Gupkar Alliance, which includes mainstream political parties of Jammu and Kashmir, has accepted the invitation of the all-party meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 24.
"I will not be contesting for the post of president any longer. The elections for the post will be held on December 5. It is time for the new generation to take over the responsibilities," Abdullah told PTI.
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI general secretary D Raja said the top leadership will not attend the meeting called by the TMC chief.
Pointing out that this is the first time that a complete alliance has been formed by the major Left parties in Bihar, the Communist Party of India state secretary Rajendra Prasad Singh said top Central leaders of the three parties will campaign together for the by-elections.
A veritable political `storm in a tea cup' has arisen over Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's assertions on Wednesday that all in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were "not bad" and there are many who "do not support the BJP".
Announcing the first list of candidates, Left Front chairman Biman Bose said that of the 16 names announced, 14 are new, of whom three are women.
Both the parties were not represented at the opposition meeting that decided on fielding Alva as their consensus candidate, but Pawar had said that he is in touch with both TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as AAP convener and Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
'A prohibition is not going to have any influence on our party's activities. In fact, it will only infuse into us a new sense of grit to counter the government opposition,' says Gour Chakraborty, the CPI (Maoist) spokesman.
The government has proposed that political parties cannot be designated public authorities as defined in the RTI Act. Anita Katyal reports
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money-laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan and her IT firm for receiving 'illegal payments' from a Kochi-based private firm, official sources said on Wednesday.
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
Ramachandran, an OPS loyalist who took part in the meeting, said the former chief minister would soon meet VK Sasikala, the confidante of former party supremo J Jayalalithaa.
Even as political pressure was building against Ranjith, actor Siddique quit as the general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) amid voices from within his fraternity seeking his resignation.
Drawing examples from history to prove his point, Vijayan said a Muslim man named Azimullah Khan had coined the slogan 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
The main Opposition party Communist Party of Nepal-(Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) disrupted the National Assembly meeting on Wednesday, demanding the prime minister's resignation. The meeting has been postponed to 1 pm Thursday.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
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.
Soon after the panel vice chairman Sasmit Patra called for the start of the discussion amid slogan shouting, leaders of various opposition parties took to raising points of order frequently to get the discussion stalled.
Defying a Communist Party of India directive to quit his post before the trust vote, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Monday chaired an all-party meeting in New Delhi ahead of the special session of the Lok Sabha to decide on the confidence motion.The Speaker had called the meeting of the floor leaders of parties to discuss issues related to the trust vote being sought by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in the wake of the Left withdrawing support to the UPA.
The CBI has till December 13 to submit a report to the court.
A total of 45 MLAs voted in favour of the confidence motion in the 81-member assembly.
Tripura Trinamool Congress president Pijush Kanti Biswas said TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister will arrive in Tripura on February 6 to campaign for party candidates.
The BJP declared a total income of Rs 1917.12 crore during 2021-22 and spent Rs 854.467 crore or 44.57 per cent of it.
The RSS has accused CPI-M workers of 'carrying out' the attack.
After a meeting of the AAP's highest decision making body -- political affairs committee (PAC) -- at party national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence in New Delhi, Chadha also welcomed the Congress' decision to oppose in Parliament the Centre's ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi.
The ruling party received Rs 742 crore in 2018-19, a rise of 70 per cent from the previous year.
Abu Khayer Miah, who had contested, on a Tipra Motha ticket, from the Boxanagar assembly constituency in the last elections held in February and conceded defeat, has been suspended, a party leader said.
'In India there is so much exploitation because of capitalism,' says CPI-M Politburo member Brinda Karat.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
The judge refused to comment on it, stating that he would address all inquiries after submitting his resignation.
Even the United Progressive Alliance constituent Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday rubbished the Planning Panel's claim that the number of poor people had declined to 21.9 per cent.
Any decision to include "non-locals" in electoral rolls in Jammu and Kashmir is unacceptable and would be contested by all means, including in court, Nation Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Monday after a meeting of nine parties over the issue.
Former Nepalese foreign minister Ramesh Nath Pandey observed that the current situation is not encouraging for India-Nepal ties, saying the "present leaders" created irritants in the relationship in the past.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
Gandhi said the Opposition wanted the House to function "often and well" and added that it was very important that cooperation happens on the basis of trust.
He also said there are leaders who stand firm in their ideology but their number is gradually declining.
In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider the separate pleas of opposition-ruled Kerala and West Bengal, alleging the denial of assent to bills passed by the respective legislative assemblies.
CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat discuss his party's future, the coming battles in Bengal and Kerala, and the Maoists in an exclusive interview with rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
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