Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said his party's alliance with the Congress is 'off to a good start' with 11 'strong' Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Upset about being snubbed by INDIA, Nitish Kumar is weighing his political options. BJP would like him back knowing that it would jolt the Opposition alliance, perhaps irreversibly.
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
Nitish has been engaging with national and regional party leaders in recent months as part of his mission to strengthen 'Opposition unity'.
Not all Opposition parties on board, say they are once bitten, twice shy.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been receiving invitations for functions scheduled much after the Lok Sabha polls, which showed the 'entire world believes his return to power is inevitable'.
Polling will be held in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
'You have been appointed general secretary of Samajwadi Party. I hope in the coming days you will strengthen the party in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections,' Mulayam said in a handwritten letter to Amar.
'It seems that Modi ji has some hand in the EVMs'
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
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.
The much-delayed decadal census exercise and the work to update the National Population Register (NPR) are likely to begin early 2025 and the data will be declared by 2026, thus changing future census cycles completely, official sources said.
These parties also asked the Centre to present a revised comprehensive economic package that will be a 'true stimulus' and sought reversal of all unilateral policy decisions, especially pertaining to labour laws, as they put forth a 11-point demand charter before the government during a virtual meeting, called by the Congress to discuss the situation arising out of the pandemic as well as the lockdown.
What are the political equations, the challenges, and the threats?
Addressing a virtual rally for three western UP districts -- Bijnor, Moradabad and Amroha -- PM Modi urged farmers to ask those trying to 'mislead' them how much electricity was given to the villages in their area when they were in power.
In the battle for 2024, the place is hogging the limelight, primarily because of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who according to some opinion polls, may turn out to be the dark horse when votes are counted on June 4.
'The BJP has started a war-like situation against farmers and the Jat community.'
Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Parliament Kadir Rana, two party legislators and former Uttar Pradesh minister Saeed-uz-Zama of the Congress are among 10 persons chargesheeted by the Special Investigation Team probing the Muzaffarnagar riots for provoking communal tension with inflammatory speeches during a Muslim community panchayat.
Though there was no official word from both the parties, the sources claimed that two Uttar Pradesh-based political outfits will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats each.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
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.
Sanjay Jha's importance lies in his connections to senior BJP and RSS leaders to maintain a smooth relationship within the NDA government in Bihar and at the Centre and to contest the 2025 Bihar assembly elections together under Nitish Kumar's leadership.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal has chosen educated candidates hailing from the constituency and with no criminal background, while partner the Samajwadi Party picked them on their 'winnability' factor as the alliance announced the first list of nominees for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and senior leader Jairam Ramesh were among the 10 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana, while counting was underway in Maharashtra after an eight-hour delay due to wrangling by rival parties over alleged breach of voting rules.
The Bihar CM and Rahul, through their emissaries, have been in touch to shape an alliance with the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP faction as its head.
'The voice coming out of every home is Modi, Modi, Modi...' 'He is in people's hearts. Who can stop us from 400 paar?'
In her defence, the teacher, Tripti Tyagi, has said that the video has been tampered with in order to stoke tensions.
Samajwadi Party MP R K Chaudhary's demand to replace the Sengol installed next to the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair with a copy of the Constitution triggered a war of words on Thursday, with opposition leaders backing him, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party castigating him for 'disrespecting' Indian and Tamil culture.
The seat sharing formula reached between the BSP and SP is not on the basis of who emerged stronger in the previous election.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav lashed out at his one-time ally, the Congress, and said that in the state the BJP is nowhere.
The RLD has aligned with the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in UP and is attacking the state government on farm distress and the outstanding sugarcane dues.
Voting is being held in the politically sensitive Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, Palghar and Bhandara-Gondiya and Nagaland Lok Sabha seats.
'I have been battling cancer for the last six months. Now, I feel that the time has come to inform people about it'
Gandhi came along with Mukherjee and while the former president left after sometime, the Congress chief offered to drop him back but Mukherjee politely refused.
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.
Delhi faces a severe financial crunch and the deficit is largely due to numerous welfare schemes without adequate revenue flowing in. The success of welfare schemes and electoral promises will need careful financial planning and out of the box thinking to whip up additional revenue, notes Ramesh Menon.
In a ghastly incident that has sent shock waves across Bihar, former state minister Mukesh Sahni's 70-year-old father was found stabbed to death at his native home in Darbhanga district, a top police officer said.
Moderate to high turnout was recorded in 13 assembly constituencies across seven states where bypolls were held on Wednesday amid sporadic incidents of violence in Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
Clad in a yellow kurta with a saffron gamcha around his neck, atop an open saffron coloured vehicle, he was greeted by loud chants of "Modi! Modi! Modi Zindabad! 400 Paar Is Baar" all along the roadshow's route.
