'Mr Ballot Box' occupied the front row seat in the aircraft escorted under the watchful gaze of the Assistant Returning Officers of their respective states.
The Congress' Assam unit is banking heavily on party veterans to win the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, indicates a list of the 11 candidates released by the party. The party is contesting from 13 LS constituencies out of the total 14 seats. It has left one seat to its ally Bodo People's Front.Candidates from Lakhimpur and Dhubri are yet to be announced.
'BJP loses a democratic election, then buys MLAs from the ruling party's flock and rides to power in these states.' 'Do you think Atalji would have tolerated this?'
The Congress, which won assembly elections with a thumping majority to retain power in Assam, would not have even got a simple majority had the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party cobbled up a pre-poll alliance. As per the election statistics, the Congress would have been defeated in at least 20 seats had the AGP and the BJP joined hands in fighting the polls in the north-eastern state.
Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal told a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud that Koshyari had sworn in Shinde without even asking him which party he and the other legislators supporting him belonged to.
Assam's opposition parties including the BJP, AGP and AIUDF accused the ruling Congress of murdering democracy even as party won the election to two of the Rajya Sabha after four of the BJP MLAs and two AIUDF MLAs decided to vote for Congress candidate defying a party whip to vote for opposition's common candidate Jayanta Baruah, a media baron.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday asked Chief Secretary N K Das to institute a probe into Wednesday's incident of protests by Guwahati-based journalists that occurred outside the main entrance to the Assam assembly complex regarding the entry of mediapersons at the time of filing of nomination papers by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for the May 30 Rajya Sabha elections, according to an official communique.
'Deeply hurt by Modi's conspicuous silence for over a month-and-a-half since the outbreak of violence, people in Manipur came on the roads and crushed their radio sets to express their frustration and anger.' 'The fact that Modi's Mann Ki Baat did not have a single reference to the Manipur violence further accentuated this hurt and anger.'
Going by Himachal Pradesh's "riwaj", or tradition, it should be the Congress' turn to form the next government.
'It is difficult to replace him because if he is replaced, it will lead to a sense of defeat among the Meiteis, rightly or wrongly, and more chaos.'
This management team will coordinate with all state units of the BJP and its allies for the presidential election and is also expected to guide its elected voting representatives on the voting process.
The selection of Satiuse Kujur, a leader from the tea workers (Adivasi) community in Assam, as the second candidate of the ruling Congress for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha election has not gone down well with a section of senior party MLAs. PM Dr Manmohan Singh is the party's first candidate for the RS poll that will be held for two seats.
The Union home ministry has recommended the special CAG audit taking note of a May 24 letter by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena which pointed out 'gross and prima facie financial irregularities' in the 'reconstruction' of the chief minister's official residence, they claimed.
All these male politicians are unlikely to risk their sinecures to speak up in support of a bunch of women wrestlers who have chosen to challenge a politician who appears to have the ruling regime in a stranglehold, points out Kanika Datta.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Monday stated that the ruling Congress in Assam was facing 'double anti-incumbency' this election and the poll results were bound to reflect the people's desperate wish for a change of guard.
On Thursday, violent mobs went on the rampage in the Nagaland capital vandalising and setting on fire government offices and vehicles, prompting deployment of five columns of army to bring the situation under control.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Speaker Tanka Bahadur Rai, Deputy Speaker Pranati Phukon and a host of Cabinet ministers and Congress veterans are among the total 485 candidates whose fate will be decided on Monday in the first phase of the Assembly elections in Assam to be held in 62 Local Authorities Constituencies spread over 13 districts.
"The first thing is he is not fit for politics. Probably, the work he should not do, he is doing," Sarma said.
The BJP on Wednesday also named its in-charges for assembly bypolls to four seats in Tripura.
Several Assamese-origin students studying in American universities met with Indian embassy officials to deliver a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee on the killing of over 32 Muslims in Assam as a result of election-related violence there. Aziz Haniffa reports
Apprehending trouble in the state especially in violence-affected Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in the aftermath of declaration of results of election in the state on Friday, the Assam government has requested the army to be in stand by for quick deployment, if the need arises while helicopter surveillance is being continued in vulnerable areas of the violence-affected BTC areas and along India-Bhutan border.
The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days, even as the ruling BJP has been striving to break the 38-year-old pattern of alternating governments and retain its southern citadel.
With two cabinet ministers and three ministers of state, the Northeastern region was on Wednesday handsomely rewarded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the first reshuffle of his ministry in the second tenure.
Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani on Monday alleged that his arrest by the Assam police is a pre-planned conspiracy "designed" by the Prime Minister's Office to destroy him ahead of assembly elections in the state and termed it an act of "56-inch cowardice".
The competition for the worst or most perilous 10 years has always been between the 1960s and the 1980s, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The exit poll results were released at the end of the polling in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, marking the closure of voting in four states and Puducherry.
'...despite not being ideologically aligned with a vast section of the people of the north east.' 'But the results in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya show that no party, including the BJP, can say that it has really done well.'
While the veterans, including a former chief minister and two ex ministers, in their 70s are trying their electoral fortunes for multiple terms in the state assembly, two candidates are 27 year old.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said the Congress and other opposition parties have brought the no-confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government in the Lok Sabha at a 'wrong time and in a wrong manner'.
At least five Youth Congress activists were killed and 21 others injured, five of them seriously, in a road accident at Chakarigaon in Assam's Nagaon district on Saturday, said the police. The mishap took place when the minibus in which they were travelling skidded off the road at Chakarigaon, the sources said. The Youth Congress activists were returning from Barhampur after casting their votes in the ongoing Youth Congress election.
'It's unfortunate that the prime minister prioritises his own image over the humanitarian situation that is unfolding in Manipur, prioritising his ego over the atrocities that women and tribals have had to suffer in Manipur.'
The high-stakes battle in the virtual Presidential-style contest between BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi with a few other regional satraps also in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections begins on Monday in six constituencies in two states in the first of the nine-phased polls.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has written to the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry seeking the publication of electoral rolls for the upcoming election to the post of All India Congress Committee president, sources said.
Now, the chief minister is under pressure to make good his promise after the December 4 incident in Nagaland's Mon, where 14 people were killedAFSPA has eclipsed all other achievements of the Biren Singh government.
Overall, the record of the second term reveals a contradiction between the image and the reality. The image, especially on media and social media, is one of the man at the height of his power, and unstoppable. The reality on governance is someone who has found it difficult to get things implemented and unsure of what to do next, points out Aakar Patel.
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
After scripting a stunning electoral success in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party has set its sight on the Northeast where the party intends to field maximum number of candidates.
State BJP chief Temjen Imna Along, widely popular on social media across the country for his sense of humour, and Salhoutuonuo Kruse, one of the two women elected to Nagaland assembly for the first time, were among those who were sworn-in as members of the council of ministers.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances