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.
Assembly elections to five crucial states will take place in a few months and the results will be decisive for the BJP, which is eyeing a third successive term at the Centre, in the forthcoming the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
Yogi Adityanath's aura is no longer limited to Uttar Pradesh. At the age of 49, his journey to the higher echelons in the BJP has well and truly begun, predicts Sudhir Bisht.
'He has been made CM of Uttarakhand because everybody thinks he is not a challenge to anyone.'
'The BJP is scared it may lose the Delhi municipal elections where they have been in power for the last 15 years.'
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
The AAP on Thursday said if it is voted to power in UP, it will provide 300 units of free electricity to domestic consumers, waive 'inflated' bills and ensure 24-hour power supply.
The ambit of the G-23 grouping increased this time as some more leaders -- Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma -- joined them.
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.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
Sibal, a prominent Opposition voice and a former Congress leader, also said that instead of a common minimum programme, the Opposition parties should talk about a 'new vision for India'.
As the new year arrives, the Bharatiya Janata Party's finds itself on the cusp of the most consequential cycle of state polls since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as the results will tell if the road ahead in its bid for a third straight term at the Centre is getting any bumpier or a strong opposition challenge remains elusive.
The Congress high command on Monday evening selected Vijay Bahuguna, the member of Parliament from Tehri Garhwal, to be the next chief minister of Uttarakhand.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party is committed to bring Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country but only after following all democratic processes and discussions on it.
Modi also lauded party workers in the state, saying each of them is a champion
While listing the matter for hearing on April 27, the bench said that the high court shall provide the judgement passed on Thursday to the parties by April 26 and on the same date the copy of the verdict shall also be placed before the apex court.
With all exit polls predicting a clean sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recently-concluded assembly polls, several leaders have started working overtime to deny the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from walking away with credit for this victory, says Anita Katyal
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.
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday that religious freedom does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion and that it certainly does not embrace the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion or allurement.
People poured their wrath on Mussoorie MLA Ganesh Joshi for showing cruelty to the animal.
RSS leader Indresh Kumar termed the 'politics of hate' as 'corruption' and called all political parties and their leaders to refrain from indulging in hate-mongering and pitting one section of the society against the other.
No matter how smug they sound on the surface about the potential of the dissenters to disturb the proverbial applecart, the Congress and the BJP know that their electoral calculations are precariously hinged in a seemingly tight contest.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held deliberations with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda amid speculation about a reshuffle in the Union cabinet, an exercise Modi has not undertaken since forming the government for a second time in May 2019.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
The EC had cautioned that the video van events should not cause inconvenience to the people and should not be a hindrance to smooth flow of traffic.
The Congress Working Committee, the party's top-decision making body, would soon meet to deliberate further on the Chintan Shivir plans, the sources said.
International oil prices jumped to the highest level since 2014, topping $87 a barrel but domestic petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged for the 74th day in a row - a freeze that may be linked to ensuing assembly elections in states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Brent - the key global oil benchmark - soared to $87.7 per barrel mostly due to rising geopolitical tensions and supply-side disturbances due to Yemen's Houthi group's attack on oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates. Also, global inventories are waning. The attack, some analysts believe, may lead to more hostile behaviour between the two power centres in the Middle East - Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Sushil Chandra will conduct the UP, Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand elections before he retires in May 2022.
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.
Dividing people in the name of religion, engineering riots and committing atrocities on Dalits is not Hindutva but to unite one human being with another is, he said in a veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party while replying to a question at a summit organised by news channel Times Now.
A month after the worst natural calamity in Uttarakhand, the state government, which is grappling with a myriad of daunting tasks, on Tuesday started distributing compensation to the next of the kin of those killed in the devastating floods.
"Didi has already said in Delhi that if Akhilesh Yadav needs our help, we are ready to extend help. The gesture of senior SP leader Jaya Bachchan seeking votes for the TMC during the West Bengal Assembly elections will be reciprocated in Uttar Pradesh," said Laliteshpati Tripathi, who recently joined the TMC.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The curtain came down on rumbustious electioneering over the last two months when assembly polls were also held in four other states - Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
These officers will oversee the entire poll processes as eyes and ears of the commission on the ground to ensure free, fair and voter-friendly elections.
The session will begin with President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha assembled together in the Central Hall and chambers of both the Houses in view of the COVID-19 situation.
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.
'The BJP while being in government in Gujarat continues to campaign like an Opposition party whereas the Opposition does the opposite.'
It's being touted as the baap of all face-swaps.
