The Bharatiya Janata Party's reverses in Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were due to poor vote transfer from the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Thursday.
There was an 8% decline in the BJP's vote share across six regions in UP, and that some OBC castes moved away from the BJP.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Monday said there was 'nothing wrong' in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to his residence on Ganpati Puja and underscored the need for a 'sense of maturity in political sphere' on such issues.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
'For politicians, winning the next election has become more important than economic stability of the country and broader national interest.'
The meeting was convened in the backdrop of the ruling Mahayuti's below par performance in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections.
'We are going to need more technical people in government.' 'You can't expect a generalist to understand the complicated world of financial engineering.' 'I regret to say that most of our politicians have no competence to deal with these things. Nor is there a willingness to learn.'
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is unlikely to attend a meeting of the INDIA bloc on June 1, sources said, as it coincides with the last phase of voting in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to its ally Sena (UBT)'s nominee Narvekar, party sources said. Eventually, Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted.
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'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.
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 grand old party is looking to retain power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh while seeking to come to power in the other three states going to polls -- Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Mizoram.
Scores of people, some armed with sticks, walked in the funeral cortege of a youth killed during a Durga idol immersion procession in Bahraich amid cries for justice from the family and others on Monday, as tension escalated with shops being burnt down and angry crowds out in the streets.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar supremo Sharad Pawar on Saturday said there was no question of taking back those leaders who had deserted the two parties.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a setback in Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra on Tuesday, with its tally dwindling by less than half compared to 2019, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi of Congress, Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar was on a roll, pocketing 30 of the 48 seats.
The BJP knows how to play with people's lives and bodies, former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said.
If the BJP has to work as a junior partner of Vijay's TVK, then either the party will have to change the state leader, or the latter should change himself. Incidentally, ever since Vijay started talking politics and elections, the pro-BJP/Hindutva social media had stopped dragging his name into any non-existing issue.' In particular, they have stopped referring to him by his Christian name, 'Joseph Vijay', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
He urged people to ignore politicians who only make speeches and instead, vote for those who work.
Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C on Tuesday said that Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi terming the Poonch terror attack, in which an Indian Air Force soldier was killed, a 'poll stunt' violated the model code of conduct.
Apart from Kerala, in no state did the Grand Old Party scored in double digits.
Rajnath came down heavily on the National Conference-Congress alliance over its poll promise of restoring Article 370 and said it is impossible as long as the BJP is there.
Although the Supreme Court has mandated the Centre to conduct the polls by the end of September, a spate of terrorist attacks in J&K could cause delays.
The BJP is leaning on Yogi's 'batenge to katenge' theme to weave a unifying narrative that transcends caste and communal lines.
'Nitish may take such a decision because he was the first person who was with the INDIA front.' 'He went back only because he did not get proper encouragement from the Congress.' 'Nitish will take a decision provided there is a strong alternative.' 'If he feels ours is a weak coalition, he will not come.' 'Then, this government will continue for five years.'
Pawar tried to discourage party leader and state minister Dharmarao Baba Aatram's daughter Bhagyashri from crossing over to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP-SP.
Raut said they do not require the exit polls as they work on the field and know the "undercurrent".
He said Priyanka could have been a wonderful candidate in Varanasi as well, especially looking at how good the Congress candidate did against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The saffron party had realised after the first phase of the elections that it was "on the backfoot," Pilot said.
The exit polls on Saturday predicted the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance winning most of the seats in Congress-ruled Karnataka in the Lok Sabha elections and the Congress not putting up a good show.
A total of 45 MLAs voted in favour of the confidence motion in the 81-member assembly.
In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said when the elections are over, people will only remember him as the PM who indulged in 'divisive and communal speeches filled with lies' to avoid an inevitable defeat.
A political crisis involving the ruling All India NR Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition is brewing in the union territory with a section of saffron party MLAs expressing displeasure against the government over issues including corruption, and have knocked on the doors of the national leadership with a plea to set things right before they 'become worse'.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
New members have to give a declaration that they will not own any property in excess of ceiling laws and will undertake tasks including "manual labour" prescribed by the party.
The parties which gave chief ministers and sent scores of MPs to Parliament, drew a blank this time.
Shah also challenged the Congress to implement its Lok Sabha election promise of providing Rs 8500 monthly to women in states ruled by the party.
India's Harmanpreet Singh was crowned as Men's Player Of The Year and his former compatriot PR Sreejesh was named Men's Goalkeeper Of The Year, announced the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Friday.
BJP leader Amit Shah in a poll rally last month had asked people of Ludhiana to send Ravneet Singh Bittu to Parliament, promising them that he will make him a 'bada aadmi' (a big man).
Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat was laid to rest with a 17-gun salute and full military honours on Friday.
