From invoking the 'Saptarishi' (Ursa Major) constellation, seven basic notes of Indian classical music to 'saat phere' (seven circumambulations) -- parties give different reasons and logic to claim that they will emerge victorious in the polls.
The ruling alliance also has some smaller parties like Republican Party of India-Athawale, Asom Gana Parishad, Mizo National Front, National People's Party, Naga People's Front, Pattali Makkal Katchi and Bodoland People's Front, which have one seat each, totalling seven seats.
Uttrakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri has resigned more than a month after Bharatiya Janata Party's rout in the Lok Sabha election in the state and mounting dissidence against him.
The BJP's 2022 assembly election win may have further consolidated Adityanath's stock within the BJP. The saffron party is now set to win the UP state polls twice in a row, a feat achieved by no other party in three decades.
Congress members staged a walkout after Singh said that "a boat is bound to sink if it has a hole".
"Let them show whatever they have got. We are winning with a majority," Akhilesh Yadav said, dismissing predictions to the contrary on some TV channels.
Corruption will be the theme of a two-day conclave of the Bhartiya Janata Party chief ministers being held in Mysore from May 10.
'We are seeing an era where only what Modi wishes is going to happen.' 'A clear message has now been sent to others that if this fate could befall on Nitin Gadkari, then just think what could happen to lesser mortals.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday downplayed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's absence from its national executive meeting in Delhi.
"We always said Tuki did not have a majority. His resignation proves BJP right as well as the actions of the governor," its national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
Despite the prime minister's surprise announcement, farmer leaders have maintained the protesters won't budge until the three contentious laws are formally repealed in Parliament.
"It seems this is the beginning of a new victory trail which started with the MCD polls. We look at the future with a new hope," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said. In Gujarat, BJP won five of the seven assembly seats, where by-polls were held.
In a setback to Congress in Uttarakhand, its MP from Garhwal Satpal Maharaj joined Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday, saying the country needed strong leadership.
For the post of deputy chief minister, the names of Swatantra Dev Singh, Baby Rani Maurya, Brijesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya are in talks.
We used to hear of the Modi-Shah pair as the hyphenated top of the BJP leadership. Lately, the hyphen has disappeared and it is only Modi at the top. Yogi Adityanath gets honourable mentions, but he is still a good distance away from being anointed a worthy successor, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Conforming to the cycle of the ruling party being ejected from power in the hill state, the saffron party bagged 41 seats, five short of two-thirds majority in the 68-member assembly. In the outgoing House, BJP had only 19 MLAs.
Other strong men have stopped Modi and his hordes in states before, but none of them with a footprint or battle cry to shake up New Delhi, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Saturday credited 'Modi wave' for the party's stong showing in the high stakes Uttar Pradesh elections.
After arriving in Kedarnath, Modi watched a brief documentary detailing the reconstruction work carried out at the Himalayan temple after the devastating deluge of 2013 and then entered the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine.
"Our party is stronger than the Congress in the state. While the Congress won 40 seats in panchayat polls, we scored a victory in 83 panchayats. AAP got over 40 lakh votes in these polls, where 1600 party candidates contested," Singh, AAP's UP in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Even if the government does not implement an all-India NRC before 2024, it will be part of the party's long-term project.'
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
Days after Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari wrote a letter for convening a special session of the state assembly against the backdrop of the Sakinaka rape and murder, chief minster Uddhav Thackeray has hit back saying Koshyari should request the Centre to call a session of Parliament to discuss issues concerning the safety of women and growing attacks on them.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'If Mayawati had performed better, then the BJP would have had a much tougher time to win UP.' 'The present gap in number of seats between the BJP and SP would have got reduced.'
Glimpses of the CWC meeting, which was meant to formulate a plan to revive the party from the death throes of electoral irrelevance, but...
"Former Chief Minister Mayawati and I will not contest the assembly elections," Bahujan Samaj Party member of Parliament Satish Chandra Misra told ANI.
Popular Tanglish song 'Kolaveri di' and the raunchy 'Ooh La La' number are rocking Uttarakhand's Garwhal hills with the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party candidates using parodies of the songs to take potshots at each other.
With its landslide victory in Punjab assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party has achieved a major milestone in its journey so far and emerged as an alternative in the national politics.
Reacting sharply to the development, BJP lodged a protest with Governor K K Paul and alleged it was "abduction" of its MLA.
Rising for the fourth straight day, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty settled marginally higher after a choppy session on Friday, tracking mixed global trends amid uncertainties on the geopolitical front. The BSE Sensex opened weak and declined 414.44 points to 55,049.95 in opening deals. But within minutes, it pared all its losses and jumped 369.56 points to 55,833.95. Facing volatility, the index finally settled at 55,550.30, higher by 85.91 points or 0.15 per cent.
The Devasthanam Board was assigned the management of 51 temples of the state, including the four famous Himalayan shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.
Two civilians were killed and another was injured in firing outside an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district on Friday, leading to massive protests and demands for a fair probe.
Some leaders of the non-BJP ruled states also alleged that the exclusion was an "insult" by the Centre.
Earlier, only Azad was scheduled to meet Sonia Gandhi.
The seats identified are from Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Northeast.
Putting up a brave front, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday asserted the Harish Rawat government remains in a minority and it will be proved on April 29 when it takes the floor test, after the Uttrakhand high court restored the Congress government, revoking the President's rule.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari attributed the stunning victory of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh to polarisation of votes
The complaint was submitted with Mallital police station on Wednesday by Pushkar Singh Dhami, vice chairman of state urban development monitoring board and a BJP leader.
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