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.
Non-BJP chief ministers holding the home portfolios are Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) and MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu).
'The continuous and mysterious praise of the BJP and the chief minister by AIUDF leadership and senior members have affected the public perception of the Congress party'
With the CAA rules being issued, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from the three countries.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Assam CM said the police case filed against two senior Mizoram government officials - Deputy Commissioner of Kolasib district and Sub-divisional Police Officer of Vairengte - will be withdrawn.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said efforts are on to remove AFSPA completely from the northeast region.
'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 leaders will also raise the issue of alleged "use of religious symbols" by the Bharatiya Janata Party in their campaign, they said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has honoured Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain refugees by giving them citizenship through Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday and maintained there is no provision of stripping of anyone's citizenship in the new law.
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.
Dev asserted that the Congress and the grand alliance believe in accountability and the guarantee of jobs.
On Easter, April 9, 10,000 BJP workers are being assigned to visit the houses of 100,000 Christian families. Plans are afoot to visit the homes of Muslims on Eid.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Shah made the announcement while addressing the passing out parade of the first batch of the five newly constituted Assam Police Commando battalions in Guwahati.
The BJP has changed five chief ministers since 2019, including in Gujarat and Karnataka.
'There are more young people in Assam who are unemployed than possibly anywhere else.'
Modi, in his rally just days ahead of the last phase of the Lok Sabha election, also said that "well-wishers of Naveen babu are worried over his deteriorating health condition."
The public protest had erupted over the demand for rehabilitation of nearly 800 families evicted from the land they were living on for decades.
Stakes are high for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the counting of votes on Thursday for three state assembly polls, as the results will signal if it has deepened its roots in Tripura, a Left bastion captured by the party in 2018, and made further inroads in Meghalaya and Nagaland, or if the opposition has managed to dent its influence.
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.
Souradeep Sengupta, a guest lecturer in the Physics department at Gurucharan College, was arrested from his residence in the Itkhola area on Friday night after a case was lodged against him based on a complaint filed by a student.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Sounding the Congress' poll bugle in the state, Gandhi attacked the Modi government repeatedly alleging that it was working with an approach of 'Hum do, Hamare do' -- a term he recently used while speaking in Lok Sabha to claim that the country is being run by only four people.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's comprehensive defeat to the Congress in Karnataka where the two parties ran a campaign of contrasts has left the ruling party much to ponder as the two rivals are facing a direct contest in three more state polls this year in the run-up to the all-important 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi also said, "Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh is making serious charges against the Assam Rifles which is directly under Union Home Minister Amit Shah."
It is clear to any observer that the BJP risks its demolition drive boomeranging on itself. Except for one unpredictable factor in the works -- Rahul Gandhi himself, observes Shyam G Menon.
Banerjee also appealed to the people of West Bengal not to get provoked over matters concerning the current situation in Bangladesh.
The United Liberation Front of Asom has kidnapped the son of a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Assam and demanded a ransom of Rs. 1 crore.
The chief minister's statement came in the backdrop of tension between the two Northeastern states following alleged encroachment of land in Cachar district by the people of Mizoram.
Sixteen per cent of the candidates contesting in the first phase of Assam assembly elections have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
The Lok Sabha witnessed a display of linguistic diversity on Monday, with the newly-elected MPs taking their oaths in English and Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Dogri, Bengali, Assamese and Odia.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
The Centre has summoned to New Delhi the chief secretaries and directors general of police (DGPs) of Assam and Mizoram for a meeting on Wednesday while the restive inter-state border was calm, a day after armed clashes left six dead and over 50 injured, officials said.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
What was the "locus standi" of Sonia Gandhi when she along with the then prime minister Manhoman Singh inaugurated legislative buildings in Manipur and Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked on Wednesday while countering the Congress's criticism over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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.
Moitra's electoral triumph not only secures her seat in Parliament, but also serves as a defiant retort to attempts to sideline her from the political arena.
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