In the 35-member municipal House, the BJP has 17 councillors. The number of BJP's strength increased from 14 to 17 after three Aam Aadmi Party councillors switched over to it on February 19. The AAP has 10 members while the Congress has seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one councillor.
Despite the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance securing a massive victory, winning 230 seats in the 288-member assembly, consensus has eluded the ruling combine's leaders so far on who should be the next CM.
The Congress on Thursday said it will continue to avail all options still available under the law after a Gujarat court rejected Rahul Gandhi's application for a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case.
'There is huge anger among our workers and leaders, so many of us have decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka as Independents to fight against this injustice.'
'Who has given how much money to which party, the people of India must know this fact.'
A new kind of history has been created in Maharashtra. Accept it. We need to give credit where it's due. Modi led this change... from the setback of June 4 to November 23, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Assembly elections to five crucial states will take place in a few months and the results will be decisive for the BJP, which is eyeing a third successive term at the Centre, in the forthcoming the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
'Karyakartas felt we should have fought independently'
The Gujarat high court on Tuesday declared state Bharatiya Janata Party minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama's election in 2017 as void on grounds of malpractice and manipulation.
'Party workers sit outside polling booths and they know everything that is happening.' 'Besides, as a voter when you push the EVM button to vote there is a paper slip that comes out showing you who you voted for.'
Of the 34 SC reserved seats that went to the polls, the BJP won 22 and the Congress 11.
In a first, BJP crossed the 10 per cent vote share-mark in Tamil Nadu and has so far registered a share of 10.21 per cent, though it could not emerge in lead positions anywhere.
The trader not only predicted a Trump win but also wagered on Trump's success in both the popular vote and several key swing states.
Senior BJP leaders, including Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, asserted on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will complete his full term if elected to power, refuting the Aam Aadmi Party's claim that Modi wants Shah to succeed him after turning 75 next year.
'Like 2014, 2017 was also Modi's election.' 'Every voter you met, apart from those who are BJP cadres, everybody said they would vote for Modi, not the BJP.' 'The one and only factor is the Modi juggernaut. He is the one who turned the tide.' 'The wave which he created in 2014, and to maintain it for three years, is a huge task in itself.'
Shiv Sena-UBT leader Anil Parab on Monday won the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls from Mumbai Graduates constituency by defeating the BJP's Kiran Shelar.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. The bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies. The results will be declared on November 23. In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections. In Punjab, bypolls will be held in four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has dismissed speculation about dissent within the Aam Aadmi Party's state unit, asserting that Congress leaders have a history of switching parties while AAP leaders remain dedicated. Mann's remarks came after Punjab Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa claimed that over 30 AAP MLAs were in touch with his party. Mann, however, dismissed Bajwa's claims, stating that Congress has a culture of switching sides. The meeting follows AAP's defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections, sparking speculation about instability in its Punjab unit. Mann reiterated the unity within AAP, highlighting his government's achievements, including closing 17 toll plazas, stopping multiple pensions for MLAs, and implementing the Delhi model in Punjab. On the promise of financial assistance of Rs 1,000 to women, he said it will be provided in the coming days. Meanwhile, the BJP has also intensified its attack on the AAP, with BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa taking a dig at Kejriwal for holding a meeting with Punjab MLAs despite AAP's defeat in Delhi.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
Accusing the BJP of trying to poach TMC MLAs by attempting to bribe them, Banerjee, without naming anyone, said some people are acting as fence-sitters who are under the illusion that the saffron party might come to power in the state.
On the day of polling in the high-profile Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh on Friday, the city's mayor Vikram Ahake, who recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, urged people to vote for Congress' Nakul Nath.
'Congress leaders are ready to lose the election and not form the government, but are never ready to share seats with others.'
Gopi defeated Communist Party of India leader VS Sunilkumar in an exciting fight.
An eighth BJP candidate on Thursday filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, setting the stage for a contest with the Samajwadi Party on February 27.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Shirsat, an MLA and spokesperson of the Shiv Sena, said Shinde would be a part of the cabinet.
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Manik Saha was named as the next chief minister of the northeastern state of Tripura at a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislative party held in Agartala on Monday.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
'We want to send a notice to the BJP that Rajputs are no longer their slaves.'
The NR Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam alliance on Monday emerged victorious in Puducherry Assembly polls.
Singh has questioned the reliability of the EVMs on more than one occasion following the Congress' defeat in the recent assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has said he did not request Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold a campaign rally in his Baramati constituency because the fight there is within the family.
Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange on Sunday refuted talk of his stir not being a factor in the Maharashtra assembly polls, which were swept by the Mahayuti comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party.
Investors would track a host of macroeconomic data announcements scheduled this week, including inflation numbers, and also monitor global market trends, and trading activity of foreign institutional investors, analysts said. The ongoing quarterly earnings announcements and the rupee-dollar trend would also influence the markets.
Post-Karnataka, it would be a mistake to underestimate the BJP. It should be amply clear by now that the Right-Wing is more an elaborate theatre than a single scene, actor or play, warns Shyam G Menon.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Anuppur district unit chief in Madhya Pradesh, who had vowed in 2017 not to wear footwear till the party forms a government in the state, started wearing it again on Saturday, days after the saffron party registered a resounding victory in the assembly polls.
The Rajya Sabha election scene in Karnataka heated up with the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (Secular) combine fielding its second candidate, even though the alliance has the strength to win only one out four seats.
The meeting comes against the backdrop of differences in the ruling Mahayuti alliance over the presence of Ajit Pawar-led NCP and his party's opposition to the anti-Muslim tirade by some BJP leaders.
Seeking an apology from social media giant Meta for 'tarnishing' India's image, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey, who heads the Parliament's Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, said on Tuesday that the panel will summon the firm following its chairman's comments that India's ruling dispensation lost the Lok Sabha election last year.
