The Congress leader, who resigned as the chief minister Sunday night, emerged victorious in the Patan assembly seat, defeating BJP candidate Vijay Baghel by 19,723 votes in the state assembly elections held last month.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party looks set to retain Haryana, the Congress' poll campaign, which was built around various issues including unemployment, farmers' plight and Agnipath scheme, appeared to have failed to click with a majority of the voters.
Both the eight-time MLA Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have made no secret of their ambition to become CM and had been involved in a game of political one upmanship in the past.
Aam Aadmi Party calls Bhagwant Mann its people's choice for CM candidate in Punjab. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com traces what makes Mann so indispensable for his party.
Thirteen years after she become the first woman chief minister of Bihar, Rabri Devi is ready to bid adieu to active politics.The state assembly's leader of Opposition is not her party Rashtriya Janata Dal's chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming polls, but her husband Lalu Prasad is.Lalu Prasad had himself indicated a few weeks ago that Rabri Devi was not ready to take over as the chief minister if the RJD-Lok Janshakti Party combine came to power.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday promised to introduce a free pilgrimage scheme for the people of different communities in Uttarakhand if the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in the state.
Veteran party leader Anil Vij will seek re-election from his Ambala Cantt stronghold.
National Conference president Omar Abdullah is all set to become the next chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir with his father Farooq Abdullah and the party clearing his name to head a coalition with the Congress after a night of confusion. 38-year-old Omar, whose father and party patron Farooq was projected as the chief ministerial candidate during campaigning, will travel to New Delhi for talks with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
BJP general secretary Shivraj Singh Chauhan will contest against Chief Minister Digvijay Singh in Raghoghar.
A day after the exit polls predicted a hung assembly in Goa, hectic political activities have begun in the state with the Congress focusing on keeping its flock together and plans to shift all its candidates to a resort, a senior party leader said on Tuesday.
Bharatiya Janata Party was left red-faced on Friday after rival groups within the party clashed in the open over the nomination of senior party leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra as the chief ministerial candidate for the forthcoming Delhi assembly elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has not officially declared anyone as its prime ministerial candidate for the next Lok Sabha polls and the Janata Dal-United being a key National Democratic Alliance partner would officially be informed of any decision on the issue, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday refusing to be drawn into any controversy.
After their victory in the assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday moved forward towards government formation in both states with party chief Amit Shah holding parleys with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for charting out further strategy.
A formal decision would be made on the Chief Ministerial candidate of the NDA once the Election Commission issues the notification for the assembly elections, expected in April-May, he said, adding the strategy was part of the ongoing exercise to strengthen the BJP in the state.
Two PAAS members were given tickets in the released list, while the Hardik Patel-led organisation had demanded 20 seats.
The Congress high command has made it clear that he is not being projected as the chief ministerial candidate. The party maintains that Mallikarjuna Kharge, president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee will be the first choice for the post of chief minister. The party feels that projecting Kharge as the CM candidate would boost the party's chances to get into a post-poll alliance with the Janata Dal-Secular, which is expected to be a key player in the next polls.
A day after quitting the Congress, former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro on Tuesday arrived in Kolkata, where he is likely to join the Trinamool Congress, party sources said.
The struggle for power is a jigsaw between the Congress and the regional parties, with the state witnessing 18 governments in the last 35 years. With frequent toppling of governments marking the state's political history, the 18 regimes saw nine chief ministers, with some serving the state for as short as eight months
Speaking about his mission in the party, Sidhu said, "This isn't my personal battle, but the fight for Punjab's well-being and it's existence, and I am only the medium."
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday played the sons of the soil card when he claimed that bahri (outsiders) were seeking people's support during the upcoming elections.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday filed a complaint against Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi with the Election Commission over an alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct in her constituency, Krishna Nagar.
Sources close to the CM told Business Standard that Azad had suggested to the party's Central leaders that since he was not keen to be projected as the party's chief ministerial candidate for the next year's elections, he should be replaced at the earliest.
The Trinamool chief has so far said she will not part ways with ally BJP.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Friday said that there is no need for for Congress to declare a PM candidate before elections, striking a different note from the clamour in the party to declare Rahul Gandhi its prime ministerial candidate as soon as possible.
With the Aam Aadmi Party looking set for a clean sweep in the Punjab assembly polls, its leader Raghav Chadha on Thursday said the party will emerge as the national and natural replacement of the Congress in the coming days.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday cruised to a two-thirds majority in Madhya Pradesh assembly, winning as many as 163 of the 230 seats in the House, leaving the Congress a distant second at 66.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday defended its decision to bring out an advertisement in a section of the media accusing the Jamia Millia University of spending its funds to defend terror suspects. "There was nothing wrong in it. We have not said anything wrong," BJP's Chief Ministerial candidate for Delhi V K Malhotra said replying to a question on the issue.
Sources in the Raje camp said she would be meeting the party high command on Thursday.
Ruling out himself as his party's prime ministerial candidate, Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari on Sunday favoured Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the top job and promised to back his candidature as party chief.
Attacking the Nitish government over policy discrepancies, RJD scion claimed that the health and education sectors were in shambles under the current government.
The opposition alliance has taken exception to Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj's statement on Tuesday that the earliest the polls could be held in the state was in September.
The Shiv Sena chief said there is still ample time for the formation of the next government and he had not yet decided about the chief ministerial candidate. He ruled out any race for leadership within the Sena.
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
"I am putting efforts to get the Opposition together. I am not in the race to become the prime minister as I am not contesting the next (Lok Sabha) election," he told reporters.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
As he snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar's caretaker chief minister Nitish Kumar has once again been pitched as a prime ministerial candidate for the 2024 elections by some, but a majority of the Opposition still view the Janata Dal-United leader with suspicion citing his numerous 'U-turns'.
The BJP accused the Congress governments at the Centre and state of 'betraying' the common man by failing to check price rise and of 'divisive' vote bank politics.
