Ahead of the 2019 elections, the race for consolidating the Dalit vote-bank has intensified among all the political parties, more so in Uttar Pradesh, where the community comprises almost 21 per cent of the population.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday elevated her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee as the party's all-India general secretary, the second-most important post in the organisation, a senior leader in Kolkata said.
Where does Basavaraj Bommai stand three months after he assumed the reins of power in Karnataka?
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appealed to parties to rise above partisan considerations to support it.
The choice of candidates for 175 seats by Shivpal has apparently not gone down well with his defiant nephew Akhilesh who, according to party insiders, is understood to have prepared his own list of preferred candidates for all the 403 UP assembly seats and sent it to his father and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
A full one year after Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on the night of September 22, 2016, followed by long hospitalisation and death on December 5, Tamil Nadu continues to be rocked by instability and non-governance of every which kind, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
There were no signs of either the Peoples Democratic Party, the largest group, or the Bharatiya Janata Party, the close runner-up, getting the requisite numbers to stake claim to forming a new government in Jammu and Kashmir as the deadline set by Governor N N Vohra for discussions fast approached.
The reorganisation bill provides for formation of Union territory of Ladakh without legislature and a separate one for Jammu and Kashmir with legislature.
He said he requested the prime minister to be 'magnanimous' towards the people of Andhra Pradesh.
Prasad also attacked the previous United Progressive Alliance government for letting the women's reservation bill, introduced by it, lapse.
'They forget that denial of basic rights has helped create a big political void which is adding to a deepening alienation.' 'This creates a fertile ground for extremist elements and targeted killings which we are witness to once again.'
The BJP said it will seek a floor test in the Madhya Pradesh assembly on March 16.
The productivity of the Lok Sabha was 91.58 per cent while that of Rajya Sabha was 56.29 per cent.
The move by the Andhra Pradesh cabinet came after the Y S Jaganmohan Reddy government last week failed to pass in the Upper House of the state legislature two crucial Bills related to its plan of having three capitals for the state.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti will on Wednesday file her nomination papers from the Anantnag assembly segment which fell vacant on the demise of her father and chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
The minister walked out of the House after being upset over what he termed as the government's 'limited' statement on the issue, following which members of the opposition BJP claimed such an incident had 'never happened where a minister expressed dissatisfaction over his own government's reply'.
Speaker Ramesh Kumar said the motion of confidence would reach finality on Monday and it would not be prolonged further under any circumstances, to which the government agreed.
''He had given tools to fight all forms of homogenisation.'
Uttarakhand Governor Krishna Kant Paul on Saturday asked Chief Minister Harish Rawat to prove his majority on the floor of the state assembly by March 28 as the political crisis escalated with the Bharatiya Janata Party, claiming the support of rebel Congress MLAs, stepped up efforts to form its government.
"Anti-cow slaughter, we had earlier (previous tenure) tabled it, but it was not given assent. I have asked the Law Minister to table it once again.. it will be tabled by tomorrow or the day after and we will get it approved," Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, whose party has extended crucial outside support to the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra, on Monday said the decision was prompted by the need to avoid fresh elections but made it clear that the party will play the role of an effective opposition.
The presidential election is due in July and the poll to the post of the vice president is scheduled for August.
Battle lines have been drawn between the ruling Congress-NCP government and opposition parties for the two-week winter session of the Maharashtra legislature, starting on Monday in Nagpur.
'The timing of the current episode involving Ajit Pawar is important. The episode has elements of deceit, betrayal and falsehood intertwined'
In a television interview, Union minister Jairam Ramesh claimed that a state of UP's size was ungovernable
According to state government sources, not only did the governor insert some corrections, but he also initialled the final draft after those corrections had been made, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
In democratic India, a citizen can be a patriot and at the same time be critical of the government, unlike China which promulgated a national security law in Hong Kong prescribing patriotism to contest elections, observes Rup Narayan Das.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and chief ministers of various BJP-ruled states attended the ceremony.
A down-to-the-wire contest is likely in some of the seats in the high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in seven states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana, where the fate of candidates including senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and senior lawyer R K Anand is being decided on Saturday.
As back channel talks continued between Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party to explore the possibility of a coalition government in Maharashtra, there were strong indications on Saturday that the latter may form a government on its own with the Nationalist Congress Party's outside support in keeping with the "sentiment" in the party.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party waiting to pull down the Congress-led state government, the new chief minister's duration of service will all depend on the results of the Lok Sabha elections, says Anita Katyal.
Altogether 169 MLAs vote in favour of the motion of confidence, pro tem Speaker Dilip Walse Patil informed the House.
Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council K S Eshwarappa alleged that the government has 'misused' the office of the President by getting Tipu's name mentioned in the speech.
Speaking about his talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the NCP chief told NDTV that he conveyed to the PM that it would not be possible for his party to work with the BJP.
'The EC's role in this is questionable. What is the reason for this delay? Are they waiting for instructions?'
Awaiting the outcome of a meeting convened by the Centre, Karnataka Cabinet on Wednesday decided to defer till Thursday a decision on release of 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu as per the Supreme Court direction.
For the government to meet its GST roll-out deadline of April 1, 2017, the states will have to ratify the Bill before Parliament's winter session, starting November.
In true Karnataka political style, which cuts across parties and loyalties, any reinstatement of Yeddiyurappa, even with adequate legislative majority, could trigger rebellion from within, which could embarrass the Modi-Shah duo than any other development elsewhere in the country, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Never before in the history of the Republic has an election in the state mattered so much as it does now, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
