The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday approved the proclamation of President's Rule in Jharkhand where former Chief Minister Arjun Munda had resigned after his government was reduced to a minority last month.
However, speculation remained rife that the meeting was part of Banerjee's plan to form an opposition front with regional players minus the Congress.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill to regulate the appointment and service terms of Chief Election Commissioner and election commissioners incorporating key amendments like retaining their status at par with Supreme Court judges, upgrading the search committee and inserting a new clause to protect them from court cases while discharging their official duties.
The conference was seen by many as a show of strength by the Opposition with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav joining in to raise their voice against oppression of backward classes.
The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
Several leaders from the Congress and its alliance partners from across the country attended the event.
Prime Minister Modi saw a reflection of himself -- she does not come from a political background, has no lineage, and had a lifetime of personal struggle and sacrifice.
Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 2 pm after opposition members held protest in Parliament seeking a discussion on the issue.
"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.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
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.
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.
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.
Ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha legislator Sita Soren, the daughter-in-law of former Chief Minister Shibu Soren, on Tuesday surrendered to a court in Ranchi in a case of horse trading registered by CBI after the Election Commission rescinded the original notification for the 2012 Rajya Sabha polls for Jharkhand.
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.
According to the Aam Aadmi Party, it has received permission from the authorities concerned to hold the rally of more than 20,000 people.
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.
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.
Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building on May 28 following an invitation by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress on Friday welcomed the statements of opposition leaders condemning Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lok Sabha and said it was now time for the party to take on the job of building the opposition unity in a "systematic way".
The four-day-old Arjun Munda government in Jharkhand won the trust vote in the 82-member Assembly by 15 votes.Forty five members voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition and 30 against.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday constituted another five-judge Constitution bench which will hear five crucial cases including the challenge to the central government's 2016 decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren termed the hooting he faced by a section of crowd at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's function in Ranchi on Thursday as "rape of democracy", while his party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha demanded a public apology from Modi.
"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 delegation of 21 Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc MPs will pay a two-day visit to Manipur beginning Saturday to assess the ground situation first-hand and then make recommendations to the government and Parliament for a solution to the problems in the violence-hit state.
'...a more capable State -- one that operates with greater capacity, greater efficiency, and greater clarity of purpose.' 'But I also see a more despotic State -- one that places more constraints on speech, assembly, dissent, and critique.' 'It may run 'better', but on the regime's rules.'
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.
'It marks the start of an era where the BJP must now campaign on its own record rather than against the misrule of another party.'
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.
His first stint as chief minister of the tribal state had lasted for just about 14 months since July 15, 2013.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who set off a national debate when he walked the Bharat Jodo Yatra in a T-shirt in north India's cold winter, donned a pheran to ward off Kashmir's bone-freezing chill on Monday.
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.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
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