A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
Several trains were cancelled, highways and key roads blocked and many thousands stranded for hours on Monday as a nationwide 10-hour shutdown against the Centre's three agri laws disrupted lives across parts of India, particularly in the north.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday alleged that if the Congress-All India United Democratic Front combine come to power in Assam they will open 'all gates' to welcome infiltrators.
It is not unlikely that ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP government comes up with more imaginative schemes aimed at constituency-building. The party under Modi's leadership has a more modern thinking in such matters unlike its rivals, which are still steeped only in ideology, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bharatiya Janata President president Amit Shah on Sunday said his party's main agenda was a "Congress free India".
The Wayanad MP, who is on two-day visit to his constituency in poll-bound Kerala, also took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on MGNREGA.
'It was my own decision to resign as governor.' 'I felt the party needed my services and presence during the election.' 'I did not resign to contest the election, but when the party asked me to contest from Thiruvananthapuram, I agreed.'
He stressed that there was no need to bring the legislation as it was "anti-democratic" and "divided people on the basis of religion". "There is a constitutional crisis. You cannot ignore state governments. You have to take them into confidence," Sinha said when asked about resolutions passed by states against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Congress presidential candidate Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday claimed many electors have been instructed by 'their leaders' to support his rival but they may eventually vote for him in a secret ballot.
Shobha Warrier reports from Thiruvananthapuram where a former UN diplomat is battling a former governor for the Lok Sabha seat.
'Slaughter of cows will be opposed by all parties in UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, etc while it is different in Kerala, Goa and the north east.' 'Every national party adapts and take a view on various issues depending on the local situation and the feelings of the local people.' 'So, the Kerala BJP will look at each issue from the Kerala perspective, and not that of UP.'
An ardent admirer of the 'Father of the Nation", Mahatma Gandhi, he had actively participated in the Quit India movement.
The module was also planning to carry out targeted killings in India and was in the advanced stage of procuring arms, including automatic rifles and pistols, ammunition and explosives to carry out the attacks, he said.
According to a National Crime Records Bureau report, a total of 356 cases of sedition -- as defined under section 124A of the IPC -- were registered and 548 people arrested between 2015 and 2020, out of which only six were convicted.
'The Kerala saga also requires a reappraisal of Nehru himself. 'The real Nehru is to be found somewhere between the syrupy panegyrics on him and the demonisation of him that is currently happening,' says Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar.
'We are a national party that wants to remind people about Bharatiya sanskruti, which, at the moment, is being remote-controlled by an Italian lady and her agents,' says former Union minister O Rajagopal, the BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram who will challenge Shashi Tharoor.
Mamata Banerjee accused Modi of trying to mislead the people with half-truth and distorted facts.
A day before the start of the Budget session of Parliament, as many as 18 opposition parties, led by the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Shiv Sena and the Trinamool Congress, decided on Thursday to boycott the President's address to the joint sitting of both Houses in solidarity with the farmers protesting against the new farm laws.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
Congress leader A K Antony on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial Kerala-Somalia comparison will impact the prospects of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been pulling out all the stops in its bid to open its account in Kerala assembly.
'The regime -- and particularly the home ministry under Amit Shah -- have sought to suppress and destroy these struggles through intimidation, bullying, threats, through false cases, arrests, custodial torture, the use of draconian laws like the UAPA.'
The searches were a continuation of those conducted here and in Kerala in connection with an Islamic State terror module.
'We will meet each villager in Kerala and chalk out a massive agitation plan to protect the Sabarimala temple.'
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan was elected its Parliamentary party leader, paving the way for his successive stint as chief minister of Kerala.
'Sometime back, there was not much empathy for communal sentiments or traditions in Kerala.' 'The situation is totally different now.' 'The forces which were not so powerful earlier are getting more powerful now.'
'In each hartal, enormous amount of public money is wasted. The entire state comes to a standstill. How long can this go on?' 'Every year 3 crore people sit at home not because they support hartals, but because they are forced to do so.' 'This is part of a larger measure to curb democratic rights.'
'They don't just kill their enemies, they chop off limbs, sever heads.' 'How can anyone kill a teacher in front of small children and a son in front of his parents?'
It is wrong to say the Congress doesn't matter. Certainly one set of people who do not believe that for a minute is the BJP. That's why even in his speech in Parliament on Constitution Day, Mr Modi called dynastic politics a threat to democracy, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Ten trade unions with a combined membership of 15 crore workers in public and private sector, including banks and insurance companies, are on a nationwide strike to protest against changes in the labour laws.
Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan is a cut above the rest in Indian politics today, precisely in his remarkable ability to look beyond the horizon. His was probably the only government that began planning for the incoming pandemic as early as in February, notes M K Bhadrakumar.
'Mamata wanted the Congress in alliance with the BJP in Bengal against the Left Front government.' 'Pranab Mukherjee opposed it, stating it would amount to compromising on secularism.' 'In 2021, Mamata defeats the BJP and becomes a champion of secularism.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress on Sunday were set to share the honours in the Lok Sabha and assembly bye-elections in 13 states.
Thousands of Left Democratic Front Opposition volunteers continued their siege of the secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram for the second day, demanding resignation of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and a judicial probe into the solar scam.
'When I said the Gandhi family had to step aside, it was because we have consistently seen that the public has not accepted them.'
'Kerala will witness a lot of fireworks in Wayanad and a kind of fight that it has not witnessed so far.'
'The Modi government is about privatising profits and nationalising losses.'
Police said the arrests were made after incorporating two more sections of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and IPC sections 143 (punishment for unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence) in the FIR.
"They call themselves the champions of speech and expression. But deny the same for the people of Kerala."
He said his party will continue to fight the "worst sentiments" the prime minister represents.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday urged top opposition leaders to rise above political compulsions to take on the BJP in the interest of the nation and start planning "systematically" to realise the "ultimate goal" of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha polls
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