Noted educationist and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malviya was on Monday posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award, by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Sources in Kejriwal's office said it was conveyed to them by Advani's office that he has some engagements and cannot meet the chief minister as decided earlier.
The swearing-in ceremony may take place on Tuesday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president J P Nadda and chief ministers of several BJP-ruled states likely to attend the event, he said.
In focus are the assembly polls in 2026. From a BJP perspective, their attack on the ruling DMK, using the 'Hindutva' card, and Annamalai's targeting of both Dravidian majors on corruption has not worked, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was on Monday named as the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, while Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad was declared the Leader of the Opposition.
The third phase of Lok Sabha elections scheduled for Tuesday will see the maximum number of seats going to the polls in a single phase -- 117 across 15 states and Union Territories. It will also be a test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which will aim to defend the maximum number of seats at 62. This time the BJP will be tested in its bastion Gujarat -- where polling will be held for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state -- apart from Karanataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party had done well in 2014. Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Tuesday.
Bonhomie prevailed on day two of the 16th Lok Sabha, but one veteran leader was left out in the cold.
The latest setback for the 20-year-old party came at a time when its top leadership is in talks with the Congress to finalise seat-sharing for the 288-member assembly.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's speech in Dholpur reflects that his leader is Vasundhara Raje and not Sonia Gandhi, Sachin Pilot said in a no holds barred attack against his party colleague on Tuesday.
The Congress leader said he has traversed across the country, "but I have not seen violence, hatred anywhere. But I see it on television all the time."
As Karnataka gears up for D-Day, with most exit poll projections predicting a hung assembly while putting the Congress in the lead, the outcome will boil down to how the battle for some key constituencies play out.
His outburst came a day after UP Governor Ram Naik asked the state government to take action over the reported damage to the bungalow vacated by the former chief minister, calling it a serious matter involving the taxpayer's money.
Bihar's choppy political waters were on Tuesday astir over the prospects of a meeting between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and K Chandrasekhar Rao, his Telangana counterpart, both of whom share a passion for building a united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party's hegemony.
Nadda's visit to Badal's native village came days after the former Punjab chief minister said minorities 'should be taken along' to run a government.
With strained government-opposition ties marring the functioning of previous Lok Sabha, new Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday said creating 'coordination' among parties will be her top priority and she will be 'gentle but firm' to ensure smooth proceedings.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday and Thursday.
Dhankhar, 68, who was Union deputy minister of parliamentary affairs in 1990-91, quit the Congress in 2003 and became a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The bickering between allies All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu over late Dravidian stalwart C N Annadurai peaked on Monday with the regional party snapping ties with the saffron organisation, saying it cannot tolerate any affront to the late chief minister and its other leaders.
Despite a warning issued to him by the Congress, former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot sat on a daylong fast at the Shaheed Smarak in Jaipur on Tuesday, demanding action in cases of alleged corruption related to the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state led by Vasundhara Raje.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Joshi has issued a brief statement for voters in Kanpur, from where the 85-year-old leader had won in 2014.
Union minister Ramdas Athawale on Wednesday said the Congress had back-stabbed Sharad Pawar and not the other way round, two days after Shiv Sena leader Anant Geete accused the veteran politician of backstabbing Congress and forming the NCP in 1999.
The BJP may emerge as the single largest party post parliamentary elections and will have to seek support of allies, he 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.
'It is difficult to replace him because if he is replaced, it will lead to a sense of defeat among the Meiteis, rightly or wrongly, and more chaos.'
The 31-year-old will have to do the balancing act between his anti-BJP support base and work with the Khattar-led dispensation for smooth governance.
Sources in the security establishment said the force is also set to get sanctions from the Union Home ministry to raise at least nine fresh battalions soon. They said in order to bolster troop numbers along the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, as many as 60 companies have been ordered to move towards the front in various areas like Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
Party sources said Gandhi is likely to be the sole candidate for the post and is 'deemed to be the next party chief on Dec 5.
Re-elected National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah on Monday said boycotting the panchayat polls in 2018 was "a huge mistake" and the party must contest every future election in Jammu and Kashmir.
Tripura's outgoing chief minister Manik Sarkar will be shifting to his new residence - the Communist Party of India-Marxist's state committee office.
Murli Manohar Joshi makes a rare public appearance.
'Parties which supported me were all threatened. This could hardly have been called a fair election.' 'This is Modi's India.'
The party is hopeful that the return of the former Karnataka chief minister will boost its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, state Bharatiya Janata Party chief Vasundhara Raje and Pradesh Congress Committee president Chandrabhan were among 861 candidates who filed their nomination papers for the Assembly elections on Monday.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Karnataka Janata Paksha President B S Yeddyurappa on Tuesday scotched speculation about joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying he would retain the identity of his party.
State Congress president Jagdish Thakor urged Muslim leaders, including Pirzada, to frame a time-bound programme targeting 60 assembly seats with sizable Muslim population.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sumitra Mahajan will be the Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha with senior leaders from all parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, moving motions on Thursday proposing her name for the high office.
Banerjee, who was speaking to reporters at West Bengal's state secretariat, said that her party's name will remain the All India Trinamool Congress.
The Janata Dal-United, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, opposed the government's move on Article 370 through a fresh Presidential Order ending special status to Jammu and Kashmir. On Monday, opposing the Narendra Modi-led government's decision, they walked out of the Rajya Sabha where the bill to split the state into two Union Territories was passed. Similarly, on Tuesday, the JD-U walked out of Lok Sabha while the bill was being discussed. In Patna, JD-U national spokesperson K C Tyagi said: "We completely differ with the Central government's move on Jammu and Kashmir. There was a need for wider consultations on it, but no consultation was done even within the NDA. We own the legacy of socialist leaders Ram Manohar Lohia and Jai Prakash Narayan, who had opposed attempts to tamper with Article 370 during Congress (government in the past)." Speaking to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com on the same, the JD-U leader said that 'walking out of Parliament won't affect their ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party'.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
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