The Congress is trying to discourage names pushed by senior leaders for considerations and not their ability to win, reports Renu Mittal
In Maharashtra, where the 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whereas the ruling BJP is locked in a contest with the opposition Congress and the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
Several newly elected MLAs including Navjot Singh Sidhu, Manpreet Singh Badal, Brahm Mohindra, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Rana Gurjit Singh, Pargat Singh, Razia Sultana, O P Soni are in the race for becoming ministers, party sources said.
As nominations for Rajya Sabha biennial polls closed on Tuesday, a contest is on the cards in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana even as Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram are among those set to be elected to the Upper House.
In the dock over Lalit Modi row, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje insisted that she has not been asked to resign and media was running "false" reports to tarnish her image and cause "political damage".
The tally of 114 includes two fatalities and 17 foreigners as well as 13 people who were discharged after they recovered from the infection.
India changed its stance towards Britain over Lalit Modi who has ED cases against him, and Vasundhara Raje, who gave the ruling BJP its most triumphant victory in Rajasthan, is in the dock for alleged nepotism.
Madhavrao Scindia briefly left the Congress in 1996 and was later pacified to rejoin ranks
In outgoing Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's home district Jodhpur, BJP has won nine out of ten assembly constituencies, with Gehlot the only winning candidate of the Congress party.
Rawat also said a legal framework is needed to be in place for holding simultaneous polls.
The BJP, which leads the ruling coalition at the Centre, hit right back, dismissing her allegation as 'baseless' and asserting she will be ousted from power 'democratically' after the assembly elections due next year.
'100 per cent, the BJP will form the government in Madhya Pradesh and Shivraj Singh Chouhanji will be once again chief minister.'
'Where in parliamentary democracies around the world do political parties drag Supreme Court judges in the middle marches of the night to decide who will rule?' asks Sunil Sethi.
'I was feeling so suffocated under Yogiji's rule.'
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has directed party leaders of five election-bound states to keep candidates with criminal background out.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who have extended support to the Congress to form the government in the state, were not present.
At a meeting convened by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on a range of issues ahead of Monsoon Session of Parliament, the seven chief ministers unanimously agreed to the need for filing a review petition urging the Supreme Court to reconsider its recent order rejecting the postponement of the competitive exams.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution urging the Centre to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 to protect and ensure unity and communal harmony and uphold the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution.
'Where they lose, you never ask why they failed there, like in Bihar and Punjab.' 'You are stuck on the UP victory, thinking they have the mandate to rule for all times to come.' 'The BJP has 282 MPs, but can I honestly say that the BJP is the party for everyone?'
While believing that the senior leadership does not have what it takes to resurrect the party, members at the same time are often heard repeating, "It's the Gandhi family that holds the party together". Kavita Chowdhury explains
This crisis requires political sophistication and governance skills. This BJP has neither, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Singh was among the many MPs who attended a breakfast meeting hosted by President Ram Nath Kovind on March 18 as well as a Parliamentary panel meeting on transport, tourism and culture attended by around 20 MPs on Wednesday. Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien said in a tweet, 'This government is putting us all at risk. The PM says self-isolate yourself but Parliament is on.'
'It is the moment where compassion and empathy must supersede our identity, politics, or our ambitions.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party appeared to cede ground in Uttar Pradesh where Samajwadi Party was leading on six of the 11 Assembly seats where bypolls were held while it was neck and neck with Congress in Gujarat and behind in Rajasthan, exactly four months after it swept the three states in Lok Sabha elections.
BJP won 100 wards out of 198, as the results were declared on Tuesday by the State Election Commission for the polls held on August 22.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who has been facing the opposition's pressure to quit in connection with the 'Lalitgate' may have survived the first salvo, but it remains to be seen how dexterously she manages the show in the coming days, says Prakash Bhandari.
Rawat has a short tenure in his new role, but it is likely going to be an eventful one, reports Sahil Makkar.
Gandhi accused Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik of being remote-controlled by Modi
The BJP on Thursday alleged that the CBI action against its leader Gulab Chand Kataria is nothing but a "conspiracy of CM Ashok Gehlot", who is "panicked" seeing the massive support the party is getting in poll-bound Rajasthan.
People close to the erstwhile royal family underline that Jyotiraditya Scindia is neither as accessible nor as unpretentious as his father.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot, who was recently appointed the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee chief, says people are disenchanted with the Vasundhara Raje government.
Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha appear to be inching closer towards forming an alternative government in Jharkhand which has been under President's Rule imposed after fall of the Arjun Munda government on January 8.
Elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will see the BJP and Congress in direct contest.
Amid raging Lalitgate row, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Friday cancelled her visit to Punjab where she would have come face-to-face with Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah for the first time since the damaging revelations.
Biennial elections are being held for 58 Rajya Sabha seats across several states and by-poll for one in Kerala.
Farmer leaders on Monday started their day-long hunger strike against the Centre's new farm laws and said protests will be held at all district headquarters later in the day, even as more people are expected to join the ongoing agitation at Delhi border points.
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
Questioning the progress of the investigation in the chopper deal, Kejriwal alleged that there hasn't been an "inch" of movement on the probe, despite the Modi government coming to power on the assurances that the corrupt will be taken to task.
For a party that has adopted the successful social re-engineering model from Gujarat, Rajasthan and across the rest of the 'Hindi belt' over the past decades, Tamil Nadu continues to remain a tricky customer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Accusing the Congress of failing the country's farmers and soldiers, Narendra Modi on Monday said the ruling party should be given such a "farewell" that India does not see it in power "for seven generations".
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