Voting for the presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint Opposition pick Yashwant Sinha began at 10 am and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to cast his vote followed by BJP President JP Nadda.
The 78-year-old Naveen is on the cusp of creating history. He must win the forthcoming Assembly polls to become India's longest-serving chief minister, a record held by Sikkim's Pawan Kumar Chamling.
Opposition parties have not been given the chairmanship of any of the four key parliamentary panels including the committee on home affairs and information technology, which were with the Congress, in the latest rejig announced on Tuesday.
Here's all you need to know about the man who could be India's next president.
The Shiromani Akali Dal skipped the meeting, besides the Aam Aadmi Party, the TRS and the BJD.
"Our nation has given me the mandate for the presidency," Erdogan said in a victory speech in Istanbul, noting his declaration was based on unofficial results. "I would like to congratulate our nation once again. This has been another test of democracy and we have passed this test successfully," CNN quoted the Turkish president as saying.
"The game is not yet over. Even parties like the Samajwadi Party, which lost the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, has more MLAs than it had last time," she said.
'When the Executive can do whatever they want, why bother having an election?'
Mamata Banerjee's sights are not on the next month's Presidential election. She is focusing on another election that will take place in 2024.
Speaking to media after meeting party functionaries at Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee office in Mumbai, the former diplomat also said his aim was to make Congress stronger before the 2024 polls.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
RJD president Lalu Prasad will not attend the celebrations due to ill health.
"I am contesting the organisational election. There is a saying 'Bakrid mein bachenge toh Muharram mein nachenge'. First, let these elections get over and let me become president, then we will see," Kharge said at a press conference held at Pradesh Congress Committee office in Bhopal.
The Opposition candidate in the July 18 presidential polls, Yashwant Sinha, held his first campaign strategy meeting on Wednesday at the Nationalist Congress Party office in New Delhi and said a "rubberstamp President" will not work in the country.
Thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets since April 9, as the government ran out of money for vital imports; prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed and there are acute shortages in fuel, medicines and electricity supply.
Ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's floor test, Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary on Thursday granted the status of principal opposition party to the Janata Dal-United in place of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which slammed the move as "arbitrary".
Celebrations broke out outside the Rajasthan BJP headquarters in Jaipur and the party workers burst firecrackers and distributed sweets as Murmu emerged victorious in the presidential poll.
At 64, the woman who will be India's 15th president, taking over from Ram Nath Kovind, will also be the youngest and India's first President to be born after Independence.
The Delhi services bill that entails the creation of an authority for the transfer and posting of Group-A officers in the national capital and gives the central government primacy over such appointments has received presidential assent.
"He is also from RSS ranks. He was president of Dalit BJP Morcha... Sangh Pariwar organisation. Definitely, we will put up a candidate. Anybody from RSS... we will fight," CPI General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy said.
Senior Congress leader M Mallikarjun Kharge is not averse to running for the AICC president's election if party chief Sonia Gandhi asks him to contest, sources close to the veteran leader said on Wednesday.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday questioned Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in a money laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper and summoned her for a second round of questioning in the case on July 25.
Sri Lankans celebrated Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation as president, but they will understandably be concerned about the outcome of Wednesday's presidential election.
Sajith Premadasa, the 55-year-old leader of Sri Lanka's principal opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya, said on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the race of President to provide support to Alahapperuma.
Sri Lanka's embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, under immense pressure from the public and the Opposition to quit over the island nation's worst economic crisis, said on Thursday that the abolition of the executive presidency, a move that will curb his powers, will be considered by Parliament.
What would an Indian American president of the US look like, sound like and act like, especially on issues and policies pertaining to his or her 'mother-land'?, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Malik said that there has been no such talk in the party or with other parties.
The recently held presidential election and the historic victory of Droupadi Murmu are likely to create political ripples in Kerala as the NDA candidate received an unexpected vote from the southern state.
In a letter to Sonia Gandhi, he alleged that he was forced to resign as some Congress leaders were conspiring against him.
Glimpses of the continued protests in Sri Lanka against the worsening economic conditions and the Rajapaksas.
The first time most of us heard of Droupadi Murmu was when she was appointed governor of Jharkhand, where by all accounts she impressed Prime Minister N D Modi with her dignified and measured six-year tenure in the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi. So much so that Modi picked her as the National Democratic Alliance's Presidential candidate.
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.
'There was trust, but perhaps there was also this apprehension that given the supreme post of prime minister, Sonia Gandhi felt her authority may be a challenged.'
Pawar said it will complete its full five-year term and ruled out going with the BJP, in case the state government falls.
Rajapaksa's decision was to ensure public security and maintain essential services so as to ensure a smooth functioning of the country, the presidential media division said.
With numbers on its side -- the ruling NDA has about half the votes of the electoral college -- and the possible support of fence-sitters like the BJD, the AIADMK and the YSRCP, the NDA candidate will likely sail through the contest.
Singh met the party MP from Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday after collecting nomination papers for the polls.
The monsoon session of Parliament got off to a stormy start on Monday leading to adjournment of the two Houses without transacting much business following an opposition uproar over issues ranging from price rise to the Agnipath scheme.
Under constant attack from within his own Conservative party and the Opposition Labour party since the start of 2022, the war in Ukraine has come to Boris's rescue.
"I will always strive to enhance democratic values of country," Dhankhar said after filing his nomination.
