The BJP's top leadership will drop its MPs found to be facing anti-incumbency, according to its internal surveys -- a pivotal tactic to ensure the party achieves its target of winning 370 seats.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday hit out at the Election Commission for the 'tone and tenor' of its recent letter to his party while also urging the poll body to act against 'communal and incendiary rhetoric' allegedly used by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma during poll campaigns.
It is said that Kumaraswamy was in a dilemma, as Nikhil was not keen on contesting but buckled under pressure from party workers.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
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.
The increased numbers of the Opposition bloc would mean that their MPs are likely to head several more panels than the four that they did by the end of the term of the 17th Lok Sabha.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Future Gaming of lottery king Santiago Martin was the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds at Rs 1,368 crore, of which nearly 37 percent went to the DMK.
The ruling BJP in UP, however, lost Khatauli to Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which pulled off a hat-trick of wins in Haryana by bucking anti-incumbency, managed to make significant inroads into the Dalit seats and Jat strongholds.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has decided to cut short his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh by skipping western part of the state and saving five days, a party leader said on Monday while citing board exams.
Mulayam's last rites will be performed with full state honours in Saifai near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh
'JD-U wants to emerge as the single largest party in Bihar after the next assembly polls by contesting more seats than the BJP.'
Pandian said his only intention to join politics was to assist Patnaik and that is why he did not contest the elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday clinched a stunning hat-trick win in Haryana overcoming anti-incumbency and dashing Congress' hopes of a comeback while the National Conference-Congress combine pulled off a spectacular victory in maiden elections in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
Assisted by his personal staff and gunmen, Gowda, with a cannula on his right hand, attended multiple election meetings on Tuesday and addressed people sitting in his chair as he cited knee pain.
Nitish Kumar wants to assure the BJP leadership that he will continue to be a part of the NDA. But he also wants to secure a larger number of seats for his party in the 2025 assembly elections in Bihar.
The Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in Rajasthan on Sunday, winning 115 seats out of the 199 where assembly elections were held last week.
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
Questions are being raised on the future of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) as differences among its constituents come to the fore and several parties call for serious introspection by the Congress after a string of debilitating electoral losses.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is expected to name the committee's chairperson soon.
With a significant number of Opposition leaders present at the swearing-in ceremony of the Congress government in Karnataka, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Opposition unity requires much more than optics of this nature and stressed the need for meeting of minds, a common agenda and sacrificing partisan interests.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
He is not just under attack from his opponent Shiv Chandra Ram of the RJD, but also by his uncle Paras.
Modi will stay in Patna overnight after the road show and address election meetings on May 13 in three Lok Sabha constituencies: Hajipur, Vaishali and Saran.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
The TDP and the LJP also supported the Bill being sent to a parliamentary committee for further examination.
There are states that could swing either way and change the results of the 2024 general election.
Acting Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, in his first visit to the national capital after leading his ruling alliance to an unprecedented second straight term in the state.
Janata Dal-Secular leader and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday hinted that his party was interested in the agriculture portfolio in the new National Democratic Alliance government.
'Party workers sit outside polling booths and they know everything that is happening.' 'Besides, as a voter when you push the EVM button to vote there is a paper slip that comes out showing you who you voted for.'
"The turnout in the four Lok Sabha seats was low as compared to the 2019 polls but on the basis of feedback received from these constituencies, we are confident of winning these. People are fed up with false promises made by BJP leaders," he said.
Members from the Jayant Chaudhary's Rashtriya Lok Dal too were part of the group, their participation seen as another indication that the party is all set to switch sides from the SP to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Reacting to Nehwal's tweet almost one-and-a-half-hour later, Rashtriya Lok Dal president Chaudhary tweeted, "Sarkaari shuttler recognises BJP skill in smashing peoples' verdict! I think voters need to play a subtle drop shot on celebs trying to influence their decisions!."
'Every Haryana assembly seat has its own unique problems to earn victory for a political party and you as a politician need to know what are those issues and tackle it.'
The Congress appeared to have bounced back in the state's political landscape after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the AAP in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Commenting on the seat sharing in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said in Ballia that a decision will be made as soon as Surya Uttarayan occurs.
