Congress leader Jitin Prasada joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday, in a boost to the saffron party as it works to strengthen its social coalition ahead of assembly elections in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh early next year.
A voter turnout of 10.82 per cent was recorded till 9 am on Saturday in 58 constituencies in six states and two Union territories where polling is underway in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were among the top leaders who paid homage to former prime minister Manmohan Singh at his home in New Delhi on Friday.
Twenty-three-year-old Singh's family said they disowned him 11 years ago and have called for exemplary punishment for his actions.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday took oath as member of the 18th Lok Sabha.
The threat message was received on the Mumbai traffic police helpline and an officer read it around midnight, the official said.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which is going to contest next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on the promise of creating leadership among Muslims, has created unease in the political parties that so far considered the members of the minority community as their core "vote bank".
Robert Vadra indicated that he will also join politics and said there is an atmosphere of change in the country. His entire family is working diligently on this, he added.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed an interim stay on directives passed by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display names of owners.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister R P N Singh and Sudhanshu Trivedi -- the only outgoing MP renominated by the party.
The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries, and Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar as secretaries.
The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
While Brijlal Khabri, former BSP MP from Jalaun, is UP Congress Committee chairman, former UP cabinet minister and Mayawati's once close confidant Naseemuddin Siddiqui heads the party's state media department. Completing the ex-BSP troika, Nakul Dubey, former UP cabinet minister in the Mayawati dispensation (2007-12), is one of the six UP Congress regional presidents. He is reckoned among the most active of the three.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
The video in this regard was shared by Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on their social media accounts.
Two Union ministers and two senior Uttar Pradesh Congress legislators got together and roughed up a handful of Samajwadi Party activists who attempted to stage a black flag demonstration against Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on his arrival in Allahabad on Monday afternoon.
Otherwise detractors, Congress general secretary Ahmad Patel and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit appeared to team up to keep Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Salman Khurshid out of Delhi.
The stampede took place as people headed home after a satsang in the district's Phulrai village, conducted by a preacher known as Bhole Baba. Twenty-seven bodies were brought to a hospital in neighbouring Etah district. Senior Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kumar Singh said 23 of them were women. And 89 lay dead in Hathras itself.
Modi also alleged the opposition grouping will end the reservation given to SC, ST, OBC and give all of it to Muslims.
Uttar Pradesh's Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said in post on 'X' that an FIR has been registered in the matter at the Nayagaon police station in Etah district.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
More than 48 lakh candidates appeared in the examination conducted on February 17 and 18 across the state.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure, the little-known Hyderabad-based firm that in recent years won the prestigious Zojila tunnel deal among other projects, forayed into city gas and acquired a media group, was the second largest donor to political parties using electoral bonds.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
'The southern states will have no voice.' 'Political parties in future need to focus only on one region, the northern region, to win the general election.'
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners Samajwadi Party and Congress on Wednesday announced a tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with UP's main opposition party leaving 17 out of the 80 seats in the state for the ally.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi along with the five other Congress MPs from Uttar Pradesh will visit violence-hit Sambhal on Wednesday, party's state unit chief Ajay Rai said.
The Congress leader said his sister Priyanka Gandhi will be representing Wayanad if the people give her an opportunity and expressed confidence that she will do an excellent job at being their MP.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
Alleging negligence in the construction of the temple, Das claimed that there was also no arrangement for the drainage of rainwater from the temple premises after the showers on Saturday midnight.
The Congress on Friday said it will take a decision at an 'appropriate time' whether its senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi will attend the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.
The BJP got the benefit of a split in Muslim votes in some seats of western UP, and its candidates registered wins from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh Lok Sabha seats.
The party has fielded Parvati Das for the by-election to the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Lijinlal G for the Puthuppally assembly seat in Kerala.
However, in 950 booths, voting will end at 4 pm, though people standing in the queue at that time will be able to exercise their franchise.
There was more to him than he let on, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
The NCW said it strongly condemns the defamatory remarks and requests strict action against Moitra.
The immediate challenge for the Centre and the home ministry is to ensure the conduct of assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir and restoration of its statehood.
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