Tamil Nadu and Kerala are voting in single-phase for 234 and 140 assembly constituencies respectively.
A case has been registered against Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making statements that promote enmity between different groups, police said on Tuesday.
Pappu Yadav has been asserting that he will contest the seat he had won thrice in the 1990s, with the claim of "assurances" from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Saturday she looks forward to being the voice of the people of Wayanad in Parliament and thanked Rahul Gandhi for 'showing her the way and having her back always'.
The government wants the state to be renamed as 'Keralam' in the Constitution and all the official records.
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
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.
Prominent celebrity losers include national award-winning actor Suresh Gopi, comedian Dharmajan Bolgatty, actress Priyanka Anoop, actor-anchor Krishnakumar and television serial actor Vivek Gopan.
Rediff Labs analysed the past performance of the parties to develop this Sentiment Meter for the 2016 Kerala election.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday asserted that Marathi is the language of Mumbai and Maharashtra and anyone who lives here should learn and speak it. Fadnavis was speaking in the state assembly after Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Bhaskar Jadhav said the government should clarify its stand on senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi's comments that a person coming to Mumbai may not necessarily learn Marathi.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the rescue mission in the landslide-hit Mundakkai region of Wayanad could take a few more days, and appointed a cabinet sub-committee of four ministers to coordinate the rescue efforts.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday lashed out at Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for calling a group of protesting Students' Federation of India (SFI) members 'criminals' and said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government has 'let loose such a deranged man'.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
The report said that his classmates and senior held a public trial inside the hostel alleging that he had misbehaved with a girl student of the college.
A little over a year after it retained power in Kerala with a massive victory, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front suffered a huge setback on Friday in a bypoll held to Thrikkakara assembly constituency, with Congress candidate Uma Thomas winning with a historic margin of 25,016 votes, giving a boost to the morale of the party-led United Democratic Front in the southern state.
Local residents have stressed that land acquisition for rehabilitation must be completed promptly, as it has been delayed after estate owners challenged it in the Kerala high court.
'Secularism is the life of Kerala, and the BJP is trying to poison this atmosphere.'
The Congress continued its losing spree on Saturday posting its worst-ever show in Maharashtra and ending up a distant junior partner to the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Jharkhand, further diminishing its role in the opposition bloc as other allies perform better.
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
The Kerala high court on Friday refused to stay the release of the controversial multi-lingual film The Kerala Story and said the trailer does not contain anything offensive to any particular community as a whole.
The Kerala police have registered another case against Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making statements that promote enmity between different groups through social media posts in connection with recent blasts at a convention centre in Kochi.
'While some women allow themselves to be exploited so that they can climb up the ladder, there are many voiceless and silent people who get exploited by men in powerful positions.'
Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026. The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Modi, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
KPCC president and MP, Sudhakaran said that unofficially discussions have begun on who should be the candidate and officially it would start a couple of days later.
The 79-year old leader, who served as the chief minister of Kerala twice, breathed his last in a private hospital in Bengaluru at 4.25 am. His end came while undergoing treatment for cancer, party sources said.
The visit by an official delegation from Kerala to the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat has come under criticism from opposition Congress and Muslim League in Kerala.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday cruised to her maiden electoral victory, from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, with a margin of over 4.1 lakh votes against Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front's Sathyan Mokeri, according to figures released by the Election Commission.
District Congress Committee (DCC) president Muhammed Shiyas confirmed that seven Congress workers from the Western Kochi area were taken into preventive detention by the police in the early hours of Monday.
While the term of the Maharashtra assembly ends on November 26, that of Jharkhand ends on January 5 next year.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
Inaugurating the solidarity rally, Venugopal, a Rajya Sabha MP, strongly condemned the war unleashed by Israel in Gaza and their attacks against hospitals and refugee camps there.
'Vote banks will change affiliations and the BJP will come out with good success in Kerala.'
'He should not come to Kerala and fight against the CPI which is an integral part of the INDIA alliance'
The Z+ security cover of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel has been extended to Khan and Raj Bhavan, his office said in a post on 'X'.
Prime ministers turning up with such frequency to launch trains is an indication of the political mileage resident in public transport. Will our railways step out of the government's shadow? After all, they are the ones manufacturing trains and running them, notes Shyam G Menon.
However, there were conflicting reports about the number of blasts as state ministers VN Vasavan and Antony Raju said there were two blasts, while Congress MP from Ernakulam, Hibi Eden, said there were multiple blasts according to one of his friends who attended the convention.
A police complaint has been lodged at Barakhamba police station in Delhi, against 26 Opposition parties "for improper use of the name of INDIA and use of the said name for the undue influence and personation at elections."
If the DMK is able to sustain the momentum until the assembly polls, the AIADMK especially and the PMK and possibly the infant TVK too would find it hard to sign up with the BJP, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
The film falsely claims Hindu women converted, got radicalised and were deployed in terror missions in India and the world, according to the ruling CPI-M and opposition Congress in Kerala.
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