Sacked Rajasthan minister Rajendra Gudha on Wednesday made public three pages of the purported "red diary" which he has claimed contains the details of financial misdeeds of the Congress government and cited their contents to allege corruption in Rajasthan Cricket Association election.
The Congress has projected unity to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in the assembly polls in Rajasthan but "core issues" between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot remain unresolved, according to sources close to Pilot.
After much flip-flop, the Congress decided to form an alliance with the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) and the two parties fielded their joint candidate -- Rajkumar Roat. However, the Congress candidate, Arvind Damor, whose name was announced before the stitching of the alliance, has refused to withdraw his nomination.
'I gave enough evidence and proof to punish corrupt officials.' 'But my own government has not filed any FIR against such officials.'
Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari and Jaipur Rural MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore are among the seven BJP parliamentarians who will contest the Rajasthan Assembly polls, according to the first list of 41 candidates issued by the party on Monday.
Congress leader Ajay Maken has written to party president Mallikarjun Kharge, expressing his unwillingness to continue as the in-charge of Rajasthan, sources said on Wednesday.
'There is ample evidence to suggest that attacks on the PM's probity and his connections with business houses do not resonate with voters.'
'I clearly recall how you immediately directed your administration to identify and allocate land, water, and other clearances in the shortest time possible.' 'That was the fastest decision-making process I have ever witnessed.'
According to a complaint lodged by the woman's husband, Shakoor Khan broke into their home on Thursday and raped his wife when she was alone.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Joshi, Congress MLA from Hawa Mahal, however, rejected the allegations and called for a fair probe into the case.
The complaint mentions "Gajendra Singh" but does not say if it pertains to the Union minister.
Venugopal said a decision on the Rajasthan chief minister would be taken by Sonia in a day or two.
While Gehlot is learnt to be leading the race for chief minister's post, Pilot is also putting up stiff resistance and is staking his claim.
Sources said the leadership of the government going forward, if Gehlot is elected as party chief, is likely to be on the meeting agenda.
Supporters of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot on Thursday got into a scuffle with each other ahead of a feedback meeting with the party workers in Ajmer, the police said.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday said the Congress stands 'badly exposed' in front of people for promising to them what the party knows it will never be able to deliver.
Gaurav Gogoi will head the screening committee for Rajasthan with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot included among the ex-officio members of the panel.
Congress observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken on Monday briefed party president Sonia Gandhi about the developments in Rajasthan and are expected to submit a written report about the crisis in the party's state unit latest by Tuesday.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi met Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot separately.
Pilot said the Congress was reduced to 21 seats in the 2013 assembly elections, but the people gave it a mandate in the 2018 elections.
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.
Many states are realising that hosting mega events puts the spotlight on them and raises their profile.
Union Minister and State President of the Congress party Sachin Pilot is the top performing Member of Parliament among the 25 MPs of Rajasthan.
These are the 15 seats to watch out for in Rajasthan where assembly elections will be held on November 23. The state has 200 constituencies.
The BTP chief said the party is now extending support to Gehlot after an assurance that its demands related to the development of tribal areas will be met.
'There is some deep rot that has set in the Congress party. This requires an organisational surgery.'
The doctors' bodies said that the two sides reached consensus during talks with the state government agreeing to keep private hospitals that have not availed land at subsidised rates or other benefits from it outside the ambit of the proposed law.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
Among the candidates who were leading were Congress's Sachin Pilot in Ajmer, Jitendra Singh in Alwar, Seeshram Ola in Jhunjhunu, Namo Narayan Meena in Tonk-Sawaimadhopur, C P Joshi in Bhilwara and Girija Vyas in Chittorgarh
Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria issued an order stating Kushwah voted for Tiwari despite a whip and that she was being suspended from the BJP's primary membership.
The meeting was attended by CMs of Kerala, Punjab and Telangana -- Pinarayi Vijayan, Bhagwant Manna and A Revanth Reddy, Karnataka deputy CM DK Shivakumar, and senior BRS leader KT Ramarao among others.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
First-time MLA Rekha Gupta will be the new chief minister of Delhi, capping 11 days of suspense over who will get the top post after the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power after over 26 years ending the 10-year rule of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party.
'Each state is unique, but when it comes to finance, the fundamentals cannot be different.'
'We are not opposed to any Indian language. We are against Hindi imposition.'
