Observing that law and order was a state subject, the home minister said the Centre cannot remain silent on the issue.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where it was introduced for the first time in any parliamentary election, around 60 lakh voters had opted for the NOTA option -- equalling about 1.1 per cent of the total votes polled during those elections across 543 seats.
A day before Congress president Sonia Gandhi's visit for poll campaigning, senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday snubbed party rebels contesting as Independents saying dissenters would not matter in the assembly elections.
If the process becomes completely online, there will be no intervention from a state government at any level.
"Trust is something that has been missing from both sides (Delhi and Srinagar). Successive prime ministers -- Jawaharlal Nehru, Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- made promises but the trust deficit has persisted," he added.
In the session which concluded on Wednesday, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan preferred to carry on with the listed business even as protesting Congress members stormed the Well and shouted slogans, many times walking out of the House for the day.
Personal differences between the two alliance partners, Congress insiders say, are owing to Kumaraswamy's style of functioning. He, unlike his father, is suspected to have a soft corner for the BJP, reports Bibhu Ranjan Mishra.
'Although Hong Kong weathered many a storm and displayed a remarkable resilience to bounce back, the developments in the territory have raised question marks with regard to its future stability and prosperity.' A revealing excerpt from Rup Narayan Das's Hong Kong Conundrum: Pangs of Transition.
Stung by the public of dissent against his leadership shown by about 20-odd comparatively young members of Legislative Assembly, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has resorted to consultation with veterans within the party to nip it in the bud.
The danger to India's democracy is coming from recourse to mobocracy encouraged by the anti-Modi gang, argues Vivek Gumaste.
Proceedings in Parliament were washed out for the second consecutive working on Tuesday as Opposition members created pandemonium on a host of issues including JPC report on 2G, Telangana, price rise and death of children in relief camps for Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh) riot victims.
All the gossip from the power corridors of New Delhi
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed by a majority ruling former Lok Sabha speaker P A Sangma's petition challenging the election of senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee as President. Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, who led the 3 to 2 majority ruling, held that Sangma's petition is not maintainable for regular hearing.
'Some semi-literate lunkhead tweeting at Rs 2 per tweet from a dingy basement in Chennai or San Diego accomplishes nothing, but give hundreds of thousands of them a time, date, and talking points, and they can create a wall of sound -- a nonsensical wall, perhaps, but one that is heard, and that can occasionally prevail just because it's there,' says Mitali Saran.
"The current situation in Bihar is very disappointing for me. The mandate by the people of Bihar was not for this. I don't agree with the decision taken in Bihar. It's unfortunate," Yadav said.
A majority of Congress leaders said the party will face desertions if Rahul Gandhi does not remain the leader.
Rather than lose direction with the Karnal protest, farmers decided to focus more on UP to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming assembly elections there, reports Nitin Kumar.
The 84-year old veteran Congressman, who died from post-COVID complications on Monday, was a Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist.
Post Nitish's exit, 17 parties plan to meet on Friday to formulate their future course of action. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has invited Sharad Yadav to join them, reports Archis Mohan.
If the protests have cemented the ties between the peasantry and the traders, the political implications for the BJP might become too serious to be disregarded because its core base was made up of the urban Khatri merchants.
Hours after quitting as the MLA of the West Bengal Assembly, Rajib Banerjee on Friday resigned from the primary membership of the Trinamool Congress, intensifying speculation that he might soon switch over to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
Congress leaders say that part of their calculations and preparations for the Presidential poll have focused on getting the numbers without Mamata, reports Renu Mittal.
Apart from taking stock of the political situation in the country, the CWC discussed the upcoming presidential and vice presidential elections.
Culture Minister Prahlad Patel asserted that national memorials cannot be 'political memorials' and they should be kept away from politics.
The body of Sehrai, 77, was handed over to his family on Wednesday evening and taken in a police escort to Kupwara in north Kashmir, at least 350 km from Jammu, where he would be buried at his ancestral graveyard in accordance with the COVID-19 guidelines.
'There are reports of political dissent mounting on Xi Jinping's handling of the Wuhan fallout.'
A spirited turn at the mic by Mahua Moitra, first-time MP from Trinamool Congress, in which she listed the "signs of early fascism", has been hailed as the "speech of the year" on social media.
'The only reason why these troubling developments are taking place is because of a certain arrogance of power displayed by this government that hopes to clamp down on those voices which have repeatedly pointed out that their bloated rhetoric and grandstanding are not matched by their insipid and tepid response in matters of governance.'
The Modi-Shah duo are standing with B S Yediyurappa: But B L Santhosh refuses to be silenced.
The Congress had won over 400 seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha election after which Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister.
In its report, the committee is understood to have suggested that the money trail could be probed by an investigating agency like CBI or the Income Tax Department. The 600-page report carries evidence given by witnesses and verbatim transcriptions of sittings as also the 'dissent' notes by BJP's V K Malhotra, Mohd Salim (CPI-M) and Ramgopal Yadav (SP).
Contrary to Anna Hazare's view -- that Rahul Gandhi was behind the Standing Committee's decision to exclude the lower bureaucracy from the purview of Lokpal -- there are indications now that it may be Gandhi who may want their inclusion, says Neerja Chowdhury
Dissident leader Nabam Tuki was on Tuesday chosen as the new Congress Legislature Party leader in Arunachal Pradesh, signaling the end of the political drama that culminated in the resignation of Chief Minister Jarbom Gamlin. The decision to choose Tuki was taken by the Congress high command. The swearing-in of Tuki, who led the revolt against Gamlin's leadership for his alleged 'authoritarian rule', as the new chief minister is likely to take place later in the day.
Pune police on Tuesday raided homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them -- poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad and Chhattisgarh and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in Delhi.
'I was not really aware that this movement was slyly being propped up by the BJP and RSS.'
Rahul described the Rafale deal as a 'systematic robbery' from the Indian defence forces.
This is for the first time the UNHRC has issued a report on the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and PoK.
In an unprecedented assault on democracy in the US, thousands of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building here and clashed with police, resulting in four deaths and interrupting a constitutional process by Congress to affirm the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the election.
BJP leaders in the state are either lying low or criticising the CAA move in hushed tones. Chandra Kumar Bose, vice-president of the BJP's state unit, is most vocal with his opposition to the Act in the current form. "The country is above petty party politics. How can I keep quiet when I see that something is happening which is wrong in its current form?" Other party leaders aren't as vocal as Bose but clandestinely have been questioning the merit of the CAA and its impact on the BJP's prospects in the state. In fact, at a time when the BJP started making deep inroads in the state, the fear of the CAA and the NRC appears to be ruining its prospects.
