The representatives of thousands of agitating farmers, who are sitting on various borders of the national capital since November 26 demanding repeal of the three agri laws, have said that the countrywide strike on Tuesday would be observed with full force.
On its own or with allies the Congress has a strong presence in states that account for a total of 253 LS seats, or 20 short of the magic figure of 272 required to form a government at the Centre. So what is Mamata Banerjee talking about, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
As many as 586 candidates are in the fray in this phase with the seats spread across Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Amroha, Budaun, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur.
RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale met with the leadership of the UP BJP, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, state BJP President Bhupendra Chaudhary and state BJP General Secretary (Organisation) Dharmapal.
With most political parties failing to articulate the concerns of Muslims, who account for 15 per cent of the population and can swing the electoral outcome in 21 constituencies, the AIMIM hopes to make a mark in the ongoing assembly elections, says Shafeeq Rahman.
Even as the BJP is expected to win the vice-presidential poll, ppposition hopes to make it yet another display of its unity, reports Archis Mohan.
Since Parliament is still in session, the government refrained from making an official statement but the ministers said there were ample 'precedents by the Congress governments in the past' of Bills being pushed through the ordinance route.
Narendra Modi won't be an issue in Bihar in the next Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said while refusing to be drawn into a discussion on Gujarat versus Bihar models of development.
As many as 624 candidates are in the fray in this round of voting being held in Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda, and Fatehpur districts.
'Legally, anything can be promised in the manifestos. However, the SC has said the promises should not be unreasonable'
Dhankar wins vice presidential election by bagging more than 500 votes.
Rahul Gandhi said the meeting was very productive and everyone decided to stop the BJP from further assault of institutions and the Constitution.
The Congress's share has almost halved, down from 12 in 2014 to six now.
'The central learning of the day was that if the BJP leadership can cajole, coax and convince regional parties to vote for bills, it would not be a stretch to see the same votes cast in favour of the land bill,' a senior Congress leader from a northern state told Rediff.com
Major opposition parties met President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday and put forth their concerns over recent incidents of violence, including attacks by cow vigilantes, and attempts to "muzzle voices of dissent".
In his maiden foray in the state election, Yadav won from the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504 votes.
Stating that the Third Front has no policy or commitment, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday termed the 'alternative' combination of parties as a "parking slot."
While the Apna Dal said it was 'free to make its own decision', the SBSP went a step ahead asserting that its option to join the SP-BSP alliance.
Former district panchayat member Prem Yadav, 50, was attacked with sharp edged weapons and killed by his rival Satyaprakash Dubey and his family when he went to the latter's house. In retaliation, Yadav's supporters from Abhaipur attacked Dubey's house and killed Dubey and four of his family.
Here is the lowdown of the each state and parties.
As nominations for Rajya Sabha biennial polls closed on Tuesday, a contest is on the cards in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana even as Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram are among those set to be elected to the Upper House.
"All opposition parties should work together. It should be a one-to-one fight against the BJP. All opposition parties should help the strongest one in the state against the BJP," Banerjee said.
Rahul Gandhi, who was also present at the event, refused to comment on UP CM's proposal.
This is the first meeting chaired by Gandhi after relinquishing the post of Congress president last year.
A day after the high decibel campaign for Maharashtra assembly polls ended, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday launched a fresh attack on its former ally the Bharatiya Janata Party, deeming it as "hungry for power" even as it likened the Congress party and the Nationalist Congress Party to "dead snakes".
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.
Days after Jayant Chaudhary's terse 'not a coin, won't flip' response to the BJP's apparent attempt to woo him, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the Rashtriya Lok Dal chief was a 'kid with little knowledge of history'.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday suggested that if Lalu Prasad Yadav takes initiative, he does not mind joining hands with Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh.
The Bharatiya Janata Party faces an uphill task of repeating its performance of the last assembly election of winning 53 out of 58 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh where polling will be held in the first phase on February 10.
Through the yatra the UP CM would try to send the message that he was in the driver's seat, notwithstanding all the hue and cry within the party.
The BJP ally Nishad Party, which represents the OBC fisher communities "welcomed" the court order, saying that the state government's previous notifications on the issue were flawed and "unconstitutional".
But he doesn't want to shut the door completely on the Yadav family as that could create problems for him in 2019.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Monday approached the Delhi high court seeking quashing of the order of the Election Commission of India (ECI) freezing the party name and election symbol.
A video showing the incident involving school teacher, Tripta Tyagi, and the Class 2 boy in Muzaffarnagar has gone viral on social media eliciting strong words from several political parties.
The Bihar unit of Samajwadi Party, which had protested over denial of seats in the grand alliance for Bihar Assembly polls, claimed to have fruitful talks with the alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over seat sharing.
Cash collections accounted for a whopping 63 per cent of total funds or over Rs 2,100 crore garnered by various political parties during all state assembly polls between 2004 and 2015, a study showed on Monday.
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.
The Opposition on Monday stepped up attack on the government over the UPSC exam row, serving a privilege notice in the Rajya Sabha and forcing adjournment of the House demanding a definite time-frame to resolve the issue.
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