Amid speculation that he may do yet another volte face and return to the National Democratic Alliance, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday visited Buxar district, bordering Uttar Pradesh, to attend a function where senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey was also present.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
He, however, expressed confidence that a series of state-specific alliances, where like-minded parties would come together on an anti-BJP platform, was likely for the 2019 general election.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
"Nobody is sympathising with Atiq Ahmad because a criminal should be punished. But anyone who will see this video will question if we are a democracy. Every criminal has the right to be heard in court and be convicted there. But you can see they were killed in police custody in the open," he said.
He said he will not join any party but will work to unite all non-BJP parties.
According to a statement issued by JD-U national general secretary Afaq Ahmed Khan on Tuesday, this is the party's first list of candidates for Madhya Pradesh, where voting will take place for the 230-member assembly on November 17.
He died at AIIMS in New Delhi at 9.45 pm, hospital sources said.
Chaudhary met Azam Khan's wife Tazeen Fatma and his son Abdullah Azam at their home in Rampur.
Sanjeev Kumar alias Sanjeev 'Mukhiya', an alleged kingpin behind the NEET paper leak, was not only minting money but wanted to become an MP or MLA.
Ahead of a rally where he will share the dais with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Amar Singh on Tuesday said it would be "extremely wrong" to add "political connotation" to his attending the programme.
Mayawati said that the BSP and the SP would not ally with the Congress party in the upcoming elections.
The representation of women in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls continues to remain dismally low, as only about 12 percent of the candidates in the fray in the fifth phase are female, according to an analysis by poll rights body ADR.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had on Thursday announced an alliance with his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav's PSPL after a meeting between them.
Voting for the seventh and final round will be held on March 7 for Varanasi and its eight adjoining districts.
Nitish has been engaging with national and regional party leaders in recent months as part of his mission to strengthen 'Opposition unity'.
In his maiden foray in the state election, Yadav won from the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504 votes.
According to the Election Commission's website at 5.45 pm on Tuesday, the NOTA votes ranged as high as 2.1 per cent in Chhattisgarh to 0.5 per cent in Mizoram.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole claimed Thackeray had selected a candidate finalised by Congress for the Nashik Teachers' constituency without consulting coalition partners.
"The Congress has failed despite ruling for so many years," she said.
What are the political equations, the challenges, and the threats?
In her maiden speech at a political rally, Sunita also asked people whether Kejriwal should resign as Chief Minister.
According to the findings of the CSDS-Lokniti survey, the BJP saw a marginal increase in its support among the Muslim voters as compared to the 2017 assembly elections.
In her defence, the teacher, Tripti Tyagi, has said that the video has been tampered with in order to stoke tensions.
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.
'We felt it is our responsibility to stand by the farmers' and extend support of the whole of Maharashtra, Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray saahab'
The Congress also has the support of 10 out of 13 independents, and other party MLAs like Rashtriya Lok Dal (1), which is its ally.
'Laluji is like my father and I am like his son.'
Leaders of several opposition parties including the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Left assembled at Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar's residence in New Delhi on Tuesday and discussed various issues facing the country, amid intense speculation about the possibility of a third front against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
'You are one of the drops that make that ocean, but when you leave it makes no difference to the ocean.'
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, however, agreed to examine the constitutional validity of Section 8A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 empowering the Election Commission to undertake the delimitation of constituencies.
With about 18 weeks to go for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the state is being barnstormed by one notable politician after another.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
Here's looking at the winners.
An adverse outcome against the BJP in UP can well be taken into its stride by the ruling combine at the Centre, argues Virendra Kapoor.
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
Hijacking of an aircraft will now entail capital punishment in the event of death of "any person" as Parliament on Monday passed a bill to provide widen the ambit of the law in dealing with this crime.
Singh, a veteran Congress leader, was a member of the Upper House of Parliament from Assam for almost three decades.
The party will also leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party.
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