The delegations led by Baijayant Panda, Ravi Shankar Prasad (both Bharatiya Janata Party), Sanjay Kumar Jha (Janata Dal-United), Shrikant Shinde (Shiv Sena), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party-Sharad Pawar) will visit a total of 32 countries and the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
The row over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur's remarks in Lok Sabha escalated on Wednesday with the Congress submitting a notice to move a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for posting on 'X' a video that allegedly also contained expunged portions of Thakur's speech.
The SP has offered 11 seats to the Congress and seven seats to the RLD for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Ahmad was elected to the assembly as an Independent in 1989, 1991, 1993 and on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 1996. He returned to the House in 2002 on an Apna Dal ticket. He was elected as an MP in 2004.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
For MP, the SP is open for an alliance with the Congress, but decision in this regard will be taken at the right time, SP sources said.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who faced trolling on social media in the wake of India and Pakistan reaching an understanding on May 10 to halt all military actions, has received support from veteran diplomat Nirupama Menon Rao, a body of Indian diplomats and a host of politicians from several parties.
Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia founder Shivpal Yadav on Thursday announced formation of a new organisation for the Yadav community, and said it will fight for the cause of social justice.
Politicians across the political spectrum graced Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani's wedding ceremonies at the Jio World Convention Centre at the Bandra Kurla Complex in north west Mumbai.
Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi are likely to contest the Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli and Amethi seats, respectively, sources said on Thursday.
Political sources say Modi is 'keen' on getting the NCP (SP) over to the Mahayuti to counter Eknath Shinde's 'demands' and to act as a cushion against his present allies, Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu, 'in case their relationship became untenable'.
While the Congress demanded immediate sacking of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, the Samajwadi Party and a few others sought imposition of President's rule in the state that has witnessed sporadic violence in since May 3.
When the country has been at war, the Opposition has buried its differences with the government, points out Aditi Phadnis.
Fadnavis on Thursday asserted that Marathi is the language of Mumbai and Maharashtra and anyone who lives here should learn and speak it, after a Shiv Sena-UBT MLA pointed to comments of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader.
In controversial remarks, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sakshi Maharaj on Sunday alleged that madrassas were giving "education of terrorism".
The Congress will conduct a caste census in Madhya Pradesh after winning the assembly polls and establish a university in the name of Sant Ravidas, said party president Mallikarjun Kharge, accusing the regime at the Centre of wishing to change the Constitution.
He said the Uttar Pradesh police in all likelihood will seek his transit remand and also police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period".
Bypolls to 10 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be a litmus test for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)'s unity after the group's success in the recent Lok Sabha polls when they won more than 40 seats, significantly contributing to the Bharatiya Janata Party's failure to win a simple majority in parliament.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar also indicated that it may not take up the pending scheduled petitions, heard earlier by a three-judge bench, during the day as it was sitting in a combination of two judges.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday condemned the violence in West Bengal's Murshidabad district following the passage of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, accusing the opposition of instigating the violence. He also criticized the opposition for their alleged silence over the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh and emphasized the BJP's commitment to protecting Hindus.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. The bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies. The results will be declared on November 23. In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections. In Punjab, bypolls will be held in four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
Lodhi, who represented the Bada Malhera assembly seat in Chhatarpur district, joined the BJP at the ruling party's state headquarters in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
With the Trinamool Congress turning on the heat on the issue of rail fare hike, the Samajwadi Party on Friday offered solace to the Congress, saying its outside support to the coalition will continue.
As the results for the Lok Sabha elections 2024 were declared on Tuesday, here is how some of the big faces fared in the contest.
Questions are being raised on the future of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) as differences among its constituents come to the fore and several parties call for serious introspection by the Congress after a string of debilitating electoral losses.
Newly elected Samajwadi Party MP RK Chaudhary, one of the founders of the Bahujan Samaj Party, has claimed BSP chief Mayawati has been ignoring the Bahujan movement which has led to her party's rout in these Lok Sabha polls.
'At no point did Kamal Nath and Digvijaya indicate that the Opposition bloc was formed only to fight the Lok Sabha polls.'
India's opposition parties have sharply criticized the Union Budget, calling it inadequate to address the country's economic woes and accusing the BJP-led government of using it to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi ahead of upcoming elections. Leaders from the Congress, TMC, DMK, SP, and CPI(M) voiced their disapproval, highlighting concerns over inflation, unemployment, and the lack of substantial measures to support the agricultural sector and the poor. They also criticized the tax cuts for the middle class as insufficient and coming too late after years of high taxes and rising prices.
Bharatiya Janata Party Supremo and Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi is embraced by a 103-year-old supporter in Dahod.
The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.
He also said there are leaders who stand firm in their ideology but their number is gradually declining.
The BJP is leaning on Yogi's 'batenge to katenge' theme to weave a unifying narrative that transcends caste and communal lines.
On Tuesday, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi accused BJP MP Anurag Thakur of "abusing and insulting" him during the Lok Sabha discussion on the Union Budget.
From invoking the 'Saptarishi' (Ursa Major) constellation, seven basic notes of Indian classical music to 'saat phere' (seven circumambulations) -- parties give different reasons and logic to claim that they will emerge victorious in the polls.
Before the violence and rioting that erupted in Nagpur on Monday, March 17, over Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's tomb came provocative statements from various political leaders.
Initiating the debate on the bill from the opposition's side, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said that any delay in bringing the reservation into effect would be "gross injustice" to Indian women.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Atiq Ahmed is named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak said on Tuesday night that all the eight candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party have won in the Rajya Sabha elections from the state.
This has invited sharp reaction from the Opposition, with the Samajwadi Party saying that the BJP was afraid of its defeat in Milkipur due to which it moved the court for "stalling" polls on the assembly seat.
