Maneka also exudes confidence of BJP's victory in the upcoming voting in Sultanpur on May 25.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday criticized the opposition, accusing them of trying to control Parliament through disruptions and chaos for their own political gain. Modi, addressing reporters ahead of the Winter Session, said those rejected by the people 80-90 times were resorting to hooliganism. He highlighted the BJP's recent electoral victories in Maharashtra and Haryana, asserting that the people are observing the opposition's actions and will punish them at the appropriate time. Modi emphasized the importance of healthy debate in Parliament and lamented the disregard for democracy by some opposition members.
Bhandari, a three-term Congress legislator who was also a minister in the state in the past, joined the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders, including Union Minister Piyush Goyal and the party's national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam.
A day after the by-election results in Bihar, though leaders of the Rahtriya Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed victory after the RJD and BJP retained the Mokama and Gopalganj assembly seats respectively, the fact that both seats were won with a reduced margin indicates that there is nothing to celebrate for either party.
The exodus of FPIs from the Indian equity markets continued unabated, as they withdrew over Rs 7,300 crore (about $840 million) in the first week of this month due to global trade tensions, with the US imposing tariffs on countries such as Canada, Mexico, and China. This came following an outflow of Rs 78,027 crore in the entire January. Before that, they invested Rs 15,446 crore in December, data with the depositories showed.
'Undeniably, Modi's position has stabilised and he has staged a comeback of sorts from the weeks after the Lok Sabha results.' 'Coalition partners are likely to be more tolerant of Modi... The forthcoming elections in Delhi and Bihar will determine whether this continues or not.' 'To win Delhi and Bihar, Modi will have to work in conjunction with the RSS.' 'However, because of the 'truce' that has been worked out within the Sangh Parivar, Modi will have to be more consultative than he has been in the past ten years,' reveals Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'The BJP is in no hurry because they have already won the battle.'
'The BJP has killed public anger. They have killed people's self-respect.'
The difference in the number of votes received by the candidates of the two parties in Bhoranj, Sujanpur, Darang, Bilaspur, Sri Naina Devi, Rampur, Shillai, and Sri Renukaji was less than 1,000 votes.
Discordant voices emerged on Sunday from the Mahayuti even as the alliance continued to remain in the throes of government formation more than week after it swept the Maharashtra assembly polls.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Devendra Fadnavis will lead the new Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar serving as deputy chief ministers. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday evening at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers. The Mahayuti coalition won the recent assembly elections by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
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.
Results for assembly polls in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir were declared on Tuesday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party scoring a hat-trick in Haryana while the National Conference-Congress alliance emerged victorious in J-K. Here's how some big names fared.
Veteran Congress leader and former Defence Minister A K Antony said on Tuesday that his son, Anil K Antony, who is contesting as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, should not win the election.
'Jairam Mahto's new party dented the NDA because he pulled a lot of the OBC vote.'
The final round of voting for the Jharkhand Assembly elections is taking place on Wednesday, with the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition seeking to retain power while the BJP-led NDA aims to take control. The election will decide the fate of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his wife, and several other candidates. Key issues during the campaign included alleged infiltration from Bangladesh, corruption, and Hindutva.
'Yogi was there, but ultimately the BJP got extremely worried and therefore Modi pitched in.'
'Congress leaders are ready to lose the election and not form the government, but are never ready to share seats with others.'
According to police, Javeed allegedly thrashed Samina on Monday when she was celebrating the victory of the BJP in the recently-held assembly elections, counting for which was done on December 3.
'Since the last ten days our own people were spreading canards and propaganada against me and my family.' 'I was upset by this behaviour and I decided that I should not contest this Lok Sabha election.'
Voters in Muslim-dominated Nuh in Haryana have made the Congress victorious in all three assembly seats in the district, with one of the contestants registering the highest victory margin.
Devendra Fadnavis, a veteran politician from Maharashtra, is set to become the state's chief minister for the third time following a decisive victory by the BJP in the recent assembly elections. Fadnavis' political journey has been marked by resilience, strategic manoeuvring and a string of successes, including becoming the youngest mayor of Nagpur. He is known for his articulate speeches and effective governance, but his tenure has also been marked by challenges, including the Maratha reservation issue and the irrigation scam. He faces a new set of challenges, but his ability to adapt and make tactical decisions could prove crucial for him and his party in the coming days.
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.
'Ajit Pawar is trying to sideline us; he is trying to be in the BJP's good books at our cost.'
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
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.
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.
Following the exit poll prediction of a resounding BJP victory, BSE benchmark Sensex shot up on Monday by 2,507 points or 3.4 percent to settle at a new closing peak of 76,469. However, a day later on Tuesday, the equity markets witnessed a bloodbath, with the Sensex tanking 4,390 points or 6 percent to settle at 72,079. This was the worst single-day fall in four years.
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.
'If one looks at it closely, this reflects the BJP's frustration and its fear of defeat'
Soon after Gandhi's press conference, the Election Commission said it will respond with full facts in writing.
This will be the 49-year-old JMM leader's fourth stint as chief minister. Soren retained the Barhait seat, defeating BJP's Gamliyel Hembrom by a margin of 39,791 votes in the recent assembly polls.
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.
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.
Mishra lost from Datia seat by a margin of 7,742 votes to Congress candidate Rajendra Bharti.
Reacting to MLA Rameshwar Sharma's statement, Singh said, "I don't want to talk anything new about it. They don't have any issue other than this. The statement is being examined by my lawyers and they will take action accordingly."
The former footballer who later became editor of a vernacular daily Naharolgi Thoudang, has managed to strike a chord with the youth, promoting entrepreneurship through programmes such as 'Start-Up Manipur' as an alternative for young people who were being attracted to insurgency.
With the declaration of results for the Tripura Assembly polls on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state by winning 32 seats and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) winning one.
