Prominent among these include former sports minister and sitting MLA Gurmit Singh Sodhi, MLA Fatehjang Singh Bajwa and former minister Anil Joshi.
Top Opposition leaders, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at the Narendra Modi government for "doing nothing other than 'show-baazi'" by slashing allocations to all major social security schemes like MGNREGA.
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.
PM Modi offered a glass of water to Aam AAP member Bhagwant Mann, who was protesting in Lok Sabha against the CBI raids on Delhi government secretariat.
'Khalistanis can be divided into three categories: Firstly, hardcore ideological people. They are microscopic, not even 1%.' 'Secondly, those who consider Khalistan a business.' 'The third category that has built the narrative of Khalistan are those who gain from polarisation.'
Ahead of the launch of its 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' on Wednesday, the Congress said it is a turning point in Indian politics and marks a 'new beginning'.
Eyeing the revival of the crisis-ridden party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the party chief Sonia Gandhi described the march as a "landmark occasion" and hoped that the march would help rejuvenate the grand old party.
The Congress and other opposition parties have accused the police of bias and inaction in the Delhi violence.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
'Several leaders leaving the party in quick succession tell us that something is very wrong with the oldest party'
'The fight is between the Congress and Akali Dal.'
In Bihar, where a bandh had been called, a railway station and a police vehicle were torched, an ambulance attacked and security personnel injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of the agitation, while protesters vandalised Ludhiana railway station in Punjab and blocked roads and rail tracks in West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
Navjot Singh Sidhu quit as the Punjab PCC chief, triggering other resignations and plunging the party into a fresh crisis just months ahead of the assembly elections.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MP from Hyderabad, chanted "Jai Bheem, Jai Meem, Takbeer Allahu Akbar, Jai Hind", after members from the ruling side shouted slogans of 'Jai Shri Ram', 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and 'Vande Mataram'.
'It is a well-entrenched belief in the downtrodden, the deprived sections, that Modi cares for them. He has come to occupy their mindspace as their messiah.' 'And it is this deprived, dispossessed section that is powering his electoral performance, breaking ancient shibboleths and shackles like religion and caste and region and language,' argues Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'If you put your own party into the witness box, like what Sidhu did, and treat them as wrongdoers, then how will the people of Punjab trust the party?'
Congress on Sunday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assurances to the farmers.
The Congress chief said if his party is elected to power, its government would spend 6 per cent of the GDP on education.
Farmer leader Joginder Singh Ugrahan said told reporters after the meeting that the unions urged the government to repeal the three laws, but the Centre was unwilling to do so. "We decided to meet again on January 19 at 12 pm," he said.
The review plea has been filed by ministers from West Bengal (Moloy Ghatak), Jharkhand (Rameshwar Oraon), Rajasthan (Raghu Sharma), Chhattisgarh (Amarjeet Bhagat), Punjab (B S Sidhu) and Maharashtra (Uday Ravindra Sawant).
Belligerent Congress members trooped into the Well during the Question Hour and raised slogans, even as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan went ahead with the proceedings.
The prime minister was often seen vigorously thumping the desk, prompting his Cabinet colleagues and NDA MPs to follow suit.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
The Congress chief will also be contesting from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
Hitting back at Nitish Kumar, who on Monday mouthed a limerick set to a film song to attack him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday likened JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance to "three idiots", advised the chief minister to perfect the art of "Mushaira" and practise it at leisure after the Bihar polls.
Akhilesh was referring to the advertisement in which Bachchan is seen inviting tourists to visit the Wild Ass Sanctuary located in Little Rann of Kutch in the state.
'Nitish has no future in state politics.' 'Nitish harassed the Yadav community no end in his earlier tenure as chief minister. So who will the Yadav community vote for in the coming state elections?'
The war of words between Arvind Kejriwal and Amarinder Singh turned ugly on Twitter on Monday after the Delhi Chief Minister accused the Punjab Congress chief of using an Akali leader's "drug money" to fund his election campaign and the latter shot back, saying the AAP leader was "hallucinating" and challenged him to a debate.
Sparks flew in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday as the raging Jawaharlal Nehru University row and suicide of Dalit student Rohith Vemula was taken up for discussion, with opposition accusing the government of muzzling the voice of the youth and "mercilessly crushing" the principles of democracy.
'The sadhus and sanyasis of UP are not for any economics.' 'They only know the religious agenda and the RSS will support them.' 'Modi does not have full control of the party at the ground level like Indira Gandhi had.'
The issue of imposition of President's Rule in Uttarakhand echoed in Parliament on Monday with Congress members in both Houses storming the Well and party leader Mallikarjun Kharge staging a dharna in the Lok Sabha.
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
Opposition on Monday picked holes in various government decisions like demonetisation and surgical strikes as well as allocation of funds for MNREGA, agriculture sector and Scheduled Castes, saying it has failed on all fronts despite which it is trying to "fool" the people.