Convert the Haryana result into a blessing in disguise; make the calamity into an opportunity. Maharashtra was always the big ticket game in town; MVA must win it. The Congress should shift headquarters to Mumbai for the entire month. Show urgency and a hunger to win, asserts Sanjay Jha.
Nadda's visit to Badal's native village came days after the former Punjab chief minister said minorities 'should be taken along' to run a government.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
When events like these take place, it is easy for the BJP to portray the Gandhis as latter-day versions of the Borgias or Medicis, who toy with their nobles and promote favourites, points out Vir Sanghvi.
Glimpses from the campaign trail on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.
At a time when rallies and large gatherings are banned by the Election Commission in view of a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, political parties in Punjab are battling it out on social media platforms as they promote their agendas for people and also counter any negative propaganda by their opponents.
At its Jaipur meeting, the BJP will focus on this year's assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh while the Congress's Chintan Shivir in Udaipur will discuss how it can resurrect itself.
Jakhar, the former president of Punjab Congress, said the party had never named its CM face adding that it was only an exception that the Congress high command had declared Captain Amarinder Singh as the chief ministerial candidate in the run-up to the 2017 state assembly polls.
In a letter to Gandhi, Amarinder Singh is learnt to have mentioned that there could be an adverse impact on the party's prospects in the upcoming and crucial 2022 assembly polls by ignoring the old guard and other senior party leaders representing Hindu and Dalit communities, sources said.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
Apart from Chamkaur Sahib assembly seat which comes in Maajha region of Punjab, Congress is all set to field CM Channi from Adampur assembly constituency which falls in the Doaba Region.
A political slugfest broke out on Wednesday between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cavalcade, in a major security breach, got stranded on a flyover, 30 km away from Hussainiwala in Punjab, as a group of protesting farmers blocked his route.
As many as 22 Patiala corporators and Congress leaders joined former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh's new party Punjab Lok Congress at a party event on Friday ahead of the assembly elections next year.
AAP is working on its new strategy to build a strong organisational set-up with leaders from all sections of society, reports Nitin Kumar.
The Congress picked Charanjit Singh Channi as the next chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dailt to hold the post in the state, a day after Amarinder Singh resigned following a bitter power tussle in the party.
Taking note of a plea of an Aam Aadmi Party councillor alleging wrongdoing in the polls, the court issued notices to the Chandigarh authorities, including the civic body.
BJP workers were chased and thrashed by the police and it was only when all of them gathered and staged a sit-in outside the local police station that top officers reached the spot.
Pawar made the announcement at the 25th anniversary of the party, founded by him and P A Sangma in 1999.
'The Congress is trying to cover up their anti-incumbency by highlighting the Dalit CM factor.'
The remarks came after the Channi government on Tuesday accepted the resignation of advocate general APS Deol, yielding to the pressure mounted by Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu for replacing the state's AG.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
The Congress is banking on decisions like reducing electricity tariff and fuel prices, taken during current CM Charanjit Singh Channi's 111-day tenure.
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'He is worried about how best the Punjab crisis can be resolved.'
Navjot Singh Sidhu quit as the Punjab PCC chief, triggering other resignations and plunging the party into a fresh crisis just months ahead of the assembly elections.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Sunday that he would resign after two days and sought early polls in the national capital while vowing not to sit in the chief minister's chair till people give him a 'certificate of honesty'.
He said that to concentrate on the upcoming polls in Uttarakhand, it had been on his mind to seek to be relieved of the responsibility of the party's Punjab affairs in-charge.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
'The fight is between the Congress and Akali Dal.'
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
The appointments holds significance as a large number of senior leaders, who had no organisational post currently, have now been given new responsibilities.
It also ordered prosecution of the returning officer for the poll, Anil Masih, a BJP leader, for his 'misdemeanour', after finding serious faults in the conduct of the January 30 election.
The Congress has consciously contested on a lesser number of seats in this Lok Sabha election as part of a strategy to keep the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) together and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
New entrant Aam Aadmi Party has emerged as the leading party winning 13 of 35 wards so far as the counting of votes in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation polls is in progress here on Monday.
Addressing the party's national executive, Nadda also reached out to Sikhs, who are in majority in poll-bound Punjab, by listing a number of measures the Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the review of the Goods and Services Tax.
He also promised to give free electricity, quality education in government schools and good healthcare for the state's people.
The letter to Sonia Gandhi reminded her of the party's 18-point agenda "given to the last chief minister" of Punjab and said that those were "equally relevant today".
Shiromani Akali Dal-Amritsar's Simranjit Singh Mann on Sunday won the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat after defeating his nearest rival, Aam Aadmi Party's Gurmail Singh, by a margin of 5,822 votes.
Long queues were seen at outpatient department ticket counters in government hospitals, where senior doctors joined their junior colleagues in the protest.
Making the announcement at a press conference in Chandigarh, Sidhu, however, said he will assume charge the day Punjab will get a new advocate general.
