For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
It will be the year of preparation for the electoral test in Uttar Pradesh, due in 2022. But before that, the West Bengal Assembly election will set the mood for the rest of 2021.
Violent agitations continued to rock parts of West Bengal for second consecutive day on Saturday as people protesting against the amended Citizenship Act set several buses on fire and torched portions of a railway station complex, officials said.
However, a few defectors, who joined the BJP, got the better of their TMC rivals, including Suvendu Adhikari who emerged as a proverbial giant slayer, by defeating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee albeit by a narrow margin.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution urging the Centre to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 to protect and ensure unity and communal harmony and uphold the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution.
Chidambaram, who is the Congress' senior election observer for the assembly polls next year, asserted that the Trinamool Congress' entry into Goa "appears to be an imposition from the top that is based in West Bengal" and said he does not know the Mamata Banerjee-led party's motive in trying to start a unit in Goa by "encouraging defections" from other parties.
Mitra, who had resigned from the BJP a few days ago, is considered close to veteran leader L K Advani.
"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its implementation got delayed. But as the situation is slowly improving, the work has started. The rules are now being framed and CAA will be implemented very soon. Under this act all the eligible people will definitely get Indian citizenship," Nadda told the social groups, who included Dalits, Gorkhas, Rajbanshis and other tribes.
'This means the remedy will be worse than the disease. The thing which you want to avoid will happen.'
The Supreme Court Monday rued the 'general practice' of speakers delaying decisions on pleas seeking disqualification of lawmakers and the subsequent arguments that courts should 'stay away,' while hoping that the West Bengal assembly speaker would decide on such a plea against Mukul Roy who defected to the Trinamool Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party after the state polls.
Bihar became the first non-NDA state and overall second after the BJP-ruled Assam to pass GST bill.
Announcing the name of candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she will be contesting from the Nandigram constituency as announced earlier.
From small restaurants to mighty software companies, it is businesses, not the government, that create jobs. Yet, in a cruel irony, they have to fight extortive and brutal State power every step of the way, says Debashis Basu.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari objected to Roy's elevation, arguing that the MLA, who had crossed over to the ruling Trinamool Congress last month after winning the polls on a BJP ticket, cannot be considered a legislator of the saffron camp.
Two political parties having two members in the Jharkhand assembly merged with the Trinamool Congress in Ranchi on Monday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will consider whether the pleas challenging the validity of the electoral bond scheme for political funding of parties can be referred to a Constitution bench for an "authoritative pronouncement".
Going back on its call for an indefinite shut down in Darjeeling in view of the Eid festival, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on Thursday announced a four-day bandh from Saturday to demand a separate Gorkhaland.
Stating that at least 16 people of different political parties have lost their lives in the post-poll violence in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying unable to digest defeat in the state elections they were sending central ministers to incite unrest in Kolkata.
The MGP, which had won three seats in the 2017 polls, is currently left with only one MLA after two of its legislators joined the ruling BJP.
Stalin said one cannot and should not decide the mood of the entire country based on the results of one state elections.
Even as the Centre stayed the Jharkhand government's move to promote tourism at the Parasnath hills after protests by Jains, tribals jumped into the fray staking a claim to the land and asking for it to be freed.
Digital canvassing is expected to benefit from political money looking for alternative blow horns.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
Cross-voting by Left and Congress MLAs on Friday helped Trinamool Congress gain an extra seat in West Bengal while a similar action by Congress MLAs in Andhra Pradesh saw the Telangana Rashtra Samithi making its debut in Rajya Sabha as high drama marked the polls to the upper House in the two states.
'I will not say that the AIMIM is a 'B' team of the BJP. But due to the AIMIM, the BJP benefits for sure'
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
As many as 51 MPs and MLAs have declared cases of crime against women.
The income-tax department has detected "unaccounted" transactions and investments worth more than Rs 100 crore after it raided two Jharkhand Congress MLAs, their alleged associates and linked coal and iron ore businesses across the state last week.
Bharatiya Janata Party nominee S Selvaganapathy was declared elected unopposed to the lone seat in Rajya Sabha from Puducherry, the first time the saffron party has got representation in the Upper House from the Union Territory, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's two nominees, Kanimozhi N V N Somu and K R N Rajeshkumar, were elected without contest from Tamil Nadu.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha said the petitions raise three separate issues and hence, the need to hear them separately.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Participating in a debate on the bill in Lok Sabha, Moitra said women's reservation is dependent on two totally "indeterminate dates" and asked, "can there be a greater jumla".
Pawan Chamling is all set to become CM for the fifth time in a row; SDF party led by him sweeps the assembly polls, winning 22 of the 32 seats. Anurag Kashyap reports.
The PM's visit comes at a time when West Bengal has been witnessing widespread protests against the contentious Citizenship Act.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday left for Dhaka ahead of signing of documents for operationalising the 1974 Land Border Agreement between India and Bangladesh during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit starting on Saturday.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
'In the past, our movement was against the colonisers, but presently our struggle against communalism is a movement against those who stood with the colonisers'
'For the first time one single party is getting 49% which is a record of its own.'
Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim said that if the provision for reduction in taxes did not exist in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, an amendment had to be passed in the Assembly before the waiver of taxes came into force.
This phase of voting was crucial for the state's ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances