The court noted that no appreciable steps have been taken ever since an order was passed by it on June 13 to deploy central forces in sensitive areas for the poll process.
Deadlock on Monday continued on the issue of Congress alliance in Bihar for Lok Sabha polls with seat sharing with Rashtriya Janata Dal coming under strain and Janata Dal-United ruling out any adjustment with the party.
The Congress's revival plan says it needs to bring back into its fold Hindus repelled by the Sangh Parivar, take its message to youth and women and sections upset at curbs on their personal freedoms.
The Congress is planning to call a meeting of Opposition parties in May. It is possible to keep all possibilities open in case Karnataka yields a hung House, leading to a recalibrated Opposition.
Eight BJP-ruled states have fully vaccinated 50 per cent of their eligible population with the coronavirus vaccine and seven of them have inoculated 90 per cent people with the first dose, numbers not yet achieved by any state ruled by the Congress and its allies, official sources said Monday.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
The total income of national and regional parties from unknown sources for 2020-21 stands at Rs 690.67 crore.
Legislative Assembly election-bound Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand will be exempted from this exercise
The Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary board on Tuesday named Droupadi Murmu, the party's tribal leader from Odisha, as the ruling National Democratic Alliance's candidate for the presidential election.
Lalu is miffed with the Congress for entering into an electoral tie-up with JMM in neighbouring Jharkhand.
During the Rath Yatra, Lord Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and younger sister Subhadra are carried from their home temple to another temple, located in what is believed to be their aunt's home.
'Every seat the Congress gets above 100 will keep pushing the Modi-Shah BJP lower in the dangerous sub-200 zone,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
Thackeray on Tuesday announced his party's support for Murmu in the July 18 presidential election.
Party's state unit chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat were also detained along with the workers during the protests.
The youth leadership taking the reigns of the states was a rare event in the last century as very few broke the glass ceilings.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
'The people of Jharkhand know that Modi is not going to become chief minister, so why should they vote for the BJP?'
BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala said the Congress has insulted Murmu.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination papers for the July 18 election, with a host of leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah accompanying him.
"Today, I want to tell you that before the 2024 polls the NRC will be conducted across the country and each and every infiltrator identified and expelled."
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
Soren spent more than an hour with Prasad at RIMS Director's bungalow, where the RJD leader is staying. Coming out of the RIMS, Soren told reporters, 'we will fight Bihar elections together'.
As the Opposition on Wednesday held its first meeting on the presidential election, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice for the top constitutional post with senior party leader Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Naveen Patnaik, sources said.
At 64, the woman who will be India's 15th president, taking over from Ram Nath Kovind, will also be the youngest and India's first President to be born after Independence.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
Leaders of several opposition parties were stopped by the police at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi as they took out a protest march from Parliament House to hand over a complaint to the Enforcement Directorate on the Adani issue.
From the point of view of qualification, Murmu is probably educationally the least qualified among India's recent Presidents. But then, with the BJP in command, she will be required to do little but sign on the dotted line.
Modi claimed that leaders of the opposition parties have only built palaces for themselves without being concerned about the problems faced by the people.
'...because we are truer to the spirit of the Hindu faith.' 'There is absolutely no question that the Hinduism of the mob lynchers, the people who have killed others because of what they are eating or how they are worshipping or the faith they belong to or what they're doing professionally, those are, to my mind, not Hindus at all.'
If the Congress can simply go from 110 million to 130 million votes, it will yield a very different kind of NDA.
With organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, telling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman they want OPS back, the government is in a bind, report Shiva Rajora and Aditi Phadnis.
The Shiromani Akali Dal skipped the meeting, besides the Aam Aadmi Party, the TRS and the BJD.
The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
A round-up of Day 4 of the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals on Friday.
Six non-BJP ruled states -- West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Kerala and Jharkhand -- have not reduced the VAT on petroleum products, leading to higher prices of petrol and diesel there, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday. Puri said in Lok Sabha that the central government has reduced excise duty on petroleum products and some other states, following cues, reduced their Value Added Tax (VAT). Six states -- West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Kerala and Jharkhand -- have not reduced the VAT, he said amidst vocal protests by the opposition members.
He thanked Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his father and JMM president Shibu Soren.
