. One is from Bengaluru, another being grouped from Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Mysuru," Bengaluru Deputy Commissioner of Police (West division) Sanjeev M Patil said.
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.
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.
He said a volcano is waiting to erupt in Cong-JD(S) alliance.
Election watchdog Association of Democratic Reforms also reported that Janata Dal-United's Mahendra Prasad was the richest with assets worth Rs 4,078 crore.
The Hassan seat has become a big headache for Janata Dal-Secular, which is witnessing a rebellion within the first family of the party.
Biju Janata Dal supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was the first to advocate an alternative government minus Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre, on Tuesday said it was still too early for such a move.
Grand alliance leaders accuse their rivals of having engineered electoral tactics to confuse its voters.
Ignoring JD-S' request for support, the Congress did not withdraw its second candidate Khan from the fray and issued a whip to all its MLAs asking them to vote for the party's candidates.
Headed by former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, the JD-S has long been a strong third player in the southern state where the Congress and the BJP have been the two main parties.
The Congress has not released a poll manifesto but a declaration of appeasement.
Asked by reporters if there will be surprise candidates in the fray from the Bharatiya Janata Party, he said: "Certainly, there is a plan for new experiments in certain constituencies and they will happen."
Naveen Patnaik's guest list has been prepared with an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly polls, reports Archis Mohan.
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Sunday charted out a bigger role for his son and Bharatiya Janata Party state vice-president B Y Vijayendra to make a dent into the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular citadel in old Mysuru region.
According to the Congress, 37 leaders associated with JD-S in the 2018 assembly polls, have joined the party so far, in the run up to the upcoming elections.
BJP MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, who had stepped down as minister on March 3 following allegations of sexual harassment against him, said on Tuesday that the videos purportedly showing him with a woman were fake and vowed to send the 'conspirators' behind bars.
Kumaraswamy's father HD Deve Gowda also downplayed GT Devegowda's comment.
Several legislators in states on Monday said they have cross-voted in favour of National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu by not following their respective party lines in the presidential election.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha will be the consensus presidential candidate of several opposition parties, including the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The MLAs, who support the coalition, are staying at the Golfshire Club in the city. Various photos show the politicians performing asanas in different groups. With wooden flooring and huge glass windows, a scenic view is seen outside the room where the MLAs are gathered.
Sofitel, a luxurious hotel in Mumbai, is hogging the limelight after 10 Karnataka MLAs, belonging to the ruling Janata Dal-Secular and the Congress, checked in over the weekend after submitting their resignations to the assembly speaker there, throwing the southern state in political turmoil. Take a look at the swanky digs.
The Congress leader later tweeted an apology.
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
Leaders from across the political spectrum came out and congratulated Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray after he was sworn in as the Maharashtra chief minister.
The Congress-JD-S government slumped into a minority earlier this month following the resignation of several dissident MLAs. Sixteen MLAs from the ruling coalition, including thirteen from Congress and three of the JD-S, have resigned.
'We have finished that fear.'
BJP leaders said they were mulling moving the Supreme Court in the light of Thursday's developments.
Gowda denied BJP had any role in the resignations when asked if it was part of "Operation Kamala".
