The six week-wait for who will rule Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal will end on Friday as counting of votes for assembly elections begins.
Muhammed Ameerul Islam was found guilty for raping and murdering the 30-year-old Dalit law student in Kerala last year.
Undeterred by attacks from within the Congress for her comments on government formation in Delhi, Sheila Dikshit on Sunday stuck to her position, saying she did not back Bharatiya Janata Party's bid to power and was only explaining the "factual and constitutional" provision on the issue.
An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in decades that has caused damage worth more than Rs 20,000 crore.
The statement came after chief ministers of West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh announced that the law is "unconstitutional" and has no place in their respective states.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday urged party leaders in Kerala to shed their differences and fight the coming assembly polls unitedly
Former West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar's subsequent elevation set a new benchmark for the actions of those who occupy Raj Bhavans, observes Aditi Phadnis.
Flaying both the Congress-led United Democratic Front and Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance and a section of the "right wing" media for trying to tarnish the image of the government and its development and welfare programmes, he said the people have rejected their 'vicious propaganda' by giving the Left a decisive mandate.
'The problem is with those who are entrusted with powers.'
In a setback to the Congress in Kerala, senior party leader K Sudhakaran on Thursday said he would not contest against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Dharmadom constituency in northern Kannur district.
Pinarayi Vijayan is a name not many Indians are familiar with, but few state leaders have such a strangehold over their party as the secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's Kerala unit has. Can you think of the leader of any other state political unit preventing his party's chief minister from getting a ticket to contest an assembly election?
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee is keen to field senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Varanasi and will soon send a proposal in this regard to the top leadership, said newly appointed party's state president Ajay Rai on Sunday.
Among the long queues of voters, there were some famous faces too who exercised their franchise.
Counting of votes will take place on May 15.
"No explanation can satisfy me," the Governor told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday evening, a day after making it clear that he would not remain a 'mute spectator' as he sought a report from the Pinarayi Vijayan government.
A total of 1,203 candidates, including 109 women, are contesting for the 140 assembly seats in which a total of 2.61 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.
Senior AICC member and former Union minister K V Thomas, who has been at loggerheads with the party's state leadership, on Wednesday said he would campaign for the ruling Left Democratic Front candidate Jo Joseph in the upcoming by-poll in the Thrikkakara Assembly constituency, but reiterated that he would not quit the Congress.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
The seats identified are from Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Northeast.
'What authority has a secular government to administer Hindu temples? When Hindu temples are ruled by secular governments, what religious freedom do Hindus have?'
The people of Amethi want to rectify their 'mistake' of 2019 and Congress workers as well as leaders are demanding that Rahul Gandhi contest from the constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party's Uttar Pradesh chief Ajay Rai said.
Soon after the court pronounced the judgment on George's bail plea, police reached the former MLA's residence to take him into custody, but he was not traceable.
The Maharashtra legislative assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a bill which makes Marathi a compulsory subject across all schools in the state. The development came on `Marathi Bhasha Din' (Marathi language day) which is celebrated on February 27, the birth anniversary of poet and Jnanpith award winner late V V Shirwadkar. The state legislative council had passed the legislation, titled `Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Bill, 2020', on Wednesday.
As voters queued up in Kerala to cast their ballot in the assembly polls on Wednesday, Union defence minister and senior Congress leader AK Antony reiterated that the United Democratic Front will come to power in the state with a thumping majority.
Though it's been just five years at the helm, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress is fighting severe internal dissidence and would crumble like a pack of cards if it loses, says Devanik Saha.
''This chief minister is so obstinate that he is ready to use the police to attain his goal.' 'Had he been more mature rather than obstinate, Kerala would not have reached a boiling point.'
"I was never a politician and do not wish to. I am 90 now and hence do not want to be in politics. I need not be a politician to serve people which I am doing through three trusts," he said, speaking at a private function in Ponnani near Malappuram.
'It is our aim to capture power and rule in Kerala. We may not be able to achieve our target in one attempt.' 'By just hammering once, you will not be able to break a rock; you need to hammer the rock several times.'
'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.'
UDF, LDF raise voice against cow slaughter ban backed by BJP leadership.
The Kerala Government will look into demands for changing the official spelling of the state to 'Keralam' to make it conform to the way it is pronounced in Malayalam, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan told the Assembly on Wednesday.
The results of blood samples of the student, which were tested at the National Institute of Virology in Pune, have confirmed Nipah, she said.
The Assam cabinet had on December 13 approved a proposal to close down all Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (schools) however, the legislation brought in the assembly during the day did not contain anything related to the Sanskrit tols and the education minister also did not mention anything about it.
A 29-year-old woman from Bihar, suspected to have links with the alleged recruitment of youths from Kerala to Islamic State, is being questioned in Kerala's Kasaragod by the state police after being taken into custody from New Delhi.
Gandhi also met fishermen and party volunteers involved in relief work.
The plea filed by advocate Ashok Pandey asked whether the conviction of an accused can be stayed by the court of appeal and if, based on it, a Lok Sabha member's disqualification can be revoked.
Challenging the rejection, the SIT had approached the high court with a criminal revision plea to quash the court's order.
65-year-old Sathasivam, whose appointment triggered debate in legal and political circles on the propriety of giving gubernatorial assignment to a former CJI, is the 23rd governor of the state.
