With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
Sticking to his offer of 11 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress and one to Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad on Sunday appealed to Sonia Gandhi to agree to the seat-sharing formula asserting that he would deliver results in Bihar and Jharkhand in the general elections.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
One was nabbed from the West Bengal-Jharkhand boundary in Birbhum, one from Rampurhat and the third from Malda district on Tuesday night, a police officer said.
Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Jharkhand accused the Centre of meting out "step-motherly" treatment to them, and urged the Union government to provide them free vaccine doses to vaccinate all adults.
The Opposition candidate in the July 18 presidential polls, Yashwant Sinha, held his first campaign strategy meeting on Wednesday at the Nationalist Congress Party office in New Delhi and said a "rubberstamp President" will not work in the country.
Yadav, during his first visit to Guwahati, said he has already spoken to Congress and will hold talks with the All India United Democratic Front later in the day to formalise the alliance.
He also accused the Congress of delaying a solution to the Kashmir issue for seven decades.
In an email about its executive editor's death, NDTV said, 'It is a terrible, terrible day for NDTV. We have lost Kamal Khan; he was 61 and the heart and soul of our Lucknow bureau, an NDTV veteran who had boundless time and kind words for anyone who encountered him.'
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Sonia's spirited speech at the Mahila Congress event was seen as an announcement that she has not abandoned the party and will steer it through these troubled times.
'The district administration failed and it was a very costly failure.'
The Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment regarding leaders with a criminal background and said that they stand to be disqualified on date of conviction. The number of members of Parliament with a criminal background is 162, which means 30 per cent of those who govern the nation in the Lok Sabha have pending criminal cases.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Addressing a function to mark 'Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas' in Jashpur district, Bhagwat appealed to tribals to stay strong against those who try to dupe them by taking advantage of their innocence.
Members of all parties condemned the killings in the name of cow.
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.
The CBI source alleged that the body of the accused was found in the washroom of the office which the agency has set up in a guest house in Rampurhat.
After Arunachal Pradesh slipped out of its control and Uttarakhand was placed under President's rule, the Congress president took matters into her own hands.
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for the Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is 'in the ICU' and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
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.
According to reports, public transport and banking services remain partly disrupted for the second day in some states.
Former Union home minister Chidambaram lashed out at the government over the alleged sluggish pace of inoculation against the viral disease and claimed that the country will not achieve 100-per cent first-dose vaccination by December 31.
"The Congress party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," he said in a Facebook post.
"Terms like 'unity in diversity' are used for our country. The country belongs to all. No remarks should me made that harm the country," Singh, a confidant of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, told reporters when asked for his reaction to the BJP leader's comments.
Shah said that the people of the country will decide about the principal opposition party to BJP in the 2024 polls and they have not given this label to any party.
The Congress on Wednesday expressed its disapproval of the move by some Members of Parliament writing to United States President Barack Obama, seeking denial of visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, saying the "nation is bigger than politics".
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
Cong leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, former Prez Pranab Mukherjee, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav as well as CMs of six states to be present at the occasion.
A dominant force in the country's politics for decades, the grand old party's free fall continued as it lost Punjab to AAP and finished with just two seats out of 403 in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.
Modi did not have the guts to face the students of the country and so he crushed them using the police, he alleged. "I challenge the prime minister to go to any of the universities, stand over there without his police, without his infrastructure and tell the people what is he going to do with this country," the Congress leader said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United said it was the right time to withdraw the general consent to the CBI.
Slamming as "fascist" Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's pitch for a "Congress Mukt Bharat", Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Monday reached out to all non-BJP parties on the plank of secularism.
However, the saffron party's hold of the landmark may be tenuous as polls to around 52 more seats will be held soon, and it is expected to suffer reverses in states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand.
'Whatever tricks the BJP may play, it will not be able to stop JD-U from becoming a national party by 2023'
Many non-NDA parties have extended support to the nationwide 10-hour strike on Monday called by farmers protesting against the three agri laws under the aegis of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM).
The BJP has changed five chief ministers since 2019, including in Gujarat and Karnataka.
Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma savours Mumbai's street fare... Shashi Tharoor bangs a drum... Punjab CM visits Pakistan...
Apart from around 100 MPs of the Congress, leaders of several opposition parties including Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party attended the meeting.
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