Patel, 71, the quintessential backroom strategist for the Congress, died at a Gurugram hospital in the early hours of Wednesday due to multiple organ failure more than a month after he tested positive for COVID-19.
A down-to-the-wire contest is likely in some of the seats in the high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in seven states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana, where the fate of candidates including senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and senior lawyer R K Anand is being decided on Saturday.
A lot is riding on the Rajya sabha polls that are scheduled for Saturday. Major parties are whisking away candidates of other parties, while protecting their own, MLAs are being sent to 'camps' in the final countdown to the polls for 57 seats. Here is a state-by-state look:
The hits and misses of the week.
Even as Akhilesh Yadav has emerged stronger in Uttar Pradesh politics, the Samajwadi Party has become weaker due to family feud, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
Ruling Samajwadi Party appeared to be headed for a split on Sunday as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his party supremo and father Mulayam Singh were engaged in an open face-off, sacking each other's loyalists Shivpal Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav.
Dr Lagoo, who was a trained ENT surgeon, played important role in the growth of theatre movement in Maharashtra in post-Independence era.
'In an alliance, you are forced to overlook loyal workers.' 'It sends a negative message and workers turn against the party.' 'I have forbidden this alliance.'
While all political parties have been talking about following in the footsteps of the debutant Aam Admi Party by fielding fresh faces in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-U leader Nitish Kumar has set the ball rolling by deciding not to renominate his party's three sitting MPs in the coming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha scheduled for February 7. Anita Katyal reports.
A 15 per cent corporate tax rate for services companies in SEZs, setting up a fund for deep-tech startups and establishing clusters to demonstrate design-to-manufacturing capabilities of tech firms were some of the key demands made by the IT sector at the pre-Budget consultation on Monday. The participants shared their views and suggestions regarding Big Data, incentives for encouraging setting up of data centres, fiscal incentives for data localisation, incentives for pushing digital penetration in rural areas, and corporate guarantee to startups for competing with other nations.
The action unfolds on Bigg Boss 10.
A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man, Manohar Lal Khattar toiled on the ground to build the organisation for last four decades till he was handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lead the first Bharatiya Janata Party government in Haryana.
The deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended on Friday afternoon.
While several opposition parties criticised the move, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the Parliament session is being held under special and extraordinary circumstances.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be the deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha.
The sudden exit of Yogesh Agarwal as the chairman of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, or PFRDA, has once again brought the relationship between financial sector regulators and the finance ministry into sharp focus.
Maharashtra registered over 64 per cent voter turnout while a record 76 pc polling in Haryana, which witnessed stray incidents of violence, in the first eight hours of polling on Wednesday in the riveting contest to elect assemblies in the two states.
'I have only this to say to those who talk about Mewar rulers and Akbar's brutality -- do you expect a king to not expand his kingdom?' 'You have entire cities named after Muslim rulers. It's time our heroes got their due.'
Mahipal, who has worked with actresses like Madhubala and Meena Kumari, established himself as a hero in the mythological genre.
The fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections will go to polls on April 29. The voting will be held for 71 seats spread across 9 states.
'Tanhaji has so much fun recreating a bygone legend and fictionalising history, authenticity and spellings, it gets infectious,' feels Sukanya Verma.
Singh was widely regarded as an expert in the rural and agricultural landscape of the country and is credited with the conceptualisation and implementation of the NREGA (National Rural Guarantee Employment) Act.
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The student front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has blotted its CV by allegedly instigating and engaging in violence on marquee campuses like JNU and Hyderabad Central University
Opposition parties on Thursday launched a vociferous attack on the Centre over its handling of the farmers' agitation, callings its dialogues with the protestors 'monologues', even as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party defended the new laws asserting that its government is committed to the welfare of peasants and increase their incomes.
Manohar Lal Khattar is a low profile Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader who is known for his quiet work on the field and in the BJP that has earned him the reputation of a tough task master with a no-nonsense approach.
Punjab politics has produced a dog's breakfast on the river waters issue. Except, you'd see even dogs eat better, says Shekhar Gupta.
India's dominance went uncontested for the fifth successive day at the 12th South Asian Games, as its shooters, wushu players and track-and-field athletes annihilated competition to sweep most of the gold medals up for grabs, in Guwahati, on Wednesday.
From President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit to Rahul and Varun Gandhi, at least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by 'sons and daughters' of politicians of various parties during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, key BJP ally skips event to mark first year of Yogi govt.
The highest winning margin was registered by BJP candidate Subhash Chandra Baheria in Bhilwara who defeated Congress candidate Ram Pal Sharma with a margin of 6,12,000 votes.
Filmmaker Prakash Jha opens up about his life.
'Imagine a situation where an upright officer refuses to carry out a chief minister's or a central minister's orders that he considers wrong.' 'Can he be summarily thrashed at a meeting at your residence, or in his own office?' 'If AAP legitimises political violence, there are many, many, tougher political leaders elsewhere to draw the wrong lessons,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
When we bought weapons-like the Bofors gun previously purchased, no one went and brought them while showing off, Kharge said.
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
The top posts on social media from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
As we eagerly wait to see what 'farq' it makes when it hits the screens on June 28, Sukanya Verma looks at the few occasions caste came up in Hindi movies.
Out to prove his critics wrong, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda says it's not anti-incumbency but pro-incumbency that will work in his favour and give him a third term.
Smita Patil would have been 60 on October 17 had fate not cruelly snatched her from us in 1986. She was only 31 when she died. Rediff.com salutes the incomparable actress in a special series.
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