Before Punjab goes to the polls: The state's electoral landscape at a glance.
With the talks between the Centre and the agitating farmer unions stalled since January, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday expressed readiness to resume the dialogue to resolve their objections to the three new agri laws, but the unions remained adamant on their demands for a repeal of the legislations and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price.
New entrant Aam Aadmi Party has emerged as the leading party winning 13 of 35 wards so far as the counting of votes in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation polls is in progress here on Monday.
His tweet pressing the Charanjit Singh Channi-led government to change the director general of police and state's advocate general appears to indicate that he continues to remain unhappy over certain key appointments.
'My fight is issue-based and I have stood by it for a long time. There can't be any compromise on a pro-Punjab agenda'
Behind the movement are shock-workers functioning quietly to ensure that a seemingly spontaneous, apolitical, grassroots mobilisation sustains itself without dribbling into chaos or violence. Sai Manish lists some of them.
Speaking at an event organised to remember former Prime Minister IK Gujral on his 100th birth anniversary, Singh said, "When the sad event of 1984 took place, Gujral ji that very evening went to the then Home Minister Narsimha Rao and said to him that the situation is so grim that it is necessary for the government to call the army at the earliest. If that advice would have been heeded perhaps the massacre that took place in 1984 could have been avoided."
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
In spite of his trying hard he is unable to connect not only with ordinary voters but with most party colleagues as well, observes Virendra Kapoor.
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and senior leader Bikram Singh Majithia had raised the issue of a recent statement by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who had said in London recently that Congress, as a party, was never involved in the carnage.
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.
Claiming that the BJP's government's works in the three holy cities are only follow-ups of her government's initiatives, Mayawati went on to promise, in what is being seen as a subtle shift towards soft Hindutva ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, to complete all those work on time.
If the BJP is set to return to power in UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur and even Goa, it is not because of the party's performance or the quality of governance. No. It is essentially Modi's popularity, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The maharaja's win in Punjab after 10 years has also rekindled the hopes for the revival of the grand old party.
The Congress stalwart could not have asked for a better gift on his 75th birthday.
Talking to reporters Khatkar Kalan, he also suggested that Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence will use farmers' unrest over the new farm laws and will try to foment trouble in the border state of Punjab.
The MPs criticised the Shiromani Akali Dal leadership for being in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA even after these bills were proposed by the government.
On Sunday, Rajya Sabha passed the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020.
Here are some of the key farmer leaders who fronted the protests.
The merger was sealed on Friday during a meeting between Badal and Rahul at the latter's residence here where Singh and All India Congress Committee General Secretary Shakeel Ahmad were also present, they said.
He has no challenger in the Congress, the Akali Dal is in disarray. Will he call a snap election?
'That would be very bad for them and suicidal for both the Gandhis and the Congress party.'
Having twice betrayed the BJP -- and Arvind Kejriwal determined not to admit in AAP anyone who could question his authority -- Sidhu seems to have reached a dead-end in his political career, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
The Aam Aadmi Party MLAs spent the night in the state legislative assembly building demanding copies of the Bill which the state's Congress government is now expected to introduce on Tuesday.
A senior cabinet minister in the Punjab government and his delegation came under attack in New York as hundreds of Sikhs protesting his visit allegedly threw stones and hurled a shoe at the leaders, following which the police took two youths into custody.
'We felt it is our responsibility to stand by the farmers' and extend support of the whole of Maharashtra, Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray saahab'
General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 others were killed in a helicopter crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, the Indian Air Force said.
Modi told the leaders that Tomar was just a phone call away for protesting farmers and the agriculture minister had conveyed the same to farmer leaders earlier this month.
Opposition parties on Tuesday asked the government to call an all-party meeting to resolve the current impasse in Parliament, while sticking to their demands for a discussion on Pegasus snooping issue and a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the matter.
As state-level leaders tried to placate Sidhu, he made it clear through the video that he was in no mood to budge on his 'principles'.
If 'Raja' Amarinder Singh can address the issues of health and education, he is certain to coast to victory.
Sibal said the BJP always tries to gain a foothold in states where its presence is limited and afterwards "dumps" its allies.
Amit Doda, one of the accused in Abohar Dalit murder case, has surrendered before police even as the liquor baron and Akali leader Shiv Lal Doda continued to remain elusive.
A beaming Amarinder Singh thanked the people of the state for their overwhelming support, saying he was committed to good governance and tackling the drug menace.
Punjab faces many mortal threats. For most of these the people of Punjab are themselves responsible. And unless they take a brutal hard look within, their future generations have to be resigned to continue living with this constant slide, warns Shekhar Gupta.
The Haryana Police closed the Ambala-Patiala highway after protesters gathered at the Shambhu border point with adjoining Punjab. The ruling Congress also held protests in Punjab, with the state unit chief Sunil Jakhar participating in one near the Shambhu border.
Western UP contributes nearly 70 seats to the 402-member UP assembly. In 2017, the BJP had swept the region. Every pre-2022 poll survey had suggested the party would face its biggest attrition from this region because of the farmers' groups.
The numbers, however, appear to be in favour of the ruling dispensation to get these bills passed from Rajya Sabha, while the lower house has already cleared them despite a key NDA member Shiromani Akali Dal vehemently opposing them.
Some reports suggest that the Centre has empowered the BSF to conduct searches, arrest suspects and make seizures up to an area of 50 km inside the Indian territory from the international border.
If Modi's political retreat -- he has tried to avoid a pre-1984 type of situation in Punjab -- helps soothe Sikh sentiments, nobody should complain Modi, asserts Sheela Bhatt.
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