He secured required 44 votes after votes of two Congress MLAs who cross-voted for BJP were rejected by EC.
'If the school of bluffers includes those who get to the top not from deep knowledge but from delivering 'a clever quip or a leftfield surprise argument', then Modi is the undisputed Bluffocrat Emeritus,' says Sunil Sethi.
The saffron party which has a lot at stake in the last two phases of polling scheduled for March 4 and 8 has moved its war room to Varanasi, entrusting Union ministers and senior leaders with the task of strengthening the campaign with the prime minister in the vanguard.
All the BJP's present leaders from UP put together cannot win the state for the party. So how about an out-of-the-box leader like Subramanian Swamy, asks Nazarwala, the man who called right the 2007 and 2012 UP elections.
While over one lakh members of the community converged at a massive gathering at Gandhinagar, thousands took part in the protest march in Surat to raise their demand of staying the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed Bollywood film 'Padmavati'.
Speaker Om Birla he will hold a meeting with leaders of all parties and then take a decision.
Campaigning has reached a fervent pitch in Bihar with senior political leaders wooing the voters, one last time before the state goes to the polls.
'All their idealism, intensity of emotions, acute sense of right and wrong, and burning passion for public causes can never serve as justifiable grounds to be touted by students of any country, let alone of India, with all its fragility and vulnerability, to question its unity in the name of freedom of expression,' says B S Raghavan.
'This is the third time we are getting an assurance from the central government. We want the investigations to come up with results.'
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
Earlier, the Allahabad HC rapped the Uttar Pradesh government saying the law and order machinery and officials were directly under the MLA's influence.
HRD ministry forces Allahabad University to change its decision.
'Varanasi has seen elections for ages, but this one is different. Different, in the sense, that it is like an invasion.'
Everyone has his/her own views on TV actor Prayusha's suicide but none as ridiculous as Rakhi Sawant.
In order to implement big ticket ideas which are likely to come via the Budget of 2015, Modi needs better political talent around him, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
The Bill, which was already approved by the Rajya Sabha, defines child pornography, making it punishable.
Many BJP leaders are of the view that most key members of the previous Cabinet could be retained.
Ramesh released some fresh documents including one of 1949 which showed that the Dholpur Palace was owned by the Rajasthan government.
The high-voltage campaign for the February 4 assembly elections in Punjab came to an end on Thursday evening following hectic campaigning by various political parties.
Economist Arvind Panagariya is the vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, while economist Bibek Debroy and scientist V K Saraswat are the two full-time members of the Aayog.
Can compassion, common courtesy or an 'emotional connect' win seats in the harsh realpolitik of UP, a state riddled with divisions of caste and religion, and confronted with a seemingly impregnable BSP-SP alliance? asks Sunil Sethi.
Shortly after the Union Budget was announced, political leaders from across the spectrum reacted to it. Here's what some of our leaders said.
Hundreds of BTech students of DelhiUniversity on Saturday staged a protest outside the Vice Chancellor's office, demanding that their four-year BTech course should not be scrapped.
The former Union minister had suffered a stroke in 2008 and was hospitalised since then.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati termed the expansion of the Union council of ministers as a drama and said giving representation to a couple of leaders from the deprived sections will not ameliorate the lot of those communities.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the family of the Kathua rape victim should get justice.
National Demorcatic Alliance ministry's list of assets is fairly wide -- from land and property to vehicles and, for quite a few, guns. Nivedita Mookerji reports
The good news is that the government has taken notice of the pain and has formed a task force to improve operating procedure during foggy days.
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
Tomar was arrested around 11 am following investigation into a complaint by the bar council of Delhi.
Under pressure from the University Grants Commission to act on its directive, the Delhi University on Friday scrapped its controversial four-year undergraduate programme and reverted to the previous three-year structure.
The vigour Divya Spandana has added to Rahul Gandhi's social media persona has brought him back in the reckoning.
'If a lawyer can talk about finances, if a TV actress can be the HRD minister and if a 'chaiwala' can be... then why I cannot talk about economy?'
On the eve of the final phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, Rediff.com's Aslam Hunani reviews the political landscape in the epicentre and beyond.
Seen as a prelude to the more serious RedInk Awards -- which celebrate the finest in Indian journalism -- the high-profile winners of the 'Ouch' awards included Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Is there a likeness between the characters from Ved Vyas's timeless epic and those prancing about on the political proscenium? Saisuresh Sivaswamy finds out.
A Christian school was allegedly vandalised in South Delhi's Vasant Vihar area
Protesters raised slogans whilst attempting to disrupt the prime minister's address at the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow.
'Two powerful men shaking hands with two powerful women as equals. This photograph made me very happy,' says Aakar Patel.
'In a party run by 'two-and-a half men', Kovind fits the bill perfectly because, unlike the BJP's previous choice for the Presidency, A P J Abdul Kalam, he is unlikely to return a bill as Kalam did with the office of profit legislation,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
