Rai also asserted that the Congress will win the upcoming Assembly elections in all five states.
The BSP chief's brother Anand Kumar has been appointed as the party's national vice president and her nephew Akash Anand as its national coordinator.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
The third phase of polling will take place on May 7, 2024.
The opposition INDIA bloc is considering submitting a notice to move a resolution to remove Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar from office, sources said. The opposition had previously considered this in August but decided to give Dhankhar "another chance." The Congress is leading the charge, and the TMC and the Samajwadi Party are supportive. The decision comes after a contentious session in Rajya Sabha where BJP members protested alleged links between Congress leaders and George Soros.
On Day 2 of Parliament's monsoon session 2020, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to make a statement on the continuing standoff between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh elections, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra have arrived in Bhopal as part of the ruling party's programme wherein every legislator will be allotted one assembly seat each that they are supposed to visit to take stock of the ground situation, party leaders said.
When asked what transpired at the informal meeting of the alliance leaders in the evening, the Delhi chief minister said his party sought seat-sharing discussions for all the states.
In a dramatic development, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Minister C P Yogeeshwara on Wednesday quit his party and joined the Congress, which is now expected to field him in the November 13 assembly bypolls from Channapatna.
Dr Sanjeev Gupta, medical director at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram said that the founder of the Samajwadi Party is being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital by a comprehensive team of specialists.
Election rallies have been on for weeks, but nothing captures the immediacy of an election like the sight of candidates filing their nomination papers.
The FIR was registered late Tuesday night at the Hazratganj police station on a complaint by Ravi Kishan's wife Preeti Shukla.
The focus now shifts to smaller parties and Independents who will play an important role in government formation.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
Akhilesh's fielding candidates from a broad spectrum of castes, not just Yadavs, and with the BJP losing in several seats in Purvanchal, suggests that smaller OBC communities shifted from the BJP to the SP in the region.
The brothers, both jailed in Prayagraj, were in talking with mediapersons when they were killed in full view of camera crews around 10 pm.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has ridiculed the move as 'hypocrisy' saying Congress leaders had termed Lord Ram as an imaginary character.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
Action will be taken against such MLAs, he said.
A case has been registered against Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and 20 party workers in connection with alleged assault on some journalists in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad, police said on Saturday.
Swara Bhasker's wedding reception in Delhi did not have the regular Bollywood faces.
He also pointed out the high sums earned by the coaching centres leading to the commercialisation of education.
Shivpal Yadav is campaigning for Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav in Mainpuri seat, which fell vacant due to the death of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday said his party would pull off a spectacular victory in the state assembly elections, but evaded a direct reply to a question whether he would be the chief minister for the fifth time, as he just said 'Bharatiya Janata Party Zindabad'.
Eight railway stations in the Lucknow division of Northern Railways were officially renamed after saints and freedom fighters on Tuesday, officials said.
Many exit polls have kept the incumbent Bharatiya Janata party ahead of the Congress in what was a straight contest between two main parties. Assembly polls were held in the state in a single phase on November 17.
S P Singh Baghel and B L Verma who made it to the Union council of ministers on Wednesday are two prominent Other Backward Classes leaders from Uttar Pradesh.
The rival Shiv Sena factions led by Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde faced off on Wednesday evening at the party's office at the civic headquarters in south Mumbai. Tension had prevailed for an hour on the premises till police intervened.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
Congress, the main Opposition party in the BJP-ruled state, had left the Khajuraho seat for SP as per the seat-sharing arrangement within the INDIA bloc.
Bharatiya Janata Party MPs Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre were among those who missed casting their votes in the presidential poll on Monday.
Nagpur Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said social media was used to vitiate the atmosphere, and appealed to the opposition not to politicise the matter.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
The police on Monday found what appeared to be blood smeared on the walls of the abandoned office in Prayagraj of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, who was shot dead recently while being taken for a medical checkup.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed jailed former MP and alleged gangster Atiq Ahmad's plea seeking protection during his custody with the Uttar Pradesh police in the Umesh Pal murder case.
Vice President of India and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday defended Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the House saying it has 'unimpeachable credentials' and is doing 'national service', as he took umbrage to remarks by a Samajwadi Party MP.
Families of the four men killed in the Sunday violence in Sambhal are now forced to contend with the double tragedy of death and poverty, reliant as they were on the frugal income the four once brought.
A police cavalcade carrying gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed left for the Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat on Tuesday evening, hours after he was sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment in a 2006 kidnapping case by a court in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, a senior official said.
Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar convened the meeting of leaders of opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, which was attended by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, independent Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav, Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) member Anil Desai and Bharat Rashtra Samithi member K Keshav Rao among others.
The Congress party is thinking of ways to counter the BJP in Lok Sabha constituencies is it unlikely to win, reports Renu Mittal.
