Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday alleged that Kerala under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has shown tolerance towards radical elements and radicalisation.
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
'If Kerala votes back the LDF, if Tamil Nadu brings the DMK and if Bengal votes for the Trinamool, we will project a formidable opposition to the BJP.'
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.
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.
Vadra has been questioned multiple times by the federal probe agency in a different money laundering case.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday lashed out at Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for calling a group of protesting Students' Federation of India (SFI) members 'criminals' and said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government has 'let loose such a deranged man'.
Movie star-Minister Suresh Gopi visited Thane over the weekend to campaign for the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra.
The incident occurred on the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express train in which two months ago a man had set fire to his co-passengers, which resulted in three deaths including a toddler, leading to speculation that it might be a case of sabotage and connected to the earlier one.
The Election Commission has said it will allow suspected fake voters to cast their ballots in the Palakkad assembly by-poll, but will take action against them later. The CPI(M), Congress, and BJP have accused each other of enrolling fake voters. The by-poll is scheduled for November 20.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief J P Nadda had a couple of days ago met a few top Catholic priests in Kottayam district of Kerala, sources said.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
He served as the Union health minister in Modi's first term from November 9, 2014 to May 30, 2019.
'The southern states will have no voice.' 'Political parties in future need to focus only on one region, the northern region, to win the general election.'
Noted poet K Satchidanandan has alleged that he was restrained by Facebook from liking, commenting and sharing posts for 24-hours after he tried to upload online a satire video on the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in the recently concluded Kerala assembly polls.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
Drawing examples from history to prove his point, Vijayan said a Muslim man named Azimullah Khan had coined the slogan 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
On Thursday, the opening day of the movie itself, the Sangh Parivar came out with vehement criticism against the film on social media, while the Congress and a section of the Left platforms celebrated the film for portraying the right-wing politics as "villainous".
The ceremony, held at the famous St Peter's Basilica and attended by clergy and dignitaries from around the world, witnessed the induction of 21 new cardinals from various countries.
The report said that his classmates and senior held a public trial inside the hostel alleging that he had misbehaved with a girl student of the college.
Nadda claimed that over the years the number of people listening to the PM's programme has increased each month.
'My joining the BJP will definitely result in a landslide migration of votes to the BJP.'
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
The lack of clarity on who is next in line, when the time comes, as indeed it will one day some day, reflects poorly on the management of the world's largest political party. It scarcely need be said that a squabble between the contenders, Shah and Yogi, is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Opposition, notes Krishna Prasad.
'Rahul Gandhi has done nothing for the constituency'
The Kerala police have registered another case against Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making statements that promote enmity between different groups through social media posts in connection with recent blasts at a convention centre in Kochi.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
The BJP workers of Fort Kochi staged a protest at a ground where 'Papanji' structure was being built after the photo of 'Papanji' was shared on social media platforms saying it resembled that of Modi's face.
The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday said it has resolved the issue of some Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) showing an extra vote during a mock poll in the north Kerala district of Kasargod.
According to reports, Rinson Jose is the founder of Bulgaria-based firm which had facilitated the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
The Congress continued its losing spree on Saturday posting its worst-ever show in Maharashtra and ending up a distant junior partner to the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Jharkhand, further diminishing its role in the opposition bloc as other allies perform better.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday cruised to her maiden electoral victory, from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, with a margin of over 4.1 lakh votes against Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front's Sathyan Mokeri, according to figures released by the Election Commission.
"Everyone knows the situation in Kerala. Amit Shah should tell what is wrong here...minorities in Karnataka face widespread attacks whereas religious minorities are safe in Kerala," the chief minister said, adding that Kerala is the only place where the 'communal propaganda of Sangh Parivar' is not working.
'He should not come to Kerala and fight against the CPI which is an integral part of the INDIA alliance'
The Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance, which fought the April 2 assembly polls with the fancy claim of winning at least 35 seats in Kerala, on Sunday came a cropper as it failed to retain even its lone segment Nemom, even as all its major contestants, including 'Metroman' E Sreedharan and party state chief K Surendran, fell by the wayside.
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
Barring a few, such as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu (74), Union Minister C R Patil (69) and Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Khanna (71), most other ministers attending the WEF represent the next generation of India's politicians.
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