The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
Noting that the Bahujan Samaj Party had held a dialogue with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the past, Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said no decision on the Mayawati-led party's inclusion in Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc can be taken until there is clarity on whose side she is on.
AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said its top leadership will take a call on attending the Mumbai meeting of the opposition bloc INDIA, following the statement by Lamba.
National Democratic Alliance constitutent Janata Dal (United) on Friday advocated a cautious approach for the Opposition alliance on Presidential election downplaying former President APJ Abdul Kalam's visit to Patna, saying no politics should be read into it.
According to the sources, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, ex-Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, CPI national secretary D Raja, Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh leader and grandson of Dr BR Ambedkar, Prakash, and retired diplomat Gopal Krishna Gandhi are some of the probable contenders whose names the Opposition parties are considering.
The JD-U leader's outbursts met with disapproval from the RJD as well as ally BJP, leaving the party to fend for itself.
'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday returned to power in Delhi after more than 26 years to sweep away the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party with a two-thirds majority on the back of a hyper localised campaign and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'AAP-da'(disaster) blitzkrieg.
Govt ready to discuss issues of public importance: Azad
The TDP and the LJP also supported the Bill being sent to a parliamentary committee for further examination.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
The RJD will give one seat to the CPI-ML from its quota and former JD-U president Sharad Yadav will contest on RJD symbol.
Top leaders of the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) held talks in an informal setting in Mumbai on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The alliance will resume its boycott of Parliament indefinitely from Tuesday protesting against the United Progressive Alliance government's 'hostile and vindictive' attitude.
It also cautioned that if the legislation is passed, the "two crutches" on which the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is running at the Centre would not be able to escape responsibility.
P A Sangma, the Opposition candidate for the Presidential poll, on Thursday filed his nomination papers in the presence of leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party, some National Democratic Alliance allies, Biju Janata Dal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, northeast states and tribal legislators in New Delhi.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari, parliamentary party chief L K Advani and Leader of Opposition of both Houses of Parliament will finalise the strategy for Presidential and Vice Presidential elections and discuss the issue with the National Democratic Alliance partners.
Flanked by the Trinamool Congress chief, Naidu attacked the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre alleging that institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department, Reserve Bank of India and Comptroller Auditor General are under "severe pressure".
Zoramthanga said people fleeing from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Manipur feel safe in Mizoram which is ruled by his party.
Most exit polls on Sunday forecast another term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with some of them projecting that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance will get more than 300 seats to comfortably cross the majority mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.
The road for the Opposition is full of 'ifs' and 'buts', reports Sunil Gatade.
Reconciling with division within the National Democratic Alliance over Presidential poll, Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday announced its support to P A Sangma to pit him against United Progressive Alliance candidate Pranab Mukherjee.
Ruptures in the opposition unity emerged barely a week after 17 parties joined hands to put up a joint candidate against the ruling National Democratic Alliance nominee for the July 17 presidential election.
The Janata Dal-United on Friday virtually put its foot down on the issue of the National Democratic Alliance taking any stand on Abdul Kalam, projected as Presidential candidate by the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress, following which the opposition alliance deferred its decision.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi asserted that the Congress will protect the Constitution and the reservation system at all costs and foil "conspiracies" of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
"There are double standards with which the House is being run. There is a disregard of the Opposition," Malhotra said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
"The Opposition should introspect before resorting to such political opportunism. They raised prices of petrol 21 times, that of diesel 24 times and that of liquefied petroleum gas five times when the National Democratic Alliance was in power," party spokesman Manish Tewari said.
The National Democratic Alliance could not have got a candidate for vice-presidential poll with more gravitas than Jaswant Singh, a former army officer who has headed finance, defence and external affairs ministries, authored books and even served as Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
The government on Tuesday conceded the opposition demand for having 30 members in the Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum issue, giving up its earlier plan for a 21-member panel to accommodate smaller parties like All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, sources said.
Unsure about having the numbers in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and other parties have decided they will create awareness about the "divisive" nature of the proposed legislation, reports Archis Mohan.
The Indian National Lok Dal on Sunday rejoined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and announced that it will contest the coming Lok Sabha elections in Haryana in alliance with the BJP.
They lodged their protest against the inclusion of 'tainted' ministers in the United Progressive Alliance government.
According to sources, all the three Shiv Sena MPs in the Rajya Sabha have been allocated seats on the opposition side, while in the Lok Sabha it is yet to be done.
Declaring that the United Progressive Alliance government had lost the moral authority to continue, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Singh said the only way the opposition could compel the government to quit was for the National Democratic Alliance MPs to resign en masse.
The 17th Lok Sabha, which was dissolved on June 5, did not have a deputy speaker for its full term, and it was the second consecutive term of the lower house without an LoP.
Opposition leaders will also meet the Election Commission and raise the issue of tallying the paper trail of votes with the electronic voting machine figures as directed by the Supreme Court.
Armed with the Wikileaks expose about 2008 trust vote, the Opposition ON Thursday closed ranks in demanding the immediate resignation of the government, contending that it has lost moral right to continue as the country's democracy has been "maligned".
