Buoyed by the Bihar assembly by-poll results, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Saturday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi pleading for a secular alliance for the assembly elections in Jharkhand that is due soon.
The second phase of polling began Saturday morning on 20 constituencies in Jharkhand, which votes in five phases to elect 81 members of the legislative assembly.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh cited the prime minister's speech made in Barmer on Wednesday and said the people of the state will surely respond to such "arrogance" of the prime minister.
Cricket climate change to medical practice, dropped candidates have their non-political life sorted.
The NDA will raise its apprehensions in both Houses about the possibility of Shibu Soren government nominating an Anglo-Indian before the March 15 trial of strength in the Jharkhand Assembly, BJP deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Sushma Swaraj said.
'The UP government will implement the quota for the upper castes fully without touching the reservation for other sections of society'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday appointed senior advocate P S Patwalia as amicus curiae to assist it in examining whether an MP or MLA can claim immunity from criminal prosecution for taking a bribe to make a speech or vote in the legislative assembly or Parliament.
A party, which is recognised as a 'state party' in four or more states, would be declared a 'national party', provided it keeps up that position in subsequent general election to the Lok Sabha or the assembly. The party, which has a lantern for its symbol, may lose its national party status following its poor show in last year's Jharkhand assembly polls.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
The impending expulsion of Trinamool Congress (TMC) member Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha, three bills to replace criminal laws and a proposed law for the appointment of election commissioners are issues set to dominate the Winter Session of Parliament, with the government urging the Opposition to ensure a conducive environment for discussions in the House.
A special vigilance court on Tuesday sent former Jharkhand minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Kamlesh Singh to 14-days judicial custody in connection with a disproportionate assets case.Singh, who was arrested at Hussainabad in Palamau district by the vigilance police on Monday, was produced before the court of Binoy Kant Khan.However, the court granted his plea to allow him to file nomination papers from Hussainabad assembly seat, as today is the last day.
Approximately 35 per cent voting was recorded till 1 pm on Wednesday in the first phase of elections to the 26 assembly seats in Jharkhand.Adequate security measures were put in place along with air surveillance and no untoward incidents have been reported from anywhere in the Maoist-infested tate so far.It is the second assembly election in Jharkhand after it was carved out from Bihar on November 15, 2000.
In Kerala, 95 out of 135 MLAs, accounting for 70 per cent, have declared criminal cases against themselves.
The former Congress president alleged that PM Modi had a "monopoly over corruption".
Kejriwal charged that the BJP toppled Manipur, Bihar, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra governments.
The Jharkhand assembly was on Saturday adjourned till 2 pm after the opposition created pandemonium demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the alleged horse trading in the run up to the Rajya Sabha polls.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In a major haul, security forces seized 400 kg of local explosives and over 1,700 detonators during an anti-Naxal operation in poll-bound Jharkhand on Monday.
MPs and MLAs taking bribes to vote or make a speech in the house are not immune from prosecution, the Supreme Court said on Monday in a landmark, unanimous verdict that overrules its 1998 judgment protecting such lawmakers.
'Nobody is speaking up for Muslims today.' 'Secular parties too have calmed down because they feel this will hurt the Hindu vote (bank).' 'In this scenario, where does a Muslim go?'
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday conducted raids on the premises of two independent members of Legislative Assembly and the relatives of several other legislators in connection with allegations of horse-trading that had led to countermanding of the March 30 Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand.
A man jumps from the 6th floor of Mantralaya, the Maharashtra government's administrative headquarters in Mumbai, but lands in the safety net installed in the building.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
The vote value of an MLA is calculated on the basis of the total population of the state, based on the 1971 census.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda on Tuesday smoothly sailed through a threat to his government by defeating an opposition sponsored no-confidence motion by 41-33 in the 81-member Assembly.
Noted constitutional expert Rajeev Dhavan said no prima-facie case was made out for the apex court to interfere with the decision of the governor who had fixed the date for the trust vote.
They raised slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party and the central agencies.
In a big organisational rejig, the BJP named Union minister G Kishan Reddy, Sunil Jakhar and Babulal Marandi as party presidents in Telangana, Punjab and Jharkhand respectively.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Jharkhand unit on Tuesday challenged in the Supreme Court the continuance of President's rule in the state and keeping the assembly under suspended animation.
The BJP on Monday withdrew its support to the nearly five-month-old JMM-led government in Jharkhand reducing it to a minority, following which Chief Minister Shibu Soren was asked by the Governor to prove his majority on the floor of the Assembly by May 31.
Suspected Maoists killed a Border Security Force jawan as the third of the five-phase polling for 11 assembly constituencies registered about 50 to 55 per cent turnout in Jharkhand on Tuesday.
Days after Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was booed by the BJP activists during a rally attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren too faced a similar situation when hundreds of BJP supporters jeered at him and shouted anti-government slogans on Thursday.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia, among others, were present on the occasion.
The decision was taken after the Speaker suggested a Presidential reference on the Supreme Court directive to hold a confidence vote in the Jharkhand assembly on Friday.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
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