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.
The 79-year old leader, who served as the chief minister of Kerala twice, breathed his last in a private hospital in Bengaluru at 4.25 am. His end came while undergoing treatment for cancer, party sources said.
'What matters is policies, not personalities like Priyanka, Rahul or Modi.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met the top priests of various churches in Kerala, giving a push to the Bharatiya Janata Party's efforts to reach out to the influential minority community in the southern state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, sources said.
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.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday declared the southern state as India's first fully e-governed state where an entire range of government services have been digitised so that they can be provided to the citizens promptly and transparently.
'Did anyone else get the feeling that AWIAL -- despite being ostensibly based in the Mumbai of today -- is actually set in a Neverland of Solemnity?' asks Sreehari Nair.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
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.
Priyanka's victory seems assured, but the broader implications for Kerala's political landscape and South Indian politics remain to be seen.
The Congress continued its losing spree on Saturday posting its worst-ever show in Maharashtra and ending up a distant junior partner to the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Jharkhand, further diminishing its role in the opposition bloc as other allies perform better.
A Kerala court on Tuesday sentenced to death 15 persons associated with the now-banned Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) in connection with the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party OBC wing leader Ranjith Sreenivasan in this district in 2021, the special prosecutor of the case said in Alappuzha.
'Rahul Gandhi is the face of the INDIA alliance. If he contests against a BJP candidate and defeats her/him, it will send a strong message.'
'Both of us are not politicians. We were forced to enter politics to counter corruption that is looting the country.'
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was given a rousing welcome by thousands of people, including United Democratic Front leaders and workers, at Kalpetta in Wayanad on Wednesday as she prepares to make her electoral debut by filing nomination papers for the coming Lok Sabha bypoll.
'It will be the end of the Congress after the Lok Sabha election.' 'Many Congressmen and even Communists will move to the BJP.'
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
Vijayan said that the trailer of the Hindi film, at first glance, appears to be "deliberately produced" with the alleged aim of creating communal polarisation and spreading hate propaganda against the state.
On Easter, April 9, 10,000 BJP workers are being assigned to visit the houses of 100,000 Christian families. Plans are afoot to visit the homes of Muslims on Eid.
People who were present at the convention centre told media that the first blast occurred in the middle of a prayer.
If Kerala wants to sustain its room for independent thinking and talk back to Delhi when needed, it should put its finances in order. Or - if one takes the North East example - Kerala's political posturing may end up commensurate with its financial dependence on others, suggests Shyam G Menon.
With elections elsewhere in India showing that multi-pronged contests usually work to the BJP's favour, the party can gain if it hangs on stubbornly. In the meantime, any additional support helps. That is why the archbishop's comment attracted political traction in Kerala, observes Shyam G Menon.
'We should see to it that not even one woman gets radicalised.' 'We should not let even one young man become a jihadi.'
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The PMK has now lent its voice to the protests against the mining of atomic minerals in Kanyakumari.
Several people are still feared trapped in the debris after a series of landslides that occurred in Chooralmala and Mundakkai of Wayanad.
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.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
Meanwhile, the Congress and RSP whole-heartedly backed the Kollam MP.
Kerala-based Peoples Democratic Party leader Abdul Nasser Madani finds himself in political isolation with mainstream parties in the state keeping away from him, despite past dalliance with him, after he was chargesheeted in the Bengaluru blasts case.
'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
'He should not come to Kerala and fight against the CPI which is an integral part of the INDIA alliance'
The National People's Party, which rules Meghalaya, is another national party which received no donations through electoral bonds.
24 hours before campaigning ends in Thiruvanathapuram, Archana Masih/Rediff.com discovers Shashi Tharoor and his BJP rival Rajeev Chandrasekhar are busy getting their message across to voters.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
The police, in its plea, had contended that the veteran politician violated the bail conditions and, therefore, the bail was liable to be cancelled.
The IUML is a major ally of the Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala and an influential political party among the Muslim community.
He could have blazed a trail that few Indian judges had. It was a missed opportunity of a lifetime, notes Ramesh Menon.
Mufti said the Bharat Jodo Yatra was like a breath of fresh air in Kashmir as it allowed people to come out of their homes in numbers for the first time since 2019.
'All those who participated in the agitation were branded as anti-nationals.'
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