CPM politburo member Hannan Mollah said the party is facing one of the toughest situations following its defeat in Tripura, which has "forced us to rethink in a new way".
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
"After pulling down the statue, slogans of 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' were raised,'' Datta told PTI.
Congress had a reason to smile as it was able to emerge as the single largest party in Meghalaya, but failed to secure a majority.
The term of the Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura legislative assemblies is ending on March 6, March 13 and March 14 respectively.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
'Removing Biplab Deb and replacing him with Manik Saha is a fruitless exercise that the BJP national leadership has indulged in.' 'It is foolish to think that people will forget what these two have done to the state and its people in the last four years.'
The country now has six national parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, NPP and AAP.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
Deb, whose name was proposed by party MLA Sudip Roy Burman in the meeting, will be the new chief minister of Tripura, Gadkari said.
'I would think that India faces less damage from opinions voiced overseas compared to the damage it suffers if the right to free speech of its citizens is curtailed in the name of image management,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
The renowned education reformist said the end of the hunger strike is the beginning of the new phase of the ongoing agitation.
Uncertain political times in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Sonam Wangchuk, a key campaigner for constitutional safeguards for Ladakh, on Monday said they would launch a fast unto death from February 19 to press their demands and that details of participation of local residents in the agitation were being worked out.
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
"The voting percentage is likely to go upwards when reports from all polling stations are obtained as polling is scheduled till 6 pm in many constituencies. Final figures will be known on Saturday after the scrutiny of form 17A," the EC said.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
Shah said the ULFA, the oldest insurgent group of Assam, agreed to abjure violence, disband the organisation and join the democratic process.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
'Whatever the BJP tries to do, they will not be able to make a big mark in Kerala.'
Modi said he is seeking a third term not to enjoy power but to work for the nation. "If I had thought of my home, it would not have been possible to build homes for crores of people," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met the top priests of various churches in Kerala, giving a push to the Bharatiya Janata Party's efforts to reach out to the influential minority community in the southern state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, sources said.
The grand old party faces the onerous task of rebuilding its moribund organisation, which is struggling to overcome a leadership crisis and regain credibility with the voters.
The exit polls further pointed out that the northeastern state would have a hung house, with Sangma's National People's Party (NPP) emerging as the single-largest party.
Sarma, who heads the Bharatiya Janata Party-led North East Development Alliance (NEDA), met Sangma at a hotel in Guwahati on Tuesday night, they said.
Modi hit out at the Congress for its president Mallikarjun Kharge's attempt to play down his party's poor show in the polls by describing it as "small state elections".
'Earlier, a lot of fear was in the minds of people that the BJP is anti-Christian and anti-minority, but over the years people have learnt to accept that the BJP is just another national party.'
Key states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana would go for polls this year, besides states from the North-East.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee along with party leaders and workers sat on a dharna at the Rajghat in New Delhi on Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary on Monday demanding the release of funds for West Bengal by the Centre.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
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