Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's bypoll win in four of the six seats it contested has invigorated the party ahead of assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Temples across Uttar Pradesh were packed with devotees on Sunday for Ram Navami, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath leading prayers at the Gorakhnath Temple. Heavy crowds were witnessed at temples in Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi, where security was heightened. In Gorakhpur, Adityanath performed the traditional kanya pujan ritual, while in Varanasi, a 51-foot statue of Lord Ram has become a major attraction. The festival was celebrated with enthusiastic fervor across the state.
Legislators of the ruling coalition partners in Jharkhand expressed solidarity with the Hemant Soren government on Wednesday and said the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader will continue as the chief minister.
Refusing renomination to 14 more sitting MLAs, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday night came out with its second list of 99 party candidates for Bihar assembly polls.
The charge sheet has been filed before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Delhi and the court has listed the matter to be heard on January 16, the sources said.
The Congress on Sunday demanded a thorough probe into Siddique's murder and said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who holds home portfolio, should take moral responsibility for law and order "failure" and resign.
The BJP sought to distance itself from its leader's sexist comments.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
Kumar remarked that the Congress could have done the needful while the United Progressive Alliance, led by it, ruled the country for two consecutive terms.
It was soon after that call that Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav spoke to each other.
'BJP's ultimate ambition is to control Bihar independently.'
A lacklustre show by the Congress in Bihar seems to have proved costly for the opposition grand alliance, as it dragged down the RJD too from government formation in the Hindi heartland state.
Bihar assembly speaker Uday Narain Choudhary, who is contesting Lok Sabha polls from the Jamui seat, refuted on Friday that he entered into a pact with the Maoists for their support to win the election.
However, the Congress asserted that its coalition government led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morchais "completely secure and stable'' and would complete its term.
Sambia denied that he was behind the wheel of the brand new Audi and also failed to answer questions about the other people with him during the mishap.
Many bahubalis have fielded their wives and relatives as proxies.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
Stating that the ruling coalition is ready to face any situation, Congress leader and minister Banna Gupta requested the governor to clear the confusion.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
People had also started gathering at Mukhtar Ansari's residence in Ghazipur and there was a large deployment of security personnel around the house.
Bihar Assembly Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari on Wednesday accused outgoing Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha of having "insulted Dalits" by denying him the opportunity to conduct proceedings of the House after stepping down.
The young RJD leader is yet to earn the trust of the crowd and many senior party members believe he is no patch on his father.
'Every district office of the party celebrated his exit by distributing sweets and bursting crackers.'
'I will study at a private English medium school and become an IAS officer, my aim is clear.'
After a dream debut seven years ago when he was sworn in as deputy chief minister after being elected MLA for the first time was followed by a slump in his political fortunes, Tejashwi Yadav has finally come back to center-stage as the kingmaker and deputy to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
A Muslim man used to work on the tandoor at my restaurant. But due to this issue, I asked him to leave. Because people can make an issue over it. We don't want such trouble here
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday won four seats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal retained the Mokama assembly seat in the bypolls to seven assembly constituencies in six states.
Kumar is reported to have made the Rajya Sabha remark during an informal chat with some journalists who had asked him about his recent tour of areas falling under the now abolished Barh Lok Sabha constituency which he had represented many times.
'The NDA has provided me a healing touch to survive'
The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader had made the allegation in a tweet on Sunday wherein he had also launched a veiled attack on a sitting Congress MLA, who had shot off a letter to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, seeking return of Rs 50 lakh released from his local area development fund.
They entered the Bihar poll battle to protect and carry forward their fathers' political legacy, but many of them could not win their own seat though some tasted victory.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
'The Muslims in Karnataka are safe and secure. The state government belongs to everybody.'
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
"I am neither afraid nor worried. Rather I am emerging stronger. If people of Jharkhand wish, opponents will not find a place to hide," Soren said while addressing JMM workers near his residence.
While Rahul loyalists were keen that he be given the post, a leader known to be close to him said, "If he does not become the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, then he should quit politics."
In the tweet, Yadav had claimed that the result in the assembly segment of Araria district proved that Kumar owed the success of his party in 2015 assembly polls to the alliance with the RJD and not the other way round.
Several Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly have declared cases in which they have been charged with inciting communal tension. The Association for Democratic Reforms in a report gives details of elected representatives with such charges.
