The newly-elected members of Uttar Pradesh Assembly will take oath on April 11-12, while the Speaker would be elected on April 13, official sources said in Lucknow on Thursday.
Two Union ministers and two senior Uttar Pradesh Congress legislators got together and roughed up a handful of Samajwadi Party activists who attempted to stage a black flag demonstration against Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on his arrival in Allahabad on Monday afternoon.
'Previously, contributing only 25 per cent of material costs, states now face burdens of 40 per cent to 100 per cent of total costs, ensuring poorer states will curb project approvals, directly stifling work demand.'
Rajya Sabha MP Subhash Chandra on Tuesday filed his nomination from Rajasthan for the elections to the Upper House of Parliament as an Independent backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Congress has decided to shift its MLAs in Rajasthan to a Udaipur hotel, with party sources saying they fear that the Bharatiya Janata Party will poach them ahead of the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections.
Several ministers, including Parsadi Lal Meena, B D Kalla, Mamta Bhupesh and some independents like Suresh Tak, are present at the hotel in the lake city.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and senior leader Jairam Ramesh were among the 10 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana, while counting was underway in Maharashtra after an eight-hour delay due to wrangling by rival parties over alleged breach of voting rules.
Here is the lowdown of the each state and parties.
Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said that the country is witnessing 'politics of change' and called on the youth to make it successful.
While over 80 MLAs, including some of the independents, have reached a hotel in Udaipur, Soldier Welfare Minister Rajendra Gudha, SC Commission Chairman and MLA Khiladi Bairwa and MLA Girraj Singh Malinga expressed their displeasure in Jaipur.
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut were among the 16 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from four states where polling was held on Friday after tussle over cross voting and alleged breach of election rules delayed the counting by around eight hours in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Rajendra Gudha, Sandeep Yadav, Wajib Ali, Lakhan Meena, (Bahujan Samaj Party turned Congress MLAs), Girraj Singh Malinga and Khiladi Lal Bairwa met Gehlot, the sources said.
This phase of voting was crucial for the state's ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
The fact that Gehlot has stayed relevant these five years with his populist schemes is one reason why he may beat incumbency in a state that votes for change every election, observes Ramesh Menon.
The party also nominated six others, including former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma, an influential Kushwaha leader who recently quit Congress and returned to the Samajwadi Party, and realtor Sanjay Seth for the biennial polls scheduled next month.
Joining the BJP cannot have been an easy decision for former UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who grew up with secular values and appears to be a victim of the party's durbar politics. Amit Agnihotri reports.
The Congress used Raj Bhavans to topple legally elected governments. The BJP is letting governors get away with all manner of impropriety, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The BJP wants to win a state where it has been out of power for 15 years. The Congress wants to make its mark in a state where it has been a bit player for nearly 30 years. And the BSP wants to recapture power it lost 5 years ago.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
Jaitley said the Opposition has been using the zero hour to raise the issue for 'getting footage on TV'.