Bengal, where the electoral discourse has mostly steered clear of divisive agenda, has been drawn into the vortex with the TMC and the BJP accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.
Thackeray not only attended a meeting of National Democratic Alliance partners on Monday night, but also had separate talks with BJP president Amit Shah during which the two leaders discussed a host of issues, and agreed to meet more often for better coordination, a senior BJP leader, who was present during the confabulations, said.
After days of deliberations, a point of conclusion was reached late Saturday night and Congress leader and Tamil Nadu in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao told reporters that the agreement was signed in "a spirit of cooperation" when the country was facing a 'threat' from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Several Oppn parties linked the mandate to CAA and NRC, saying people have demolished 'arrogance' of the BJP, which attributed its defeat to local issues and 'internal strife' in the state.
The BJP-led NDA now has nearly 100 members in the 245-member House. If the support of friendly parties like the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (9), Biju Janata Dal (9), Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party (6), and several allied nominated members and smaller parties is counted, then the Modi government is unlikely to face any serious numerical challenge there.
Everyone is playing politics over a dead person now, why no one bothered to visit him when he was alive, Paswan asked.
The poll of polls brought out by the NDA gave the BJP and the Congress 66 and 14 seats respectively in Haryana, and 211 and 64 for the saffron alliance and the Congress-NCP in Maharashtra.
The invite to Paswan from the BJP assumes significance as this made it clear that the LJP remains a member of the NDA despite walking out of the alliance in Bihar during the state assembly polls.
Nath said the silver bricks were bought from contributions made by members of the Congress. "We will send 11 silver bricks for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya on the behalf of citizens of Madhya Pradesh," the former chief minister told reporters.
'The problem with such ill-considered remarks is that they give the BJP an opportunity to push ahead with its nationalist agenda which includes depicting its opponents as seditionists,' observes Amulya Ganguli.
The Bhartiya Janata Party is back to adopting its old Hindu hardline agenda to garner votes in the on-going civic polls across Uttar Pradesh, where the party had failed to make a mark at the March 2012 state assembly elections.
"They should go wherever they want," Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar said on Thursday when asked of Prashant Kishor and Pavan Verma's repeated questions about the party's stand's on the newly enacted Citizenship Act.
The list, which was released by Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, also included former AAP MLA Kapil Mishra and has 11 SC and four woman candidates.
The aftermath of Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan has led to an argument that there was no religion as Hinduism in Chola times.
Instead, there was only Saivism, Vaishnavism, etc, and that the Cholas were Saivites, and hence not Hindus, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Two-term Bahujan Samaj Party MP Brajesh Pathak on Monday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party expressing faith in its "developmental" agenda for poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, a day after attending Mayawati's rally in Agra.
Paswan also asserted that he has been working on his 'Bihar first, Bihari first' agenda for a long time and had informed the BJP leadership about his differences with the Kumar-led government well in advance.
Digital canvassing is expected to benefit from political money looking for alternative blow horns.
'The BJP and RSS may realise it is much easier for the ICHR to rewrite textbooks and for the ICSSR to float its bizarre interpretations on social themes than to keep people away from their favourite dishes.'
It is a record that the saffron party has created, where the majority of its legislators belonged to the minority community.
The big question today is, who represents the movement. We don't know who represents the movement for a separate state. We do not even know if there is a leadership that will do right by Telangana and do right by the Indian Constitution, says Jyotirmaya Sharma, scholar
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
Noting that he was "not focussed" on politics, the 53-year-old yoga guru said he would not support or oppose anyone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Kumar had added colour to 'lotus', election symbol of the BJP, when Devi had invited him at 23rd Patna Book Fair on Saturday to paint her drawing.
These expulsions are in addition to the 18 expelled immediately after they refused to withdraw from the fray for the assembly polls.
The ruling party seems in far better shape than the Congress, which is yet to finalise seat-sharing agreements in several states.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance looked set to return to power in Maharashtra while Haryana could be a cliffhanger with no clear majority for the BJP or the Congress, Election Commission trends indicated.
Political observers have said that the TMC, now desperate to shed the 'anti-Hindu' tag and embrace 'soft Hindutva', is carefully planning its moves, with help from poll strategist Prashant Kishor and team, as is evident from its decisions to organise Brahmin Sammelan, provide sops to Sanatan Brahmins, and financial aid to Durga puja committees.
Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is coordinating the meeting. He has invited the leaders of all the non-BJP parties.
Here is a look at Kumar's previous statements, made after he quit the NDA alliance, which proves the adage: there are no permanent friends and enemies in politics.
Results show that the BJP has fared poorly in rural regions, underlining the need for the party to challenge issues like farm distress and unemployment.
Influential Patel community leader Parshottam Rupala, minister in the first Narendra Modi government Mansukh Mandaviya and three-time MP Darshana Jardosh, all from Gujarat, were among those inducted in the Union cabinet on Wednesday.
Later on while speaking to the reporters, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the BJP legislators were forced to stage protest as there was no mention of post-poll violence in the speech copy circulated among the MLAs.
'Since the goal of taking everyone along on the path of development -- sabka saath sabka vikas -- requires an atmosphere of amity, there cannot but be an emphasis on the primacy of law and order -- and it cannot be only against road-side Romeos or gutka chewers,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
'The BJP's solo aim in Mumbai and Maharashtra is to finish off the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP.'
With this, the Congress's strength in the 40-member assembly reduced to 14 from 16.
Companies, so far, were constrained by the provisions of Articles 370 and 35A, which restricted the purchase of land and hiring manpower.
"We are feeling quite uncomfortable over some of your actions and undesirable utterances especially which hurt patriotic sentiments," read a letter to Mufti signed by three leaders.
The meeting is expected to start at 11 am at the hotel on the city outskirts where Congress legislators in support of the Ashok Gehlot government are camping.
Congress had a reason to smile as it was able to emerge as the single largest party in Meghalaya, but failed to secure a majority.
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