MPs and MLAs taking bribes to vote or make a speech in the house are not immune from prosecution, the Supreme Court said on Monday in a landmark, unanimous verdict that overrules its 1998 judgment protecting such lawmakers.
Corruption and bribery of members of the legislature erode the foundation of Indian parliamentary democracy, the Supreme Court said on Monday.
Congress in-charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Wednesday started one-to-one meetings with state ministers and MLAs amid attempts by the party's central leadership to broker peace between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and dissident leader Sachin Pilot ahead of assembly polls due later this year.
Karnataka Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar on Tuesday met party president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi separately and discussed the modalities of government formation in the southern state.
He said the "switch" to the Sharad Pawar-led outfit has started in the form of ex-corporators, referring to the resignation of Ajit Pawar-led NCP's Pimpri-Chinchwad unit chief Ajit Gavhane and two former corporators.
Every trick in the trade is being tried unabashedly.
In simple arithmetical terms every possible 'arrangement' is being made to deny a majority to its rivals. A split verdict would hand a vital advantage to the BJP which is adept at extracting the best out of such a situation, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
Deshmukh, a member the MPCC's Parliamentary Board, has blamed Patole for the rebellion by party's youth leader Satyajit Tambe, who has filed his nomination as an independent from the Nashik division graduates' constituency for the January 30 biennial elections to the Legislature Council.
The Bihar government has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Patna high court verdict that has set aside the amended reservation laws in the state, which enabled the Nitish Kumar government to increase the quotas for Dalits, tribals and backward classes from 50 per cent to 65 per cent.
The Left parties hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre on Monday over a religious ceremony performed at an event to unveil a cast of the national emblem on the new Parliament building premises, saying such installations should not be linked to religion.
Gaurav Gogoi will head the screening committee for Rajasthan with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot included among the ex-officio members of the panel.
One more Shiv Sena MLA from the Uddhav Thackeray camp joined CM Shinde's faction, taking its tally to 40.
Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended the swearing in ceremony, while former AICC President Sonia Gandhi was absent. Chief Ministers of Congress ruled states Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Sukhvinder Singh Sukku (Himachal Pradesh) and several top party leaders were also in attendance.
Unless the merger is reversed, the Congress is set to lose its Opposition Party status in the state assembly.
They will, however, remain in the Congress, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ampareen Lyngdoh said.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka had the last laugh as it won all the three Rajya Sabha seats it had contested in, out of total of four from the state that went for polls on Friday, while the Congress managed to win only one of the two seats to which it had fielded its candidates.
The Shiv Sena chief will be the first from the Thackeray family to be sworn in as the chief minister.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'We have been threatened. We have felt violated.' 'Everything is in danger if you don't give safe spaces to women.'
Gehlot alleged that that the BJP wanted to repeat what it had done in Madhya Pradesh.
The CLP meeting began about three hours later than scheduled, with ministers and MLAs flashed victory signs for the cameras.
Amid high political drama over leadership change in Rajasthan, the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday hinted at imposition of President's rule in the state.
All set to take over as the Leader of the Opposition in the 15th Tamil Nadu sssembly, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam scion M K Stalin on Tuesday vowed to do justice to the post and take up people's issues in a constructive way in the legislature.
The woman and Althaf had been friends on Instagram for the last three months and both belonged to the same town (Karkala).
Granting SCS to the state has been a long-pending demand of the JD-U supremo and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, whose Bihar cabinet had even passed a resolution last year requesting the Centre to grant SCS to the state.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
If Nitish is as shrewd a practitioner of realpolitik as he is billed to be, we'd like to see if he can do the unthinkable -- break up the BJP legislature party in Bihar.
Nothing turns on the hair-splitting argument that the Congress does not have 55 seats because that is not a legal requirement to be the single largest legislature party in Opposition in the Lok Sabha, says Venkatesh Nayak.
Gujarat Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel was on Wednesday elected leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party Legislature Party, who will succeed PM-designate Narendra Modi as chief minister of the state.
A Bharatiya Janata Party office-bearer from Shirur in Maharashtra's Pune district has sought the removal of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party from the ruling alliance, which also consists of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.
Leader of Opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly Tejashwi Yadav on Monday said the caste-based census will help in preparing welfare schemes for people from different sections of society.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has written a letter to the state legislative council's deputy chairperson seeking that Viplove Bajoria be made the Shiv Sena's chief whip in the Upper House, a move apparently aimed at further cornering the faction led by former CM Uddhav Thackeray.
The parliamentary election result was also to prove that the Maldivians want "autonomy in choosing their future, without foreign coercion," President Muizzu said, without naming any country, according to the Sun.mv news portal.
There was speculation that he might meet the party's All India Congress Committee in-charge of Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and other senior leaders, but sources close to Pilot said no meetings were fixed.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said on Friday that he would first speak with Nawab Malik to understand the former minister's position about his political affiliation before explaining his Nationalist Congress Party group's stand on the matter.
The activist said leaders opposing Maratha interests would face consequences in the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections.
Upset over an open rebellion in Rajasthan, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday sought a written report on it from party observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken as the chances of Ashok Gehlot becoming the party chief receded and other names cropped up for the post.
Reacting to the development, Naidu said such crises were not new to the party.
President Pranab Mukherjee will on Thursday inaugurate the 'Suvarna Vidhana Soudha', a Rs 400 crore legislature complex in Belgaum, amid objections by some political parties in Maharashtra. The construction of 'Suvarna Vidhana Soudha' -- built on the lines of the state Secretariat 'Vidhana Soudha' in Bangalore -- is considered a symbolic assertion of Karnataka's long-held position that Belgaum is an integral part of the state.
"Given the constitutional crisis, I felt it was right for me to resign," Rawat said.
In Sikkim, the BJP had not won a single seat in the recent assembly polls.
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