The party is eyeing at expanding its footprint across the country and has tied up with the Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls against the BJP in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat.
The latest extension will allow Bhalla to stay in the post during the general elections due early next year.
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
'The second Covid wave spread due to the irresponsibility of the Election Commission of India and now they are committing the same mistake.'
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will get a 'decisive mandate' in the Lok Sabha polls and may take even less than 48 hours to decide on its prime ministerial pick, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday, asserting that it stands to reason that the party which gets the maximum seats in the alliance will be a 'natural claimant' for its leadership.
'The BJP is taking a risk in Assam, but it may face a tough time in coming times,' says Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty.
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The constitution of a committee by the Centre to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election" has opened up the possibility of Lok Sabha polls being advanced so that they could be held with a string of state assembly polls.
The poll panel has also ordered the sealing of the inter-state border with Assam till March 2, he said.
The BJP-led alliance in Assam is all set to form the government for the second successive term winning 72 of the 102 seats declared so far and is leading in three others.
The total worth of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal's assets, both movable and immovable, have increased by over 71 per cent since the last assembly polls in 2016, despite not having bought any new immovable assets.
'The loose use of words like foreigner or Bangladeshis obscures the fact that the post-Partition migration to Assam has been of both Hindus and Muslims.'
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
The Congress leader said he had warned the people of Assam before the Assembly elections in 2016 that hard earned peace would be hampered if the BJP came to power.
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
The results of bypolls to three Lok Sabha and 29 assembly seats spread across 13 states and a union territory have been a mixed bag for the BJP as its fortunes continue to nosedive in West Bengal against the might of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee while bad tidings have also come from states like Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Trinamool Congress sources on Wednesday claimed the Congress delayed the talks and made unreasonable demands on seat-sharing without acknowledging the ground reality.
It dropped sitting MP from Guna, Krishnapal Singh Yadav, to field Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from the seat.
They warned that the 'prime minister and his cabinet colleagues will be stopped from entering the state' if their interests were harmed.
The poll panel has asked state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra to respond to the notices by 3 pm on Thursday and 7 pm on Friday, respectively.
Polling is underway to elect 119 members of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, with voters queuing up to exercise their franchise amid tight security on Thursday.
Monday is the last date for filing nominations.
During a review, the EC found that the performance of some officers was "unsatisfactory" and they were found "complacent, if not complicit" in various matters, including the illegal supply of liquor as a possible poll inducement, sources said.
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.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
The AGP, an ally of the BJP, voted for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, after Amit Shah's assurance. However, the scale, intensity and, persistence of the anti-CAA protests since then have taken it by surprise.
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.
While 67 per cent of India's population is 39 years old or younger, states are governed by chief ministers who are 70 or older.
The resignation also signals a continuing saga of unaddressed concerns of young leaders, once considered close to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
The citizens' register in Assam does not get to the bottom of things.
Sarma, who heads the Bharatiya Janata Party-led North East Development Alliance (NEDA), met Sangma at a hotel in Guwahati on Tuesday night, they said.
The BJP, however, denied the former three-time state chief minister's assertion on Ranjan Gogoi who was nominated as a Rajya Sabha member by the government in March.
The Trinamool Congress registered a decisive victory in West Bengal on Sunday, contrary to results of most exit polls which predicted a tight race between the BJP and the TMC with an edge to the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
'It is not his doing, but Rahul Gandhi is forced by circumstances.' 'In taking political decisions, everything has to get his clearance.'
'The kind of situation we are seeing...we don't believe that this can happen in a settled democracy like India'
Half-centuries from Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy helped Sunrisers Hyderabad edge Rajasthan Royals by one run.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud posted the matter for resumed hearing on April 9.
'If the Citizenship Bill passes, then the very principle of Indian citizenship, which is called jus soli (right of birthplace) will convert to principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood) on the basis of religion.' 'Citizenship is being given on the basis of religion and it is against the Constitution.'
It's great to win election after election on the strength of Modi's charisma and voter appeal, but the larger the Modi myth grows, the more the BJP diminishes, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
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