The Lok Sabha Secretariat on Thursday revoked the disqualification of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Afzal Ansari as a member of the Lower House after the Supreme Court conditionally suspended his conviction in a Gangsters Act case.
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
The stage is now set for the first substantial round of polling in the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, involving nearly 11 crore voters in 92 seats spread across 11 states, including Delhi and the national capital region and the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.
Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress alleging that the opposition party has become outdated and has always been against any kind of reservation.
As the final five phases of polls draw closer, rift among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners, Congress-Left combine and the Trinamool Congress, which are fighting separately has intensified, triggering a fierce contest across half of the remaining 36 constituencies in West Bengal driven by local issues such as Sandeshkhali and the SSC scam.
The announcement was made by AIADMK coordinator and deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam and Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal, party election in-charge for Tamil Nadu, who described it as a "mega alliance".
A NCP source said his party is claiming Aurangabad, Pune, Yavatmal from the Congress quota since it was "better placed to win".
The numbers were revealed some concerns arose, says Chirag Paswan
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday appealed to the opposition for the unanimous passage of the women's reservation bill and said shortcomings, if any, can be rectified at a later date.
A bill to allow the private sector to mine six atomic minerals, including lithium, and deep-seated minerals like gold and silver was approved by the Lok Sabha on Friday.
There was no immediate reaction from the PSPL on the inclusion of Shivpal Singh Yadav's name in the SP's list of campaigners.
The Lok Sabha's Privileges Committee, headed by BJP member Sunil Kumar Singh, took up other issues on the agenda as Bidhuri, who was campaigning for the party in poll-bound Rajasthan, kept away.
AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said its top leadership will take a call on attending the Mumbai meeting of the opposition bloc INDIA, following the statement by Lamba.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi, who were present at the meeting, asked party leaders to remain united and connected with the people, sources said.
She vowed to usher in Amma's rule by winning the 2026 assembly polls.
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Those responsible for protecting MPs have failed in their constitutional duties, said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
The alliance adopted a resolution to this effect and said its theme for the elections will be "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India, (India will unite, India will win)".
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Most leaders agreed for early finalisation of poll plans for 2024 stressing that there was no time left with them and mere meetings would not help.
Saini, 54, a low profile OBC leader, rose through the ranks in the party and was unanimously elected as the leader of the state BJP's legislature group at a meeting held in Chandigarh on Tuesday.
On speculations of Priyanka Gandhi contesting in the 2024 election, Rai said that Priyanka Gandhi will contest from wherever she wants to.
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Wednesday's Vikravandi by-election has become a referendum on the Stalin government, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Other NDA allies, including the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, will get due representation in the seat sharing formula, Shah said.
At present, there is no specific substantive law to deal with unfair means adopted or offences committed by various entities involved in the conduct of public examinations by the central government and its agencies.
The ruling BJP stole a march on the Congress on Friday by releasing its first list of 177 candidates for the assembly polls.
In a dig at Rahul Gandhi, Dubey said that the former Congress president was expected to initiate the debate but did not do so last minute as "probably he got up late".
Bypolls to one Lok Sabha and four assembly seats across four states will be held on May 10 along with the Karnataka assembly polls, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday.
The CNN-IBN-THE WEEK pre-poll survey conducted by CSDS projects the National Democratic Alliance edging towards 200-seat mark in Lok Sabha polls. The NDA tally is projected to rise between 187 and 195 Lok Sabha seats just by gains in four states whereas United Progressive Alliance tally is projected to slip to between 134 and 142 Lok Sabha seats just by losses in four states.
The Nationalist Congress Party's seat-sharing with the Congress in Maharashtra could turn out to be a ticklish task with Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh contending that it should reflect the Lok Sabha election results in the state.
Union minister Raosaheb Danve has caused a flutter by saying if the Bharatiya Janata Party needs victory in the Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra in 2024, then it must ensure that All India Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen leader and sitting MP Imtiaz Jaleel contests the election next year.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will not be attending the swearing-in ceremony of Congress leader Siddaramaiah as the Karnataka CM and has designated party leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar for the programme, a Trinamool Congress leader said.
BJP workers depend on Annamalai's popularity to emerge victorious. He has has made 100 promises to be fulfilled in 500 days and assurances include cleaning up rivers, an international airport and food vans named after former Chief Minister K Kamaraj.
Formal talks over a seat-sharing formula among the National Democratic Alliance constituents are yet to begin and JD-U leaders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the BJP should take the lead to ensure that it was done quickly to avoid any serious differences near the polls.
Shafiulla, in his resignation letter to the JD-S Karnataka president said that he had opted to stay outside the party for the period during which the state unit of the party had joined with the BJP to form the state government.
Samajwadi Party Member of Parliament Jaya Prada is confident about winning the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls from her constituency Rampur in Uttar Pradesh.In the 2004 LS polls, she had won by over 78,000 votes, defeating candidates from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.The former actress claimed that she had attended the Parliament regularly during the last five years.
'Rather than criticising the kind of candidates fielded by political parties from our living rooms, NOTA in a sense implores the electorate to say this by turning up in person at a polling booth to ensure their protest is registered.'
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party's first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls was declared, its veteran leader L K Advani today expressed interest to contest elections from his current constituency, Gandhinagar.
