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.
'Even if the government does not implement an all-India NRC before 2024, it will be part of the party's long-term project.'
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.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
Congress members staged a walkout after Singh said that "a boat is bound to sink if it has a hole".
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.
'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.'
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.
Glimpses of the CWC meeting, which was meant to formulate a plan to revive the party from the death throes of electoral irrelevance, but...
"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.
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.
"Former Chief Minister Mayawati and I will not contest the assembly elections," Bahujan Samaj Party member of Parliament Satish Chandra Misra told ANI.
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.
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.
Corruption will be the theme of a two-day conclave of the Bhartiya Janata Party chief ministers being held in Mysore from May 10.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
Former Nepalese foreign minister Ramesh Nath Pandey observed that the current situation is not encouraging for India-Nepal ties, saying the "present leaders" created irritants in the relationship in the past.
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 Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Saturday credited 'Modi wave' for the party's stong showing in the high stakes Uttar Pradesh elections.
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.
"Modi ji! Is this our Indian culture? Is this what has been taught in Vedas, Mahabharat, Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita? I am asking BJP national president Nadda ji. Is it our culture?" he asked, referring to Sarma's comments.
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.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
The SC, however, rejected NIA's request for immediate stay to the order.
'It will impact the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.'
Punjab's 117 assembly seats are going to be a keenly-watched contest with the Congress, the AAP, the SAD-BSP alliance, and the BJP-PLC-SAD (Sanyukt) battling to form the government in the state, with a probable entry of farmers' front in the form of Sanyukt Samaj Morcha.
There seems to be a desire for opacity when it comes to confronting China, points out Aakar Patel.
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.
Reacting sharply to the development, BJP lodged a protest with Governor K K Paul and alleged it was "abduction" of its MLA.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The seats identified are from Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Northeast.
The results are a ringing endorsement of Modi's popularity, his government's achievements in the last five years and his campaign, which centred around national security, nationalism and Hindutva.
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.
Announcing the election schedule with a strong focus on digital and virtual modes of campaigning, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said the ban on rallies, roadshows, nukkad sabhas, padayatras and vehicle rallies will be reviewed on January 15.
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