'Caste-based power politics made him think that he can get away with murder.'
"The way my papa (Dharmendra) worked with and supported Atal ji (Atal Bihari Vajpayee), I am here today to work with and support Modi ji. My work will do the talking," Sunny said after joining the BJP in the presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister for Railways and Coal Piyush Goyal.
An LJP parliamentary board meeting chaired by its president Chirag Paswan instead passed a resolution in favour of an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and said its MLAs will work to strengthen the hand of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Opposition grand alliance is proving to be a non-starter, with senior RJD leaders reluctant to be ordered about by an immature and entitled Tejashswi, observes Virendra Kapoor.
"The victory margin will be huge since there is an alliance between Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party. Bharatiya Janata Party did not fulfil its promises and now to divert attention, it is using the security forces. It has been a failed government," Dimple Yadav said.
Amidst tight security, voting is underway on Monday in 95 constituencies in the second phase of Gujarat assembly elections which will decide the fate of 820 candidates including Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who is set to retire after the World Championships in London next year, has been shortlisted for the 2016 IAAF World Athletes of the Year award.
About 2.34 crore voters, spread across 78 assembly segments of the 243-strong assembly, will decide the fates of 1,204 candidates, including the Speaker and 12 members of the state cabinet.
Television anchor and actress Mini Mathur, husband Director Kabir Khan (whose film '83 on India's first cricket World Cup win releases on April 10) and their children Sarah and Vivaan are currently holidaying in the Maldives.
The final phase saw voting in all 13 seats of Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
'We do not think the EC is doing enough to address issue of EVM malfunctioning'
'It was a reaffirmation of his party's unrelenting defiance of its erstwhile ally, the BJP; an attempt to forge a new relationship with the community the Shiv Sena had always targeted; and a pointer towards the political imperative of taking everyone along if the fight against the ruling party had to succeed,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
'This is the era of images; no speech that Mukherjee could have given could counter the sight of a senior Congressman, elevated by the party to Rashtrapati Bhavan, standing rigidly next to the RSS gerontocracy as those worthies delivered the organisation's faux-fascist salute,' says Mihir Sharma.
Mr Modi and Mr Shah will need him if they want to win UP again in 2022 and India in 2024. This signals a Yogi Adityanath-sized change in BJP politics, even under Mr Modi, Shekhar Gupta.
'We thought we'd be away from Mumbai for two or three years.' 'If only life were that simple!'
The death of the 74-year-old leader, who was identified with the state's Dalits for over five decades, so near the polls will mean that none of the LJP's rivals will like to attack the party and its young president strongly.
When Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Gujarat to cast his vote in the urban body polls, learnt of the poor voter, instead of heading home he went to the Motera stadium, organised a control room, and was on the phone with practically everybody assigned duty on the ground: MPs, MLAs and BJP office-bearers. His single commandment was to check the voter list and phone or personally get people to the booths, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
The fate of 720 candidates will be decided by 2.28 crore voters
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
The turnout for these seats was 57.92 per cent in the last assembly polls in 2012.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
The industry is counting minutes and hours in the run-up to the Parliament session on Wednesday, as finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has said any announcement would be made in the House.
Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer Abhijit Sinha said the violence in Akuluto constituency in Zunheboto district left one dead and two injured.
The fifth and last phase of the state assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir ended on Saturday with a turnout of 76 per cent.
All the parties fielded women candidates after the Lucknow mayoral seat was reserved for women.
The voter turnout in the first three phases of the civic polls in the valley has been low.
The UP CM didn't deign to attend the actor's nomination.
Counting of votes is underway in assembly byelection to 58 seats in 11 states including Madhya Pradesh where the results will decide the fate of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
The Tamil Nadu Bishops Council's decision to support the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress alliance in the upcoming elections will vitiate the political atmosphere in the state, reports R Ramasubramanian.
Anand did not quite re-work his energy and lost to Carlsen in the first game of the third day and then made a draw with compatriot Vidit Gujrathi.
The TMC expects to emerge victorious by way of a majority of minority votes and a minority of majority votes, notes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
Amidst a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 100 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting, putting the country on course for its highest turnout in a century. Some 239 million people are eligible to vote this year.
Mayawati was outmanoeuvred by the BJP in the race for the Rajya Sabha in Uttar Pradesh just days after she helped the Samajwadi Party snatch two Lok Sbaha seats from the saffron party in bypolls.
Thailand voted on Sunday under heavy security in violence-plagued snap elections amid boycott calls from the opposition, which forced cancellation of polls in 45 constituencies across the politically polarised country.
Joginder Tuteja looks at the big hits scored, and presents his half-yearly report.
The Election Commission has ordered a re-poll at four booths spread across three Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra on April 27 citing non-clearance of votes cast during mock polls, as it had a bearing on the actual numbers reflected in the EVMs.
Mumbai has proved a disappointment yet again. In a season, where the voter wave has gripped the entire country, and people turned out in large numbers to come out and caste their ballot, Mumbaikars chose to stay away from the polling booth.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister may have opened a Pandora's Box on the religion front with the appointment of qualified non-Brahmin temple priests, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The development is being seen as a blow to the opposition Congress which was planning to forge a grand alliance in Chhattisgrah to unseat the ruling BJP.
'My father never saw any success for me. 'When I meet him in the next world, I will proudly say that I didn't buy houses and cars, but I made some art that will hopefully stand the test of time.'
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