Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
'Imran Khan's rule was dismal. Despite this, he has become a cult figure.' 'He sold the dream of a Naya Pakistan to the people of Pakistan, especially the youth, and branded all other politicians as corrupt.' 'Hence, his popularity.'
The accident occurred at 3.45 AM near Barabamboo, around 80 km from Jamshedpur, under the Chakradharpur Division of the South Eastern Railway (SER), they said.
Releasing the party manifesto, which talks of resolution of Kashmir issue on the lines of its "self-rule" formula, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti made it clear that her party was jumping into the poll bandwagon, but wished that the Centre should have initiated a "serious dialogue" with all sections in the Kashmir Valley before holding elections.
Hearing the Centre versus the Delhi government over the issue of demarcation of power, a constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said an elected government needs to have control over the administration.
Sibal said the BJP always tries to gain a foothold in states where its presence is limited and afterwards "dumps" its allies.
"NC is not power hungry... We shunned prospects of an alliance with the BJP a year ago and the reasons for having done that remain unchanged," Omar wrote on his official Facebook page.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
Pandemonium hit the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly on Monday again as the speaker disallowed an adjournment motion moved by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party seeking a discussion on the alleged custodial death of a ruling National Conference worker in Srinagar last week.
Tasaduq, a famed cinematographer, joined the party in the presence of his sister and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who was there along with her cabinet and party colleagues. In his brief speech at the function, Tasaduq thanked the party workers for their love and affection towards PDP.
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
The Rajya Sabha chairman asked him to authenticate his assertions and refused to accept newspaper clippings that the Congress leader showed to buttress his points.
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).
The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC's 15 and the Congress's 12. The three parties together will have majority in the 87-member House. The Bharatiya Janata Party is the second largest party in the state with 25 members.
But as voters gear up for crucial assembly and parliamentary polls on May 13, all eyes are on the high-stakes battle in Pulivendula, an assembly constituency that has been a Reddy family stronghold for over four decades.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
"I will not succumb to my critics and enemies and I am damn well going to do my job," a combative J and K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah declared on Friday.
Maintaining that it would put up candidates in all six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party on Thursday ruled out alliance with any party during the upcoming parliamentary polls.
The prestigious Poonch Assembly by-election scheduled for December 12 is going to witness a tough contest between the candidates of ruling Congress and the Opposition National Conference (NC), with the coalition partner, People's Democratic Party (PDP) providing vital support to its Congress ally.
Bharti accused the media of distorting her statement, attributing it to the BJP's agenda.
Opposition leaders on Saturday lauded the Congress for its victory in Karnataka and thanked the people of the state, saying that this win has showed that 'Modi is not invincible'.
Bangladesh is in turmoil, which is not good news for India, which shares a porous 4000 km border with it. There is a danger of fundamentalism growing there, and India has to move in to reset its ties with the new dispensation before China and Pakistan make capital out of it, alerts Ramesh Menon.
For the last four years since abrogation of Article 370, Kashmir-based political parties have been struggling to forge an alternate narrative to the one forcibly snatched from them. The BJP is bound to go hammer and tongs at them now that their armoury is reinforced with the Supreme Court judgment, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The Congress has consciously contested on a lesser number of seats in this Lok Sabha election as part of a strategy to keep the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) together and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
Springing a surprise, independents backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the lion's share of 101 seats in the National Assembly in Thursday's election.
China would have become another India "where around 20% of the world's poorest live" if it adopted democracy
The International Democratic Party has launched a campaign in the state, ahead of the February 13 assembly elections, to convince them not to vote if they do not like any of the candidates in the fray.
'Just because the NDA has a majority and the BJP is the single largest party does not mean that this Modi government enjoys a majority in the Lok Sabha.' 'It is always possible that some members (of the NDA and even the BJP) may defect, some members may not want him to be the prime minister and they might vote differently (against Modi) in the confidence vote.'
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday expressed his support for Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who has been criticised for his inability to control the spiraling violence in the state.
At the moment, there appears to be no alternative political narrative to the one lying buried under the debris of havoc caused on this front by the fallout of 'August 5, 2019', asserts Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'Who has given how much money to which party, the people of India must know this fact.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday named its candidates for assembly bypolls in several states, fielding six disqualified MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh assembly in the state days after they joined the party after leaving the Congress.
Tharoor said the message is also that the Congress is the party that can unite India and if the public is sufficiently inspired by this message, it will indeed inaugurate the revival of the party.
The Narendra Modi government is understood to have ruled out changes in the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Jammu and Kashmir and favoured its continuation in the present form in the state.
Veteran Congress leader and former Defence Minister A K Antony said on Tuesday that his son, Anil K Antony, who is contesting as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, should not win the election.
Justice Krishna S Dixit, presiding over a single judge bench, issued notice to the parties concerned and paused the ongoing investigation.
Modi's remarks came in response to a congratulatory message from Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on his election victory.
The Rajya Sabha chairman said this was not the first time that such a suspension has happened. Starting in 1962 till 2010, members were suspended on 11 occasions in furtherance to motions moved by the governments of the day.
"It is shameful that Rahul Gandhi, instead of coming to Parliament and apologising for his undemocratic rant against India, today seeks to be absent from Parliament," she asserted.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.