Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
It also allowed political parties and candidates to hold meetings and rallies with the restriction of using only 50 per cent capacity of space being relaxed.
"Former Chief Minister Mayawati and I will not contest the assembly elections," Bahujan Samaj Party member of Parliament Satish Chandra Misra told ANI.
The biggest winner will be the BJP -- which has such a small presence that every incremental vote it gets can only increase its strength. But the man who will win despite losing everything will be Captain Amarinder Singh, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
The rebel leaders met in Jalandhar when SAD chief Badal was holding a meeting with the district presidents and other leaders in Chandigarh to review the party's performance in the Lok Sabha polls.
The ED action, sources said, has been initiated after taking cognisance of a 2018 FIR of the Punjab Police against some companies and individuals alleged to be involved in illegal sand mining in the state.
Election rallies have been on for weeks, but nothing captures the immediacy of an election like the sight of candidates filing their nomination papers.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Sunday that he would resign after two days and sought early polls in the national capital while vowing not to sit in the chief minister's chair till people give him a 'certificate of honesty'.
The Congress on Friday released a list of 30 star campaigners for the February 20 Punjab Assembly elections and left out names of Tewari and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who are among the prominent members of the 'G-23' leaders who had written to the party leadership seeking an organisational overhaul.
On sensitive matters, the manifesto said a relentless struggle would be waged to secure justice for the state on issues like river water and transfer of Chandigarh and other Punjabi-speaking areas to Punjab.
Making the announcement at a press conference in Chandigarh, Sidhu, however, said he will assume charge the day Punjab will get a new advocate general.
The maharaja's win in Punjab after 10 years has also rekindled the hopes for the revival of the grand old party.
Aam Aadmi Party's Ferozepur Rural candidate Amandeep Ashu Banger on Monday quit the party and joined the ruling Congress in Punjab, alleging that Arvind Kejriwal's outfit runs like a "multinational company" with only Delhi leaders calling the shots.
Ahead of Amarinder Singh's resignation as Punjab chief minister on Saturday, over 50 Congress legislators from Punjab had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking his replacement, highly placed party sources said.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
A team of three Union ministers will hold talks on Monday with a delegation of farmer leaders, who are planning to march towards Delhi to press for their demands.
'The honourable prime minister virtually handpicked me for the Amritsar East seat.' 'Amit Shahji announced that if I am elected, the whole of Punjab will be drugs free.'
Here are some of the glimpses.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
The result is a big blow to the military establishment, revealing the limits of 'political engineering'. It reflected the anger of the electorate, especially its younger voters, who have spoken decisively against the persistent harassment and victimisation of Imran Khan's political party, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Rahul Gandhi had earlier talked to the MLAs over the phone ahead of the meeting of the AICC panel on Punjab.
Kejriwal's centralised way of governance might work in Delhi, but Punjab will call for delegation, observes Sanjeev Nayyar.
The governments of Tamil Nadu and Punjab have moved the Supreme Court alleging delay by the state governors in giving assent to bills passed by the respective state assemblies.
Channi slammed the AAP government over his date of appearance date being advanced and alleged it was part of the dispensation's "vendetta politics".
Amritpal Singh, the chief of the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit, who is lodged in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act, has thrown his hat into the ring as an Independent.
Atwal is the son of Charanjit Singh Atwal, who was the deputy speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009 and also served as the speaker of the Punjab assembly in the past.
A Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in Punjab was allegedly thrashed and his clothes torn by a group of farmers at Malout in Muktsar district on Saturday, police said.
Among these are Labh Singh Ugoke, who defeated former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi in the Bhadaur assembly segment by a margin of 37,558 votes, and Gurmeet Singh Khuddian, who beat Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal in his traditional Lambi seat by 11,396 votes.
The overall voting percentage in the bypolls to 51 assembly seats was nearly 56.84 per cent, the Election Commission said while releasing data available till 7 pm, adding that the polling passed off peacefully.
Over 56 per cent turnout was recorded on Monday in 54 assembly seats, including in Varanasi, in the seventh and last phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, marking the end of the voting process spread over two months in the crucial state.
Even as the assembly elections in Punjab are around the corner, Congress MP Preneet Kaur, wife of former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, continues to stay away from poll campaigning in Patiala.
Sidhu further said that electing a good chief minister is only in the hands of the voters of Punjab.
A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge.
Nadda enjoys warm relations with Modi, who was for a long time in charge of the party's affairs in Himachal Pradesh.
Sidhu had replaced Sunil Jhakhar as PCC chief in July this year.
The letter to Sonia Gandhi reminded her of the party's 18-point agenda "given to the last chief minister" of Punjab and said that those were "equally relevant today".
Amid speculation about a possible change of guard in the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday asserted that his state can never become Punjab, and said the two states bear only one similarity -- that of having numbers in their names.
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