'Elections are fought to win.' 'In our party, the leadership takes the final decision, and our leaders are very clear about it.'
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday said the accused in the Kanhaiya Lal killing case in Udaipur were 'linked' to the Bharatiya Janata Party and should have been 'hanged by now' but the investigation by the National Investigation Agency was not progressing as it should.
The officials said that in the present environment where two communities are attacking each other, they may not find even a lawyer to defend them as all courts were within Imphal valley.
The prospect of sitting members of Legislative Assembly, barring Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, appears to be bleak in the four prestigious assembly constituencies of Dispur, Gauhati East and West, and Jalukbari under Kamrup (metro) district going to the polls in the second phase.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
The party has forged ties with Bodo People's Front; continues talks with AGP.
Text messaging services of all telecom operators also remained suspended in Lucknow and some other parts of UP. In Assam, services were restored 10 days after being banned.
Cricketer Yusuf Pathan will contest from the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat, whereas Kirti Aazd will fight from the Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
The 14-year political journey of Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra has encountered both upheaval and elevation, as her expulsion from Parliament in a cash-for-query case marked the culmination of her tumultuous parliamentary term.
High voter turnout was recorded in the assembly polls in Assam and West Bengal where an estimated 82.02 per cent and 79.51 per cent of the voters cast their ballots till 5 pm.
The party leadership also thanked the people of Assam and credited the victory there and increased vote share in other states to party workers, state leaders and PM Narendra Modi.
In what has turned out to be an embarrassment for the ruling Congress party in Assam, three absconding persons accused in June 30 mob attack on Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Rumi Nath, 33, and her second husband Zakir in a Karimganj hotel in South Assam, were arrested from the official residence of another Congress MLA in the state assembly complex in Guwahati on Thursday night.
The CM said that initial probe indicated "mismanagement" to be the prime reason for the accident, which occurred on Wednesday evening.
Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday said though there is no pre-poll adjustment with the Tipra Motha, there can be local-level understanding with the tribal party, which has emerged as the third pole in the upcoming Tripura elections.
The Assam government has constituted a special task force to be headed by the additional director general of police (criminal investigation department wing) to tackle the rising trend of crime against women in the state.
However, Rajya Sabha being a continuing chamber is not subject to dissolution, and bills introduced and pending in this House remain on the live register, unless withdrawn by the government.
The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.
These are the 15 seats to watch out for in Rajasthan where assembly elections will be held on November 23. The state has 200 constituencies.
Looks like all political parties have thrown caution to the winds where 33 per cent reservation for women is concerned. Take the examples of Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal which recently went to polls.
Assam has taken up with the Central and Nagaland governments the issue of safety of the people of Assam residing in Nagaland
The highest percentage was reported from constituencies in Karimganj, Jorhat and Haflong districts ranging from between 35 to 40 per cent.
Ajmal in an interview to a media house on Friday had commented on women and Hindu men as well as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, purportedly as a rejoinder to his remarks on 'love jihad'.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday filed his nomination papers for his fifth Rajya Sabha term from Assam.
The AGP had pulled out of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government a day before the bill seeking to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan was passed in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The Congress on Thursday renamed the Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai yatra starting on January 14 as the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states including Arunachal Pradesh, and asserted it will prove to be as 'transformative' as his earlier cross-country march.
The anti-incumbency factor is virtually a non-issue in the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries, and Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar as secretaries.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The AGP had in January withdrew its support to the BJP government in Assam in protest against the Centre's decision to go ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
The founder of the newly floated Raijor Dal -- arrested in December 2019 over sedition charges - bagged 57,219 votes as an Independent, garnering support from 46.06 per cent of the electorate.
A forum of families of victims of insurgency in Assam has called upon the Election Commission not to entertain nominations filed by former militants to contest the ensuing assembly election in the state.
The rebel Congress leader said he expressed his desire to join BJP and work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah. He also discussed Assam's political and flood situation.
The elections in the five states, the first major exercise since the UPA coalition government came to power 20 months back, will start on April 3 and end on May 8.
Getting ready to fight the next assembly election in Assam in 2016 on the 'U-turns' on state issues made by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the Centre, the ruling Congress government in Assam has brought out a handbook for its party workers highlighting the 'failures' of the Narendra Modi government to fulfil promises made to people of the state.
The six week-wait for who will rule Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal will end on Friday as counting of votes for assembly elections begins.
