A Haridwar-based community welfare organisation, Divya Prem Seva Mission, will host a series of seven lectures on diverse themes, including one on the contentious subject of simultaneous polls, at its camp at the Maha Kumbh site in Prayagraj. The lecture series, starting on January 12, will also cover topics like Swami Vivekananda's philosophy, India's glorious past, global terrorism, gender equality, and the challenges of privacy and safety on social media. The organization has been involved in philanthropic activities for 29 years and is raising awareness about the discrimination faced by people with leprosy.
"Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon is a slogan but Congress didn't give me a chance to fight," she added.
Besides Nadda, BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh, Union Minister, election in-charge for Uttar Pradesh Dharmendra Pradhan, state unit president Swatantar Dev Singh and general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal were among those who attended the meeting that lasted for nearly five hours.
The ministers who failed to find places in the second term of the BJP government in the state included Dinesh Sharma, Satish Mahana, Ashutosh Tandon, Shrikant Sharma, Siddharth Nath Singh, and others.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
In 2019, an all-party meeting was held in Delhi and it was attended by 19 political parties to discuss critical reforms in governance. One of the subjects of the discussions was simultaneous elections
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.
The Election Commission on Tuesday appointed special observers for administrative, security and expenditure monitoring purposes in several states to ensure a level playing field during the upcoming elections.
Sessions Judge and the Designated POTA Judge, Shailendra Kumar Saxena, observed that the law is same for one.
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
The Budget session of the Uttar Pradesh assembly got off to a tempestuous start on Thursday with opposition Bahujan Samaj Party creating pandemonium during the governor's address to the joint sitting of both Houses, forcing him to cut short his speech.
Neither Mohammed Shami nor Mohammed Kaif traveled to the Maha Kumbh Mela.
Among the other promises made by the party are purchase of wheat and paddy at Rs 2,500 per quintal and Rs 400 per quintal for sugarcane.
The Hyderabad MP had earlier announced thatthe AIMIM will contest 100 seats in Uttar Pradesh polls scheduled early next year.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
The move comes after one of the Assembly committees held him guilty of breach of privilege and contempt for his failure to appear before it.
"You are seeing my face everywhere," the Congress leader added while addressing a press conference to release the party's 'youth manifesto' along with her brother and former president Rahul Gandhi.
Polling for 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state began in the morning.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
Rekha Gupta, a former DUSU president and a long-time member of the RSS, has been chosen as the Leader of the House in the Delhi Assembly and will become the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi. She won the Shalimar Bagh seat in the February 5 Assembly polls, defeating her AAP rival Bandana Kumari. Gupta, a BCom graduate and lawyer, has a long history of working for women's welfare, having served as the national secretary of the BJP's youth wing and the national vice-president of BJP Mahila Morcha. The BJP has returned to power in Delhi after over 26 years, ending the 10-year rule of the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary announced the tie-up on social media for the elections later this year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Chandrabhanu Paswan was leading by 3,991 votes over the Samajwadi Party's (SP) Ajit Prasad after the first round of counting for the Milkipur assembly bypoll on Saturday, according to the Election Commission website.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the inauguration of the Purvanchal Expressway on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against heads of political parties for not following its directions to prevent criminalisation of politics in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls held earlier this year.
Of the 59 seats, the BJP had won 51 in the 2017 Assembly elections, four had gone to the Samajwadi Party, and three to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Aside from the 36 MPs, the meeting was also attended by BJP president J P Nadda and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, they said.
Some candidates in these two states have been provided security till the poll process ends.
He also urged all the ministers, MLAs, and public representatives to respect party workers.
Polling for the first phase of the high voltage Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections for 55 seats in 10 districts would be held on Wednesday that will decide the fate of two ministers, 31 members of Legislative Assembly and 15 former ministers.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath defended the Maha Kumbh, claiming it generated Rs 3 lakh crore in business and provided significant economic benefits to the region. He also highlighted the "flawless" law-and-order management during the event, citing no crime reports despite the participation of 66 crore devotees and tourists. Adityanath countered opposition criticism of the event, stating that a family with 130 boats made a profit of Rs 30 crore during the 45-day congregation.
The communal violence in Sambhal that claimed four lives and left over 20 people injured has now sparked a debate over a purported rivalry between the Turk and Pathan communities, with political and administrative figures weighing in on the cause of the unrest.
'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari attributed the stunning victory of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh to polarisation of votes
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
Adityanath said the BJP government has done whatever the party promised in the run-up to the last assembly polls in 2017.
RLD sources said that the party chief was "taken aback" by the SP's delay in announcing his name as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections.
The Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly secretariat on Friday announced the disqualification of Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan from the House, a day after a court sentenced him to three years in jail in a hate speech case.
The Congress party has accused the BJP of engaging in "damage control" after the party distanced itself from comments made by two of its MPs, Nishikant Dubey and Dinesh Sharma, criticizing the Supreme Court. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh stated that the BJP's clarification was merely an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by the MPs' remarks and that the party's actions were hypocritical, given the silence of the BJP president on similar comments made by other party members.
'Prashant Kishor is a businessman before he is a politician, and given that the expected average turnout for JSP candidates is 5,000 to 6,000 votes and since Bihar has a significant number of seats where the margin between the winner and runner-up falls within that range he will capitalise on exactly that to showcase his presence.'
