An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
'Found a ponnada in the appropriate India colours to honour him with!'
'The southern states will have no voice.' 'Political parties in future need to focus only on one region, the northern region, to win the general election.'
Days after violence erupted over a survey of a Mughal-era mosque in Sambhal, an imam of another mosque was fined Rs 2 lakh for allegedly using a loudspeaker at high volume. The incident occurred in the Anar Wali Masjid, prompting authorities to take action. The imam, identified as Tahzeeb, was fined and granted bail, with orders to refrain from similar conduct for six months. The incident comes amid ongoing tensions in Sambhal following the November 24 violence during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, which resulted in four deaths and several injuries. The incident has become a major political controversy, with Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra raising the issue in Parliament.
The Kerala unit of the Congress has made it clear to its allies that it would not succumb to their pressure tactics while finalising a seat sharing deal for the party-led coalition United Democratic Front in the forthcoming assembly polls. One of the Congress's allies in the state is Janadipathya Samarakshana Samithi, a political outfit floated by veteran Communist leader K R Gowri, who became part of the UDF fold after being expelled from the Communist Party of India.
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Wayanad in Kerala on June 12, party sources said on Monday.
'Senior Vatican officials were pleasantly surprised at the number of Indians who had come to witness the ceremony.'
Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani resigned on Tuesday night after pressure mounted on him from the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front to quit.
A Kudumbashree worker, who had gone missing last week, was found allegedly murdered and buried in a ditch in the compound of a former colleague's house in Tuvvur in this district, police said on Tuesday.
The Delhi high court on Friday sought a response from the Centre, Election Commission of India, and 26 political parties on a petition seeking to restrain opposition parties from using the acronym INDIA for their alliance.
All political parties were asked at the dinner meeting on Monday night to suggest names for the alliance and the same would be discussed and consensus would be arrived at during the deliberations.
A purported video in which veteran Congress leader A K Antony's wife Elizabeth was seen justifying their elder son's recent entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party has gone viral on social media platforms, putting the Congress party in a fix in Kerala.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
After Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the Congress is caught in a seat sharing tangle with its alliance partners in Kerala, so far the only clear winning state for the ruling party at the Centre. Senior leader and union defence minister AK Antony has landed in Kerala and has begun discussions with alliance partners of the United Democratic Front, on how best to resolve contrary claims.
Forty years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, 377 tons of hazardous waste has been shifted from the defunct Union Carbide factory for its disposal, an official said.
With the United Democratic Front securing power with a thin majority of 72 seats in the 140-member assembly in Kerala, tough administrative and organisational tasks are awaiting Congress as the lead partner in the bipolar scenario.
The high-level committee on 'one nation, one election' approached 62 parties out which 47 responded -- 32 in support of holding elections simultaneously, 15 against it.
He said, during a press meet in Kannur, that during the LS polls, alliances were being formed in various states as part of the platform and its result was that the Bharatiya Janata Party was being largely isolated.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
In a setback for the ruling Left front in Kerala, the high court in Kochi on Monday set aside the election of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's A Raja from the Devikulam assembly seat in Idukki district.
BJP leaders hit back at the DMK and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi if he agreed with the insulting remarks of its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner against the north Indians.
The Congress party's Bharat Jodo Yatra entered the second day in Kerala on Monday, amid an encouraging turnout of people who have been lining up the streets of the state in thousands to extend support to Rahul Gandhi who has embarked on the 3,500 km Kanyakumari-Kashmir foot march.
"One can understand when a woman is raped once. But what if she repeatedly says it. A woman with self respect will either die by suicide after she is raped or try not to be sexually assaulted again."
The Kerala police on Thursday launched an investigation into an alleged social media campaign against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's Facebook post requesting help for the people affected by the landslides in Wayanad district. The campaign was aimed at motivating people to reject the CM's appeal for disaster relief, it said.
Breaking his silence over the matter, Vijayan on Tuesday sounded tough and said a high-level probe by a top-ranking officer would be held into the charges raised by the MLA.
Communist Party of India-Marxist's acting state secretary and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener A Vijayaraghavan on Monday said that the Kerala government will have a 21-member cabinet.
Gohil, speaking after the HC ruling earlier in the day, maintained that in the past the apex court has provided relief to accused in different cases.
Her immovable assets are worth over Rs 7.74 crore, which includes two inherited half shares of agricultural land in Mehrauli area of New Delhi and a half share in a farmhouse building located therein, all of which together are now worth over Rs 2.10 crore.
Union Minister Suresh Gopi on Wednesday described former PM Indira Gandhi as the 'mother of India' and late Congress Chief Minister K Karunakaran as a 'courageous administrator'.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
The $22.8 billion CK Hutchison ports deal intensifies geopolitical tensions between the US and China. Chinese media has already called it 'a betrayal of all Chinese people'. Shyam G Menon explains how the proposed sale will reshapes global trade infrastructure.
Kadoth Govindan Nair had remained in the fray for the Rajya Sabha elections despite the wishes of Sonia Gandhi.
The man was caught from near the Aluva bridge on Thursday evening where he was drinking alcohol. The suspect attempted to escape from the police by jumping into the nearby river and swimming away, but was caught with the help of local residents and pulled out of the water.
In a stunning electoral victory, the ruling Communist Party if India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), rode back to power in Kerala winning 99 of the 140 seats, bucking the over four decade long trend of Communists and Congress-led United Democratic Front coming to power alternatively.
In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
Both parties refusing to yield on the key issue of number of DIC-K candidates contesting on Congress symbol.
This negated the gain of more than a dozen seats in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.
The incident occurred on the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express train in which two months ago a man had set fire to his co-passengers, which resulted in three deaths including a toddler, leading to speculation that it might be a case of sabotage and connected to the earlier one.
It has decided to drop proceedings in the palmolein import case in which former CM figures as an accused.
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
