Several Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders and corporators returned to the Sharad Pawar camp on Wednesday, a day after resigning from the Ajit Pawar faction.
'Slogans like 'Ek hai toh safe hai' and 'Batenge toh katenge' resonated with voters.'
Yadav said she initially felt like Eklavya in the BJP family but now (with this responsibility) she hopes to work like Arjuna.
The Rajya Sabha election scene in Karnataka heated up with the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (Secular) combine fielding its second candidate, even though the alliance has the strength to win only one out four seats.
'This might prove to be a temporary gain for the BJP, but at a huge cost to the people of Gujarat and democracy in India.'
The Sena (UBT) chief and his MLA son Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday met with Fadnavis and assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar at Vidhan Bhavan premises in Nagpur. Aaditya said they extended good wishes to the two and talked about taking a step towards showing political maturity and working together in the interest of the people.
'What matters is policies, not personalities like Priyanka, Rahul or Modi.'
'When honest, wealthy people come forward to serve India, people should feel proud and welcome them.'
Basant Soren, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo Shibu Soren's youngest son, on Friday took oath as minister in the Champai Soren-led government in Jharkhand, along with seven others.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
'This isn't political. This fight is for justice. This is the fight to give justice to the party workers'
Former chief minister ML Khattar also indicated the BJP government was not averse to a floor test and that six Jannayak Janta Party MLAs are with it.
'Not just Maharashtra, the Congress has not fielded even one Muslim candidate from Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.'
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra launched a scathing attack on the BJP in her maiden Lok Sabha speech, accusing the government of trying to weaken the Constitution and prioritizing the interests of one individual over the people. She criticized the BJP's alleged attempts to change the Constitution, the growing monopoly of the Adani Group, atrocities on women, and the demand for a nationwide caste census. She also challenged the BJP to hold elections using ballot paper, saying it would expose the reality.
'The Opposition will continue to be attacked through misuse of agencies, civil society will be force-marched towards extinction and India's plummeting on global indices will continue.' 'Minorities and especially Muslims will continue to have open season declared on them. Institutions will continue their decline,' predicts Aakar Patel.
This will be the first time that the Congress, since its ouster from power in 2014, will get the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It failed to get the position in the past 10 years as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House, both in 2014 and 2019.
He said the RPI-A will also demand tickets to contest at least two Lok Sabha seats (out of the total 48 in Maharashtra) and 10 to 15 assembly segments in the 2024 elections from the NDA quota.
Modi's inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
An eighth BJP candidate on Thursday filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, setting the stage for a contest with the Samajwadi Party on February 27.
Congress leader Kumari Selja ruled out the possibility of an alliance with the AAP for the Haryana assembly polls.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Saturday said the Lok Sabha poll mandate is a "decisive rejection" of the politics of divisiveness and hate, and stressed that the INDIA bloc must continue functioning cohesively both inside and outside Parliament.
Kharge's remarks came after Modi on Friday said the Congress stands "badly exposed" in front of people for promising to them what the party knows it will never be able to deliver.
'Let Fadnavisji prove to the people of Maharashtra that he acts fairly against one and all.'
A notification in this regard was issued on Thursday evening which further said that these six MLAs ceased to be members of Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly with effect from February 29.
Upset with the Congress for not conceding any seat for the Samajwadi Party in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh.
To keep their MLAs together, political parties are organising dinner meetings and arranging hotel stays for them ahead of the council elections, which are taking place just three months ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
An alleged attack on a Marathi-speaking family by a government employee in Thane district sparked outrage in the Maharashtra Assembly, where the BJP-led government assured justice and condemned the incident. Opposition parties demanded immediate action against the accused, Akhilesh Shukla, and his wife, who have been arrested. The incident has raised concerns about discrimination against Marathi people and fueled tensions in the state.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
'Uddhavji has accepted now that the majority of his family wants to ally with the BJP, then we should think about it, but there are issues around how to go about it.'
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
'The BJP is not as mighty a political force in Odisha as it is made out to be.'
Several BJP-backed state governments have unveiled schemes targeting the poor, women, farmers and students, following the party's setback in the Lok Sabha polls.
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Sunday exuded confidence that its national president, who was sworn in as Bihar CM for a record ninth time after forming a new government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, will win Monday's trust vote.
'Neither did I approach the BJP nor did they ask me to join them. It was a natural choice for both of us to make.' 'It was never for me to ask or for them to give.'
'Gehlot made it a Modi versus Gehlot contest. It was for the first time in a northern Indian state where the prime minister had to confront a chief minister.'
Dharashiv, earlier Osmanabad, is among the eight districts that comprise the state's Marathwada region, where activist Manoj Jarange has led an agitation demanding reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs.
The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to its ally Sena (UBT)'s nominee Narvekar, party sources said. Eventually, Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted.
'My suspicion is that most of the bonds were given by companies who had got contracts or who had benefited from policy changes by the government.'
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
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