Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 15 of 20 seats up for grabs in the politically crucial province of Punjab on Sunday, dealing a major blow to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his 13-party alliance led by the ruling PML-N.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's debacle at this week's bypoll in Uttar Pradesh has once again prompted Union Minister Maneka Gandhi to bat for her son Varun, the party member of Parliament from Sultanpur, who was sidelined by party president Amit Shah soon after the latter rode on to the party's helm of affairs.
Notably, CM Shinde on Monday said no claim will be laid on any party property post the Election Commission's decision on the real Shiv Sena as "we are heirs of Balasaheb Thackeray's ideology and have no temptations".
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said he has clarified his stand on the Election Commission's decision to recognise Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real 'Shiv Sena' and allocation of the 'bow and arrow' poll symbol to it, and will not get involved in the controversy over it.
The announcement came days after party president Akhilesh Yadav met Khan at a Delhi hospital, where according to sources they discussed the bypolls to the Rampur seat.
Soon after coming out of the ED office in Kolkata, Banerjee said the interrogation was an effort to prevent him from participating in the INDIA meet and a testimony to the vital role TMC is playing in forging the opposition unity.
"Given the constitutional crisis, I felt it was right for me to resign," Rawat said.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist said that it will field a candidate as those opposed to the TMC and BJP needed an alternative.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi must apologise and take back all his remarks against late Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar before entering Maharashtra, Bharatiya Janata Party state chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said in Nagpur on Friday.
On his sixth visit this year to Karnataka, where assembly elections are due by May, he also asserted that the 'double engine' government is a necessity for the fast-paced development of the state.
"Since the elections started in West Bengal, central government hatched conspiracies to remove us (from power). I was hurt in my feet so that I don't contest the polls," she said.
The people of Amethi want to rectify their 'mistake' of 2019 and Congress workers as well as leaders are demanding that Rahul Gandhi contest from the constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party's Uttar Pradesh chief Ajay Rai said.
'Our fight is against his political masters, the BJP and Devendra Fadnavis.'
The TMC also said that the Congress is not the "big boss" of the opposition.
Top state leaders--Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Congress' Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar and Janata Dal-Secular leader HD Kumaraswamy are contesting from different seats.
Officials said most of the preparations are complete and the counting will start at 8 am on Saturday.
The Election Commission had on July 16 said that bypoll to the Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal vacated by Dinesh Trivedi earlier this year will be held on August 9.
For Sikhs, they say, honour is the bottom line; and whatever the state of the SAD's political fortunes today, arrogance will not be helpful in the negotiation.
HD Kumaraswamy, former chief minister, will contest from Channapatna where he had won the election defeating local heavyweight CP Yogeshwar in 2018.
The bypoll was necessitated following the death of Congress veteran H Vasantha Kumar last year due to COVID-19.
The 13 members include, sitting Congress MLA Danasari Anasuya (Seethakka) and former legislator Vem Narendar Reddy.
A total of 13 functionaries from the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday quit the party to join its alliance partner the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
The high court said it is needless to state that the EC will proceed in accordance with the procedure followed by the commission while adjudicating a petition under... Of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and former state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya had also dropped a hint in a recent tweet, saying Yaduvanshi (Yadavs), Ravidasiyo (Jatavs) and Pasmanda Muslims will be brought closer to the BJP so that the lotus 'blossoms' in every booth in UP.
Elections in a democracy have their own sanctity and their process cannot be stalled, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday, after a lawyer alleged that voters of Rampur Sadar assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh were beaten up by the police and forced to confine themselves to their homes during the bypoll held on December 5.
The EC had allotted 'flaming torch' (mashaal) election symbol to the Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena.
