The State Election Commission on Friday informed the Calcutta high court that it has requisitioned 822 companies of central forces for the July 8 panchayat polls in West Bengal.
There was no immediate response from the Aam Aadmi Party over the matter.
As many as 22 Patiala corporators and Congress leaders joined former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh's new party Punjab Lok Congress at a party event on Friday ahead of the assembly elections next year.
The party wants to give time to Sidhu, but if he does not agree, then strict steps can be taken, the sources said.
SS Randhawa mentioned Modi's statement 'ghar me ghus ke marenge' and asked how did the Pulwama terror attack take place then.
Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday met senior party leaders at the AICC headquarters and said he has full faith in the leadership of party chief Sonia Gandhi and any decision taken by her will be acceptable.
The Congress disciplinary committee had on April 11 given a show-cause notice to Jakhar for alleged anti-party activities and sought a reply within a week.
Amid the factional feud in the Punjab Congress, Sidhu will be meeting All India Congress Committee general secretary Harish Rawat and senior party leader K C Venugopal on October 14 for a discussion on organisational matters related to the party's state unit.
A few former MLAs, considered to be his loyalists and a few supporters, turned up at Sidhu's residence in Patiala Friday morning to extend moral support to him.
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.
A dominant force in the country's politics for decades, the grand old party's free fall continued as it lost Punjab to AAP and finished with just two seats out of 403 in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.
According to sources, Sonia Gandhi took a jibe on party leaders, "You all are sitting together right but otherwise you don't even talk to each other."
In its first list of 86 candidates, the Congress on Saturday gave the ticket to party MLA Gurpreet Singh GP from Bassi Pathana (SC) seat.
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for the Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is 'in the ICU' and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
The BJP lashed out at the Congress for its "promotion of violence" and dubbed its yatra as "Bharat Todo Yatra".
A court in Varanasi on Monday convicted gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the murder of Congress leader Awadhesh Rai more than 30 years ago.
He said a detailed schedule of the Yatra for J&K is being worked out in consultation with the agencies concerned, especially the security establishment.
While Karnataka Congress chief D K Sivakumar will be special observer in Goa, party general secretary Mukul Wasnik and Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo besides Vincent Pala have been deputed in Manipur for post-poll management, the sources said.
The Congress, however, said state chiefs are free to take their decisions within the party's norms and constitution.
The electoral fortunes of top leaders-- Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the BJP, Congress heavyweights Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar and JD-S' H D Kumaraswamy, among many others will be known on Saturday.
Pawar said even during the Emergency years there was a feeling in political circles that nothing would change for the next 25 years, but people ushered in change the very next year in 1977.
Reacting to TMC's jibe, West Bengal Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said "agents of BJP" should not advise the party how to fight against the saffron camp.
Though the Congress lost the battle in 2007 to the Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance, it hopes to regain power in Punjab this year. The party, which is banking on the anti-incumbency factor, believes it "will throw Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and Bhartiya Janata Party out of power".
Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that 78 party legislators had sought Singh's ouster in a letter to the central leadership and it was not party president Sonia Gandhi who made him quit.
Prashant Kishor expressed the view that the recent 'chintan shivir' could not achieve "anything meaningful".
"Dear Naddaji, Stop losing cool and all sense of propriety. Please remember -- 10,000 security personnel were deployed for PM's rally. All arrangements were made in tandem with SPG and other agencies," Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday promised to restore the old pension scheme for government employees in Himachal Pradesh if the Congress was voted to power in the assembly elections.
'As Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Delhi, on 24th December 2022, the security of the Bharat Jodo Yatra was compromised on multiple occasions'
With six days to go for state assembly polls in Punjab, political parties have intensified their campaign in the state. The outgoing ruling alliance of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) and Bhartiya Janata Party is banking on Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and L K Advani to regain the power in the state.
'Congress will try to use Malerkotla to woo Muslim votes in UP. Muslims across the country have definitely taken note of this move in Punjab. But they vote only for a party that can defeat the BJP. The Congress doesn't seem to be capable of doing that'
If the party is unable to do well in Gujarat and Karnataka polls, it could lose this status in the subsequent binneial elections to the upper House.
At a press conference in Pakhal village in Faridabad, Ramesh said, "This whole Covid drama over the last two days has been orchestrated to defame and derail the Bharat Jodo Yatra from coming to Delhi. That's the only objective."
Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday said the state must concentrate on real issues that concern every Punjabi even as MP Manish Tewari said he never saw "such chaos and anarchy" being played out in the party's state unit.
After the party's drubbing in the just-concluded assembly polls in five states, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked its state unit chiefs in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur to put in their papers.
Congress leaders and workers continued their protests in several states on Thursday against Rahul Gandhi's questioning by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald money-laundering case with many of them taken into preventive custody including former Union minister Renuka Chowdhury in Hyderabad after she allegedly grabbed the collar of a police official.
Kumar leaves in the midst of assembly polls in five states and ahead of the February 20 election in Punjab.
After the Congress' poor performance in all five states where Assembly elections were held, party workers staged a protest outside the party's headquarters, alleging that democracy was being "murdered" through EVMs.
Gujarat voters, spoilt for choice, are eagerly waiting to see what the BJP will offer them.
On the eve of the meeting hosted by it, the Congress clarified that it will oppose the ordinance on Delhi services in Parliament, a key condition put by the AAP to attend the talks.
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