Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
In a major setback for the Congress ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who announced his resignation from the Congress party on Monday, will join the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday.
Indications are that the polls could be held sometime in October-November.
JD-U chief whip Shravan Kumar said those defying the whip "will lose their membership" even as he maintained that it was a "routine exercise that takes place ahead of every assembly session".
A day after his release from Maoist captivity, Biju Janata Dal member of Legislative Assembly Jhina Hikaka on Friday did not rule out the possibility of resigning his membership of Odisha assembly and said he had twice written to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on the issue.
The setback could derail Rao's ambitions to expand the BRS's influence beyond Telangana and establish a national presence.
Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar on Monday said the party's national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has agreed to campaign and spend time in the state, for the assembly elections next year.
The resolution 'earnestly' appealed to the Centre to withdraw and not carry out the whole exercise of NRC and NPR 'in the interest of the nation, particularly when the economy is witnessing the worst-ever downslide and unemployment is witnessing a terrifying growth, and with the threat of the corona pandemic looming large'.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
Five Members of Legislative Assembly of the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance were on Monday suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for a day for creating a ruckus on the issue of allotting Indu Mill land for constructing a memorial for Dalit icon B R Ambedkar. The suspended MLAs are Chandrakant Handore and Prashant Thakur from the Congress and Nawab Malik, Jeetendra Awhad and Shashikant Shinde from the NCP.
Maharashtra legislative assembly was stalled for the second consecutive day on Friday with members across party lines demanding that the two police officers who came to Vidhan Bhawan on Wednesday to arrest the MLAs, accused of thrashing a policeman, be suspended immediately.
The 12 suspended members are -- Sanjay Kute, Ashish Shelar, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Parag Alavani, Harish Pimpale, Yogesh Sagar, Jay Kumar Rawat, Narayan kuche, Ram Satpute and Bunty Bhangdia.
The AIMIM leader said that the party "laid certain conditions related to the development of our MLAs constituencies in Dhulia and Malegaon".
Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) leader Lalduhoma was sworn in as the chief minister of Mizoram on Friday.
The Supreme Court on Friday held that a resolution suspending 12 Bharatiya Janata Party legislators from the Maharashtra legislative assembly beyond the period of the remainder of the session held in July 2021 is "unconstitutional" and "irrational".
After dissidence in Karnataka, a section of Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar have revolted against their party leader and Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi for his reported statement intending to cover sharecroppers under the Kisan Credit Card Scheme.
In the 230-member House, the BJP has 127 MLAs and the Congress 96.
Cutting across parties, members of the state legislative assembly on Friday unanimously resolved to dismiss the notice under the RTI Act as "breach of privilege".
"The new districts, namely Zanskar, Drass, Sham, Nubra and Changthang, will take the benefits meant for the people to their doorsteps by bolstering governance in every nook and cranny," he said.
Former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, who was on Sunday elected the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislative party in Himachal Pradesh, hit out at the Congress, alleging its government was failing to deliver on poll promises and leaders were moving in different directions.
All the Congress Members of Legislative Assembly, who created a ruckus in the Gujarat assembly on Tuesday over the water crisis facing many parts of the state, were suspended by Speaker Vaju Vala for a day. Leader of Opposition Shankarsinh Vaghela raised the issue of water scarcity in Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat region and demanded the suspension of Question Hour to discuss the issue.
With the Congress in power in the state and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) snapping at its heels, the BRS is now fighting an existential battle.
The polls were deferred due to the spread of coronavirus.
The Congress maintained that the state government had not ordered any such inquiry and it could be an internal matter of the CID. A top CID official has also said that no formal inquiry was ordered into the incident.
The Telangana government is examining the issue of increasing the salaries of the members of legislative assembly and the council in view of their "grossly inadequate" pay structure.
The Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly was adjourned on Tuesday with out transacting any business as members of Telangana Rashtra Samiti stalled the proceedings demanding that the House should adopt a resolution on formation of a spereate Telangana state.
A court of chief judicial magistrate granted the police 60 days to carry out the probe and directed it to provide progress reports every three weeks, public prosecutor K Balachandra Menon said.
The Trinamool Congress on Thursday refuted accusations of a police cover-up by the parents of the woman doctor who was allegedly raped and murdered, insisting that a newly surfaced video contradicts their claims by showing the family previously satisfied with the investigation.
Members of the Legislative Council asked how some former legislators could enter the Vidhan Bhavan premises amid COVID-19-related restrictions and sought a report on the matter.
Members of the Karnataka legislative assembly on Monday demanded a thorough probe into the death of chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat along with his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor on December 8.
'The CM's credibility is on the line.'
'We put the seed of BJP's ideology in Jammu, watered it, nurtured it for four decades and when it was time to reap the fruits of those efforts, the fruits are being sold out to the very same people who worked hard to uproot this tree.' 'Shockingly, our own people are letting this happen and nobody from Delhi bothers to even listen to us.'
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
The Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the responses of Ajit Pawar and his 40 MLAs on a plea moved by the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party challenging Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar's decision declaring the group led by the deputy chief minister as the real NCP.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's tally in Rajya Sabha has dipped below 90 for the first time in several years but the party and its allies are expected to not only recoup the their losses but also make some gains when by-elections to fill the existing vacancies are held in the coming weeks.
Sessions Judge and the Designated POTA Judge, Shailendra Kumar Saxena, observed that the law is same for one.
Contests in 13 seats would attract most attention during the Chhattisgarh assembly elections as they feature prominent leaders of the Congress and BJP.
Women politicians bring to politics and policy a sensitivity that most of their male counterparts, at least until a generation back, lacked.
Assembly speaker Sharingain Longkumer accepted the decision of the 21 NPF legislators to change party.
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