Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have refused to meet Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha.
Anna Hazare-led civil society on Sunday came under scathing attack in the Lok Sabha with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad saying any design to target the Constitution and Parliament should be thwarted.
Within four years of winning a single party majority in the Lok Sabha with 282 seats -- the first time it has happened in 30 years -- the BJP has lost it.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) supporters stayed put on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway on Friday as the crowd swelled there, notwithstanding the Ghaziabad administration's ultimatum to vacate the UP Gate protest site where security force in large numbers was re-deployed.
The rising price of pulses has become a hot issue during the Bihar assembly polls.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
Reservation Bill introduced in Lok Sabha
According to the latest head count by Congress's managers, the United Progressive Alliance has only 271 seats in the Lok Sabha, though the requisite majority in the 545-member House is 273. For the ruling party, the issue is not about saving the government, but about crossing the majority mark to send the decisive signal that the UPA enjoys a clear majority and has the moral right to continue in power, say sources.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to get reservation for women in legislatures promises to shape the political discourse ahead of key state polls and Lok Sabha elections, and a parliamentary approval to the long-contested proposal will be used by the Bharatiya Janata Party to burnish his credentials as a decisive leader.
Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United on Saturday night suspended 3 women MLAs including a former minister, for campaigning and seeking votes for Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal candidates.
Nearly 2.6 crore people in 73 constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh are voting on Saturday in the first of the seven phases of high-stake assembly elections
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
Under fire over communal violence in the party-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday rejected any parallel with 2002 Godhara riots in Gujarat and promised "justice" for victims and "strict action" against the guilty.
The ceremony on Friday will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
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).
'He may be chief minister, but sooner or later he will face the music.'
Earlier, Left, SP and RJD members sought to raise the issue when the House met for the day but were disallowed by the Speaker.
Two other ministers Swantradev Singh and Mohsin Raza also took oath.
Opposition alliance INDIA on Thursday boycotted a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi not making a statement on Manipur violence in Parliament, a senior leader said.
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
Olympic medallist Bajrang Punia said few were trying to steer the movement in a different direction, but refused to name them.
"We had not contemplated that the alliance will fare so badly. People are not able to digest the poll results. It is against their sentiment and aspirations," Mayawati said on Thursday.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
The Congress on Thursday virtually ruled out any grand alliance in poll bound Uttar Pradesh including with Samajwadi Party insisting that Rahul Gandhi wanted to set things right in the state which is in bad shape for past 27 years in non-Congress rule.
"We particularly want Bajrang Bali because he is linked to my own Dalit caste," Mayawati said.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
'Shatrughan Sinha's name is in the Congress's probable candidates list.'
Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad on Wednesday said that final talks on alliance with Congress in Bihar for the coming Lok Sabha polls has been completed and the announcement of the tie up is expected Wednesday evening.
The meeting at Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence was seen as very crucial in forging an Opposition unity with efforts on to reconcile differences between the Congress and some regional parties that have been at loggerheads traditionally.
A CBI team on Tuesday met the family members of the 19-year old Dalit victim in the gangrape and murder case in Bulgarhi village in Hathras and examined the crime scene, officials said.
Soren spent more than an hour with Prasad at RIMS Director's bungalow, where the RJD leader is staying. Coming out of the RIMS, Soren told reporters, 'we will fight Bihar elections together'.
The Janata Dal-United supremo, however, also appeared annoyed with parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who had recently jumped the gun with the insinuation that the RJD could be trying to 'further the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda' by refraining from taking action against the minister.
Saini's elevation as Haryana chief minister fits in with a pattern that has gathered pace in the BJP after the Congress and its allies like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar began making an aggressive bid to woo the largest group of communities and politically most significant, especially in Hindi-speaking states, by pushing for a caste census.
While Yadav began to tour different constituencies and address public meetings to mobilise the SP rank and file, he has concurrently started the tedious process of cobbling up an alliance of smaller outfits representing a mlange of castes and sub-castes, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
Kora said it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who ensured that proper respect was accorded to tribals, and also took a stand for women over various issues.
'They (BJP) can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats'
'Excited to start my new journey from Bihar!' he tweeted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
