'Slogans like 'Ek hai toh safe hai' and 'Batenge toh katenge' resonated with voters.'
Polling for the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections will take place on Saturday, May 25, 2024, with 58 seats seats going to the polls across 8 states.
As the new year arrives, what is clear is that the BJP's stars continue to shine the brightest while its rivals' search for a way to dim their glow go on.
Violators will have to pay a Rs 2,000 fine for the first offence and Rs 5,000 if they defy this order for the second time, Ujjain Mayor Mukesh Tatwal said on Saturday.
District election officer Mahendra Bahadur Singh said Aman Giri won by a margin of 34,298 votes. He received 1,24,810 votes while Tiwari got 90,512 votes.
Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor has predicted that JD(U) president Nitish Kumar will contest the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar in alliance with the BJP but may switch sides later, with hopes for another term as the chief minister. Kishor, founder of the Jan Suraaj Party, also asserted that Kumar's popularity has declined and he is unlikely to win a fifth consecutive term. He challenged the BJP to declare Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate, arguing that they would struggle to win seats if they did so. Kishor also criticized Kumar's leadership, accusing him of being "physically tired and mentally retired" and of "bringing disrepute to Bihar" by touching Prime Minister Narendra Modi's feet. He said his new party will enter the fray to pull Bihar "out of the political rut" and that the state's much-touted prohibition policy is an example of the BJP's duplicity.
According to an agreement reached after the telephonic conversation between Priyanka Gandhi and Yadav, the Congress has now got seats such as Sitapur and Barabanki.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, chief ministers of Nationalist Democratic Alliance-ruled states and prominent personalities from industry and Bollywood on Thursday attended the grand swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra Chief Minister in Mumbai.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and a strong team of Union ministers figure in the list of the party's 40 star campaigners for Karnataka assembly elections next month.
Shah pulled no punches in lambasting the RJD supremo for alleged nepotism, accusing him of making his wife the chief minister, getting his daughter elected to Parliament and "now both his sons want to become the CM".
Polling on three graduates and two teachers constituencies of the council was held on January 30 and counting of votes by ballot began on Thursday evening and was completed on Friday.
Delhi faces a severe financial crunch and the deficit is largely due to numerous welfare schemes without adequate revenue flowing in. The success of welfare schemes and electoral promises will need careful financial planning and out of the box thinking to whip up additional revenue, notes Ramesh Menon.
Accepting demands of the aspirants, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) on Thursday postponed Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) exams, and announced to hold the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) preliminary exam on the old pattern.
Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are majority shareholders of Young Indian with 38 per cent shares held by each one of them. They were questioned for hours by the ED in this case a few years back.
For the first time, non-upper castes are in a majority in the board, as the party continues with its outreach to traditionally weaker and backward sections of society.
This has invited sharp reaction from the Opposition, with the Samajwadi Party saying that the BJP was afraid of its defeat in Milkipur due to which it moved the court for "stalling" polls on the assembly seat.
Besides in-charges, the party has also named co-incharges for several states, a BJP statement said.
More than 48 lakh candidates appeared in the examination conducted on February 17 and 18 across the state.
Tandon, son former Chhattisgarh governor late Balramji Das Tandon, assured everyone that he will live up to the expectations and the trust which the BJP has reposed in him.
The newly-inaugurated Kashi Vishwanath Corridor in Varanasi is being largely hailed as a symbol of resurrection of India's spiritual consciousness but a section of people here claims that the mega project is being showcased so that the ruling party gets a "political edge" in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
Stressing that the Apna Dal-S stands for social justice, Union minister Anupriya Patel on Monday dissociated her party from "Hindutva and all those issues" and said it is ideologically different from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Yadav asserted that he has always maintained that seat distribution should be decided considering which alliance partner is the strongest in a particular state.
'Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli?'
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
Rajbhar said the seat-sharing talks with the BJP remained unsuccessful.
If Meena resigns, it is likely to put pressure on other ministers whose areas also saw poor performance in the general elections.
Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president Om Praksh Rajbhar on Thursday said his alliance with the SP will support jailed BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari in the upcoming 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
'They were very vocal on the defence of the Constitution, reservation, SC/ST Act and democratic rights.'
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
'We want to send a notice to the BJP that Rajputs are no longer their slaves.'
The Gyanvapi issue has been at the centre of a long-drawn legal battle with the Hindu side arguing that the Gyanvapi mosque was allegedly built on the remains of a pre-existing temple, while the Muslim side has contested the claim.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party faces an uphill task of repeating its performance of the last assembly election of winning 53 out of 58 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh where polling will be held in the first phase on February 10.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi on Sunday described farmers, who have been protesting against three farm laws, as 'our own flesh and blood' and suggested that the government should re-engage with them in reaching common ground.
The BJP lost 15 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Union ministers have been deployed in all 15, tasked with turning the result around.
Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, have not been renominated by the party for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
While the Congress top brass has declined an invitation to the January 22 consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the party's Uttar Pradesh unit stuck to its plan to offer prayers in the holy city on Makar Sankranti.