A delegation of 21 Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc MPs will pay a two-day visit to Manipur beginning Saturday to assess the ground situation first-hand and then make recommendations to the government and Parliament for a solution to the problems in the violence-hit state.
The Congress-led opposition stepped up its attack on Friday against the government over the Adani row and demanded that there should be a thorough investigation into what they alleged was a 'mega scam' as it involved public money.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, whose Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday retained Mokama assembly seat but failed to wrest from the Bharatiya Janata Party Gopalganj constituency, losing it by a whisker, asserted that the outcome marked a success of their 'experiment'.
In a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, Chirag Paswan on Sunday cast aside his ambivalence and announced that he will campaign for the saffron party in bypolls to two assembly segments in the state.
Rajya Sabha member and Congress leader, Rasheed Masood, was sentenced to four years in jail by a Delhi court in a corruption case on Tuesday, becoming the first MP to lose his seat after a recent Supreme Court judgment had removed the immunity for convicted lawmakers.
A special court in Siwan, Bihar awarded life imprisonment to jailed former Rashtriya Janata Dal Member of Parliament Mohammad Shahabuddin and three others on Friday, finding them guilty of abduction and murder of two brothers 11 years ago.
Nitish Kumar had a week's time to prove his majority, but Laloo Yadav made full use of Siwan don Mohammad Shahabuddin. A revealing excerpt from Rajesh Singh's Baahubalis Of Indian Politics: From Bullet To Ballot.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has come out with its own complaint against the marriage.
Prime suspect Mohammed Kaif is in judicial custody after he surrendered in a Siwan court on September 21.
Dr Sanjeev Gupta, medical director at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram said that the founder of the Samajwadi Party is being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital by a comprehensive team of specialists.
Bharti accused the media of distorting her statement, attributing it to the BJP's agenda.
The conference was seen by many as a show of strength by the Opposition with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav joining in to raise their voice against oppression of backward classes.
Various opposition parties like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Communist Party of India, and the Communist Party of India-Marxist raised vociferous protests in the upper house while opposing the resolution and the bill.
The opposition leaders are expected to meet at Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge's office in the Parliament complex around 10 am, sources said.
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.
Modi will start his Sunday election tour with a rally in Chapra, the political bastion of Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad. As per the itinerary, from Chapra he will go to Samastipur to address a public meeting in Housing Board ground, then at Gandhi maidan in Motihari and will end the campaign trip with a rally in Bagaha.
This is the first full-scale review of VIP protectees by the Union home ministry after the Modi 2.0 government took charge.
Cong leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, former Prez Pranab Mukherjee, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav as well as CMs of six states to be present at the occasion.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
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.
Disgruntled Janata Dal-United leader Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, less than two years after returning to the party, and announced formation of the 'Rashtriya Loktantrik Janata Dal'.
In a bid to embarrass Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, Nitish Kumar has invited 'bujurg' Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani to attend his oath-taking ceremony.
'The non-biological PM's capacity for malice, mischief, and maligning of history knows no bounds. It was on full display today from the Red Fort'
He accused the BJP leadership of having 'vested interests' while stubbornly refusing to learn any lesson from the thumping loss in the Bihar assembly elections.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
He sought interim stay of the decision of Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.
A united opposition on Friday forced Bharatiya Janata Party member Sakshi Maharaj to express regret in Lok Sabha and withdraw his remarks terming Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse a patriot.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. The bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies. The results will be declared on November 23. In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections. In Punjab, bypolls will be held in four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
The poll is scheduled for July 17 and the counting of votes will take place on July 20.
While Narendra Modi addresses rally after rally in Bihar, Shatrughan Sinha has been left out of the BJP's campaign.
The National Testing Agency, under fire over the lapses in the conduct of NEET and UGC-NET, is gearing up to conduct on Sunday a retest for the medical entrance exam for 1,563 candidates who were earlier awarded grace marks to make up for the loss of time at six centres.
While the Congress demanded immediate sacking of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, the Samajwadi Party and a few others sought imposition of President's rule in the state that has witnessed sporadic violence in since May 3.
Addressing his first rally during the Bihar assembly elections, Gandhi insisted the Chinese army had indeed intruded into Indian territory. "They have seized 1,200 km of our land. But when the Chinese army intruded, why did our prime minister insult our soldiers by saying that nobody entered into the Indian side?" he said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday met his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal at the latter's residence in New Delhi and extended 'complete support' to him in the Aam Aadmi Party government's ongoing tussle with the Centre over the control of administrative services.
"The majority is very thin and anything can happen. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party -- JD-U finished third and if anyone is celebrating the win, it's a joke. The BJP has done well, for which it had to do a lot of political strategising," he said.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
As Bihar awaits the results in the much-awaited polls, Rediff.com takes a look at some of those leaders who won and lost.
With the all-party meetings called by Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla producing no breakthrough to end the deadlock in Parliament, Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Pralhad Joshi accused opposition parties of repeatedly 'insulting' Dhankhar.
