According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
It is impossible to say when would these leaders stab each other for political gains," it said.
Electioneering ended in Madhya Pradesh at 6 pm except in Naxalites-hit districts of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori, where campaigning drew to a close early at 3 pm.
The ruling BJP in UP, however, lost Khatauli to Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
Two empty chairs -- one each for jailed Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal former and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren -- were kept on stage as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) organised a mega rally in Ranchi on Ranchi.
Nishad party president Sanjay Nishad, who had demanded deputy chief minister post but settled with his nomination as an MLC, thanked the BJP on Monday and said his party will ensure the NDA's victory in next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
Jaya Prada and Azam Khan have a long-running feud.
The Congress said the rally by the INDIA will send a "strong message" to the Lok Kalyan Marg, where the prime minister's residence is located, that the BJP-led government's "time is up".
The former Congress president also tagged a post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
According to the Aam Aadmi Party, it has received permission from the authorities concerned to hold the rally of more than 20,000 people.
"Former Chief Minister Mayawati and I will not contest the assembly elections," Bahujan Samaj Party member of Parliament Satish Chandra Misra told ANI.
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
The seats held by the non-BJP parties in the state are Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Sambhal, Raebareli, Ghosi, Lalganj, Jaunpur, Ambedkarnagar, Ghazipur, Shravasti, Mainpuri, Saharanpur and Nagina. Of these, Raebareli is held by Sonia Gandhi of the Congress.
Nineteen political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, received over Rs 1,100 crore during assembly polls in five states and Union territories in 2021 and spent over Rs 500 crore, a big chunk of which went towards advertisements and travel expenses for star campaigners, a study said on Friday.
Several prominent opposition leaders including Nationalist Congress Party's Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah will share the dais at a rally being organised by Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana's Fatehabad on Sunday.
rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.
In the wake of communal violence in West Bengal and Bihar, Sibal had on Sunday questioned the "silence" of Prime Minister Modi over the matter, and said "let not 2024 general elections be the reason" for the violence.
MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the three the maximum seven-year sentence.
Rajesh Shukla, the lone SP MLA in Madhya Pradesh, along with an MLA of the Bahujan Samaj Party and an independent legislator joined the BJP in Bhopal on Tuesday in the presence Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
An Uttar Pradesh government spokesperson said a formal order for all eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route in the state was likely to be issued soon.
The sources said the Congress is the binding force for the opposition bloc and the stronger the Congress emerges the better for the alliance.
A portion of the Bundelkhand expressway developed deep potholes due to heavy rains in Jalaun, within a week of Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the 296-km-long road.
With the latest additions, Yadav now follows 12 Twitter handles, which include the Dalai Lama, the President of India, the Prime Minister's Office and the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's Office.
The Congress, meanwhile, alleged that both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP are hand-in-glove with the criminals and were two sides of the same coin.
In both of these Hindi heartland states, the straight contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress.
Former Uttar Pradesh minister Swami Prasad Maurya, who resigned this week from the Yogi Adityanath government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the assembly polls, on Friday said that former state cabinet minister Dara Singh Chauhan will join the Samajwadi Party on Sunday.
Saini said he had resigned from Yogi Adiyanth government because 'for five years Dalits, backward classes were suppressed, their voices were suppressed'.
The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party on Wednesday termed the list of candidates released by its alliance partner Samajwadi Party for the Uttar Pradesh legislative council elections as "disappointing".
Both the BJP and Congress understand that coalitions and alliances are not just about numbers, but have symbolic value.
There was no immediate reaction from the PSPL on the inclusion of Shivpal Singh Yadav's name in the SP's list of campaigners.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
With this, the ruling BJP has so far declared candidates for 136 seats. Earlier, the BJP had announced 79 candidates, including two lists of 39 each, and another list of one nominee.
Top leaders of Opposition parties will brainstorm at a meeting in Patna on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with sources saying that they would look to avoid the prickly leadership question and emphasise on common ground.
Opposition parties will hold the next meeting of their 26-member INDIA coalition in Mumbai on August 25 and 26, sources said on Thursday.
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