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.
The family of Divya Pandey, 24, who claimed she had cracked the civil services examination in her maiden attempt, on Friday apologised to the district administration and Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL), both of which felicitated her, as well as the media for furnishing erroneous information of her success and said it was an 'inadvertent error'.
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.
Nearly 13.04 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 9 am on Wednesday in 43 assembly constituencies in Jharkhand where voting is underway in the first phase, officials said.
A BSF head constable was killed in unprovoked firing by Pakistan Rangers along the International Border (IB) in the Ramgarh sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district early Thursday, officials said.
Two people identified as Mohammad Mudassir Kaifi and Mohammad Sahil died and over two dozen people were injured in protests and subsequent clashes that rocked the state capital on Friday over the remarks made by two suspended Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries against Prophet Mohammad, officials said.
Officials said the polling went off peacefully in all segments including special polling stations along the International Border and Line of Control (LoC) with no untoward incident reported from anywhere.
Amid the scorching heat, with temperatures soaring between 47 and 50 degrees Celsius, irregular electricity supply has added fuel to the fire, aggravating problems for people, farmers, and the industrial sector. While the state's Bhajan Lal Sharma-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government claims to be improving the power supply, the opposition is trying to corner the government on the issue. Amid all this, undeclared power cuts are continuing in districts including the capital, that are already facing power cuts.
The ruling Mahayuti is poised to retain power in Maharashtra with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) also putting up a strong show in assembly polls, most exit polls predicted on Wednesday after conclusion of polling on 288 seats in the state. Jharkhand is likely to see a change of government with BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coming to power in the state, three exit polls said on Wednesday with one poll giving majority to the ruling JMM-led alliance.
More than 40 per cent of the 908 candidates contesting the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are Independents, leading to claims that a large number of them have been propped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party to divide votes.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
Maoists on Monday blew up railway tracks at two different places in Jharkhand as they began a day-long strike in three states to protest price rise and corruption.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
The minister further said that he has full faith in our judiciary and that those who are innocent would be spared while the guilty would be appropriately punished.
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The BJP has emerged the second largest party by winning 29 constituencies in the maiden assembly polls post abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, improving its all-time high tally of 25 seats recorded in 2014 elections.
As part of the heightened security arrangements in view of Modi's visit, the officials said, the BSF and the police conducted a joint two-hour-long anti-tunnelling operation in the Ramgarh sector of Samba district.
The situation in the district worsened on Friday with the flames reaching the high court colony in the Pines area.
There was no traditional exchange of sweets and pleasantries between the two sides along the International Border, the officials said, attributing it to the tense situation following the recent ceasefire violations by Pakistan Rangers that left a Border Security Force jawan dead.
Officials said the BSF personnel manning the border outpost in Makwal came under fire from across the border, prompting a strong retaliation.
In four seats in the coming Rajasthan assembly polls, relatives have been pitted against each other, which includes a husband contesting his wife and nieces up against their uncles.
The infiltration attempts were scuttled by the alert troops in Arnia sector of Jammu and Ramgarh sector in Samba district in the early hours of the day, the BSF spokesperson said.
The fifth accused in the case was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Sixteen people in five Jharkhand districts have been killed by a tusker in the past 12 days, with four in a single block of Ranchi district on Tuesday, forest officials said.
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.
After a day-long lull, Pakistani rangers violated ceasefire again by targeting border posts in Kathua and Samba sectors, drawing retaliation from the Border Security Force.
As bodies are being continually pulled out of the muck-filled power project tunnel in Tapovan, the atmosphere outside is getting grimmer with families of the missing people losing hope of seeing them alive.
'Nitish Kumar is fooling the people of Bihar.' 'He will not probe anything because if he does so, he will be trapped himself.'
The Khalistan sympathiser, who is yet to be nabbed, escaped the police's net in Jalandhar district on March 18, switching vehicles and changing his appearance.
The Congress on Thursday secured a seat in the present Bengal assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas won the Sagardighi bypoll, defeating the nearest rival of the Trinamool Congress by 22,980 votes.
This classification of districts is to be followed by states and union terrotories till a week post May 3, when the second phase of lockdown will end, for containment operations.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren, the son of Jharkhand architect Shibu Soren, took the reins of the state as chief minister on Sunday, a week after a three-party coalition, led by him, swept the assembly polls, bagging 47 seats in the 81-member assembly. This will be Soren's second stint as the chief minister of the tribal state. His first had lasted for just about 14 months since July 15 2013.
His first stint as chief minister of the tribal state had lasted for just about 14 months since July 15, 2013.
The Congress president also came down heavily on the BJP over the Adani issue.
'My adrenalin kicked in and the happiness returned! It was time to go in for the kill again.' IAF Veterans Group Captain Dilip Kumar Dass tells Air Commodore Nitin Sathe about how the IAF decimated tanks in the famous Battle of Longewala.
The Kumaon region, under which Nainital falls, has been the worst hit by the rains which began Sunday night, killing at least 46 people in the state as houses collapsed and bridges were washed away by swollen rivers.
'The main accused was acquitted by the court while the sentence awarded to the others is less. They should have been given strict punishment'
On February 24, India and Pakistan released a joint statement saying that they have held discussions regarding establishing a mechanism for hotline contact among both nations.
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