Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
There are two such seats in Tamil Nadu and one each in West Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Madhya Pradesh.
Here is the lowdown of the each state and parties.
Maharashtra is the BRS' first target.
Surjewala made the case for state-specific alliances while arguing for a larger coalition with like-minded parties in 'national interest'.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has taken to invest in young people from non-dynastic backgrounds to build a core team of 100-odd youths in every state who believe in the Congress party's philosophy, reports Archis Mohan.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Except for the Devendra Fadnavis- led government during 2014-19, Anil Deshmukh has managed to find a berth in the state ministry irrespective of which party came to power in the last over two decades.
Speaking at a rally at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on Saturday, Raj Thackeray had criticised Sharad Pawar, accusing him of 'playing the caste card from time to time and dividing society'.
According to reports, public transport and banking services remain partly disrupted for the second day in some states.
In an apparent jibe at the opposition BJP in Maharashtra, Pawar said some people were getting anxious after losing power.
The Maharashtra government will amend its agriculture law to protect farmers and Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) as the three central farm laws are not in the interest of agriculturists, state Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said.
After yoga guru Baba Ramdev was banned from conducting programmes in Himachal on Monday and booked in Maharashtra and Rajasthan under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act for his honeymoon remarks targeting targeting Rahul Gandhi, the yoga guru said he would move the courts against the curbs.
The main Opposition party is likely to lose some more of its strength in 2016-17
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Election Commission to go ahead with the hearing of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde group's plea seeking recognition as the real Shiv Sena and allocation of the party's bow-and-arrow poll symbol to it.
Due to a sharp rise in Covid cases, Mumbai's civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, on Thursday imposed a weekend lockdown in the city until further orders.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
The Congress Working Committee, the party's top-decision making body, would soon meet to deliberate further on the Chintan Shivir plans, the sources said.
In his concluding remarks at the 'Chintan Shivir' in Udaipur, Gandhi had said that it is only the Congress that can fight the BJP at the national level and regional outfits cannot fight this battle of ideology.
Scinida quit the Congress on Tuesday. He is an influential leader of Madhya Pradesh where 22 Congress MLAs, most of whom loyal to him, have resigned from the assembly in a bid to topple the Kamal Nath-led government.
Raut said during their meeting, Rahul told him the system of creating and building leaders has stopped in the Congress.
Bharatiya Janata Party nominee S Selvaganapathy was declared elected unopposed to the lone seat in Rajya Sabha from Puducherry, the first time the saffron party has got representation in the Upper House from the Union Territory, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's two nominees, Kanimozhi N V N Somu and K R N Rajeshkumar, were elected without contest from Tamil Nadu.
Former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was re-nominated by Congress from Chandigarh on Thursday brushing aside the "taint" argument as it released the second list of 71 candidates who include film star Nagma in Meerut and Youth Congress chief Rajeevv Satav from Hingoli.
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for the Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is 'in the ICU' and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
Earlier, there were speculations that the party may nominate Pankaja Munde, the daughter of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, for the MLC polls, to be held on June 20.
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
'As long as Amul was coming in with products it was not a problem because it was something value added and with a shelf life.' 'When it gets into the local market by procuring locally, it cuts into the market-share of local cooperatives.'
The results of bypolls to three Lok Sabha and 29 assembly seats spread across 13 states and a union territory have been a mixed bag for the BJP as its fortunes continue to nosedive in West Bengal against the might of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee while bad tidings have also come from states like Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
'Whatever tricks the BJP may play, it will not be able to stop JD-U from becoming a national party by 2023'
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the organisational elections should be utilised to "reinvigorate and rejuvenate" the party following the debacle in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday won four seats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal retained the Mokama assembly seat in the bypolls to seven assembly constituencies in six states.
'There are too many competent people better suited and poised to take on Modi. The Gandhis are not among them,' argues Harishchandra.
Amid signs of increasing bonhomie between her and her Telangana and Tamil Nadu counterparts Rao and Stalin, Banerjee had approached the two on Sunday to set up meetings of opposition chief ministers.
Addressing the Sena workers in Mumbai for the second consecutive day, he also said that doors of the state and party are closed for the rebels MLAs.
'The central government forces are supporting one group and the state government forces are supporting another group and this is resulting in non-stop cross-firing, which has resulted in the killing of many innocent people.'
"Farmers' organisations in western UP have expressed their willingness to support the Shiv Sena and we may ally with smaller parties. In Goa, efforts are on to explore a formula like MVA. Let's see if we succeed," Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said she had suggested to the Congress that an advisory council comprising prominent personalities from civil society be set up to give a direction to the opposition, but rued that the plan did not materialise.
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