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.
The BSP is contesting on 20 seats in Karnataka election with an alliance with Janata Dal-Secular while the SP is contesting on 27 on its own.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Gehlot, one of the proposers of Kharge, said Tharoor is also a good man and has good thoughts but he is from the elite class.
NCP MLA Kandhal Jadeja said his party has decided to support BJP candidate.
Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has dropped plans to contest the coming Rajya Sabha elections from Maharastra and seek re-election only from Karnataka. Admitting that he had talks with Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackery on possibilities of his contesting from Maharashtra, the head of the Kingfisher Airlines said he did not get a good response as 'Sena is not fully in favour of non-Maharastrians'.
The mortal remains of former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh were consigned to flames at the Nigambodh Ghat in New Delhi on Saturday amid the chanting of religious hymns. The funeral pyre was lit by his eldest daughter Upinder Singh.
Major political parties in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday ensured victory for all their candidates despite cross voting in Rajya Sabha biennial polls in which senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal emerged triumphant against the Bharatiya Janata Party-backed Independent socialite Preeti Mahapatra.
The coming assembly and Lok Sabha elections -- the choice of candidates, the campaign strategies and the negotiations with other Opposition parties --0 represent the real test for Mallikarjun Kharge.
No one from the Gandhi family was present at the All India Congress Committee headquarters when the leaders filed their nominations for the election.
About Rs 8.33 crore cash has been seized from Delhi, Rs 2.5 from Bengaluru and Rs 60 lakh from Mysuru till now, a senior official said.
Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav, his party colleague Pawan K Verma in Bihar and senior Congress leaders B K Hariprasad and Rajiv Gowda of Karnataka were among the 12 candidates who filed their nominations on Monday on the last day for June 19 elections for Rajya Sabha berths in 4 states.
With the general election campaign less than six months away, the BJP has more to think about than it had on the eve of 2019. It's the states that will be robbing BJP strategists of their sleep at this point, not the Lok Sabha, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha elections was delayed on Friday in Maharashtra and Haryana over alleged violation of rules, officials said.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the BJP was conspiring to poach the MLAs in order to destabilise his government, a charge denied by the saffron party.
While Karnataka Congress chief D K Sivakumar will be special observer in Goa, party general secretary Mukul Wasnik and Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo besides Vincent Pala have been deputed in Manipur for post-poll management, the sources said.
Shankersinh Vaghela claimed Patel's victory in the Rajya Sabha polls came through a 'well thought-out conspiracy'.
"BJP leaders are playing the game at the behest of central leaders. MLAs were offered money... Rs 10 crore in advance and Rs 15 crore after the government is toppled," the chief minister alleged and added that the BJP wants to convert the state's politics into a goat market, 'bakra mandi'.
Mallikarjun Kharge was on Wednesday elected the Congress president after defeating Shashi Tharoor in an electoral contest, the sixth in the party's 137-year-old history.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said she declined the offer of the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest elections pleading that she did not have the 'kind of funds' required for fighting the Lok Sabha polls.
Ramesh, however, said it was too early to talk about all this right now as the Congress' first priority was the upcoming elections in Karnataka and the string of state polls this year.
Justice Krishna S Dixit, presiding over a single judge bench, issued notice to the parties concerned and paused the ongoing investigation.
About 40 per cent of sitting MPs have criminal cases registered against them out of which 25 per cent have declared serious criminal cases under charges of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and crimes against women, according to poll rights body Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The missive to the chief minister came as the MLAs were reportedly shepherded to Mumbai last night and kept in a five-star hotel to apparently prevent them from being poached for the June 11 biennial polls to four RS seats from the state.
Apprehending that some of its MLAs may not toe the party line, especially as BJP-backed Chandra had claimed support of at least two INLD MLAs, a dozen-odd legislators of the party were on Monday sent off to the hill station in Uttarakhand.
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.
Senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, in the race for the post of Congress president, not only possess contrasting demeanour but have had an equally disparate political journey.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
CM Siddaramaiah called it a 'politically motivated' move.
In a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he said, in the recent past he has been finding himself 'lacking in passion', while his own performance has been 'listless and perfunctory'.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.
As nominations for Rajya Sabha biennial polls closed on Tuesday, a contest is on the cards in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana even as Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram are among those set to be elected to the Upper House.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi had on Sunday deliberated on the issue of Rajya Sabha nominations from Karnataka with senior party leaders. There are reports of talks between the Congress and H D Deve Gowda-led JD(S) for a possible tie-up for the Rajya Sabha polls.
The less charitable in the party say he owes his appointment Sonia Gandhi -- the family wanted someone who wouldn't talk back and would not exert himself too much, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress alleging that the opposition party has become outdated and has always been against any kind of reservation.
Talking to reporters in Bhopal, Kharge said he believes in collective leadership and if elected president, will consult party leaders Sonia Gandhi as well as Rahul Gandhi on organisational matters.
Addressing a press conference in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress Rajya Sabha member termed Bajrang Dal -- the youth wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad -- a goondon ki jamat (group of goons).
The party leadership blamed two of its MLAs, Srinivas Gowda from Kolar and S R Srinivas from Gubbi, for betraying the party.
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
