The Telangana issue assumed centre stage on Thursday night as Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily held consultations with Congress members of Legislative Assembly and members of Parliament. Though a lot of hope was pinned by the Telangana leaders on this meeting there was absolutely no decision taken on issue of statehood, say insiders. However, the mass resignation programme by these elected representatives will be put on hold till the assembly elections in five states.
States are planning to pass resolutions in their legislative assemblies; however, such tactics will be used as the last resort if the Centre continues to stall allocations.
4,809 members of the electoral college comprising MPs and MLAs set to elect the successor to incumbent Ram Nath Kovind.
"The game is not yet over. Even parties like the Samajwadi Party, which lost the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, has more MLAs than it had last time," she said.
Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary and Member of Legislative Assembly Subal Bhowmick on Monday alleged that a group of Congress activists had assaulted Abhijit Mukherjee, a Congress MLA from West Bengal and son of President Pranab Mukherjee, on Thursday at Bamutia, nearly 35 km from Agartala.
The BJP may be in the Opposition in many states, but nowhere is it as divided as it is in Karnataka, points out Aditi Phadnis.
The Congress on Friday suspended two of its legislators for voting for the Trinamool Congress in the Rajya Sabha biennial election for five seats in West Bengal.
Union ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh, Rajiv Shukla, Mukul Roy and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley were on Thursday elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha even as Non-resident Indian businessman Anshuman Mishra in Jharkhand and Congress leader Abdul Mannan in West Bengal withdrew from fray.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party head Ajit Pawar on Monday said discussions were underway among the Mahayuti partners to finalise a formula for the new government formation in the state.
Tribals constitute 7-8 per cent of the state's population, and are a deciding factor in 47 assembly seats and seven Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the Junglemahal districts of Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Jhargram in southern Bengal and Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar in the north.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Mamata Banerjee was on Sunday formally elected Trinamool Congress's Legislature Party leader.Two days after her party stormed to power with three-fourths majority, ending 34 years of Left Front rule in West Bengal, the name of 56-year-old Banerjee as TCLP leader was proposed by Subrata Bakshi.
Shah accused the ruling TMC in Bengal of "spreading canards" about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act
In a break from tradition, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was on Thursday administered the oath as a member of the state assembly by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
West Bengal minister Bachchu Hansda and Tehatta MLA Gouri Sankar Dutta joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday after being denied nominations for the assembly polls by the Trinamool Congress.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
In his four years as state party chief, Dilip Ghosh has put his foot in his mouth repeatedly. This hasn't stopped him from getting elected as a legislator in 2016 and as an MP last year.
BJP leaders in the state are either lying low or criticising the CAA move in hushed tones. Chandra Kumar Bose, vice-president of the BJP's state unit, is most vocal with his opposition to the Act in the current form. "The country is above petty party politics. How can I keep quiet when I see that something is happening which is wrong in its current form?" Other party leaders aren't as vocal as Bose but clandestinely have been questioning the merit of the CAA and its impact on the BJP's prospects in the state. In fact, at a time when the BJP started making deep inroads in the state, the fear of the CAA and the NRC appears to be ruining its prospects.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has expressed concerns about the Congress party's leadership role within the INDIA bloc, raising questions about their ability to justify their position. Abdullah highlighted a sense of disquiet among some allies, who feel the Congress isn't doing enough to earn its leadership position. While praising Sonia Gandhi's leadership, he also criticized the alliance's lack of consistent engagement and called for more structured communication to address potential disagreements. Abdullah's comments suggest underlying tensions within the opposition alliance, particularly regarding the Congress's electoral performance and seat distribution strategies.
Rediff.com spoke to Dahiya and learnt that the state CPI-M unit, though insignificant in terms of political seats, is quietly helping people and changing archaic caste equations.
In another display of the politics of threat in West Bengal, a ruling Trinamool Congress Member of Legislative Assembly openly threatened to "behead" a Congress leader in Birbhum district.
Of the 294 candidates declared with serious criminal cases, 76 were from the TMC, 52 from the BJP, 47 from the CPI-M and 31 from the Congress.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Vikram Nath said the matter requires to be heard.
Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan are the other three states to pass a resolution opposing the contentious legislation, reports Archis Mohan.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
Veteran Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy, who has expressed his desire to work for the Bharatiya Janata Party in future, on Wednesday said he is a soldier of the saffron camp, and there is no question of resigning from the Trinamool Congress as he was never 'mentally' with the party even after rejoining it in 2021.
Fifteen years after quitting the Sikkim Democratic Front in 2009, he decimated Chamling's party, scripting history by winning 31 of 32 assembly seats in the Himalayan state in 2024.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will hear on December 6 the plea of a Congress leader challenging a recent notification by which the sale of electoral bonds has been extended by 15 more days in the year of general elections to legislative assemblies of states and Union territories (UTs) with a legislature.
Giving a new poll slogan of 'Khel Zatlo' in Goa, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said an anti-BJP alliance has already taken shape in the coastal state under the banner of her party TMC and now it is for the Congress to decide whether it wants to join the grouping ahead of elections to take on the saffron outfit.
The unrest in the Sandeshkhali region of West Bengal ballooned into a major political row on Thursday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the saffron camp of fomenting trouble in the area, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Commission for Women (NCW) accused her party Trinamool Congress and the state government of being complicit in crimes against women in the area.
Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Anisur Rahman has triggered a controversy by allegedly making derogatory remarks against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet colleagues, drawing angry reaction from Trinamool Congress leaders on Sunday.
Shah, while releasing the saffron party's manifesto 'Sankalp Patra' for the upcoming assembly elections in Jharkhand, announced that a Displacement Commission would be formed to ensure rehabilitation of people displaced by industries and mines in the state.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her government had to pass a legislation against such crimes as the Centre was unwilling to take the initiative.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will not be attending the swearing-in ceremony of Congress leader Siddaramaiah as the Karnataka CM and has designated party leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar for the programme, a Trinamool Congress leader said.
The top ten richest candidates are from the Trinamool Congress which has won a second consecutive term.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana agreed to hear next week the EC's plea after senior advocate Vikas Singh submitted a large number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail machines (VVPATs) are still being preserved and need to be released.
Nearly three months after joining the Trinamool Congress, former Goa legislator Lavoo Mamlatdar on Friday resigned from the party, accusing it of being communal and trying to create a divide between Hindus and Christians for votes ahead of the state Assembly polls.
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