After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress also ended up going into the polls with its original plan of largely going solo.
In a historic transition, the Parliament moved into a swanky new complex on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging MPs to forget all past bitterness and start a new chapter and the introduction of the women's reservation bill taking centre stage.
'BJP has lot of money. Even a rich person like me is scared of taking on the financial muscle of the BJP.' 'What is the point of throwing money? Result toh aane wala nahi hai.'
The counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha elections was delayed on Friday in Maharashtra and Haryana over alleged violation of rules, officials said.
The allegations against her are baseless. Nothing against her or Swami Aseemanad have been proved, Shah said.
Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar convened the meeting of leaders of opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, which was attended by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, independent Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav, Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) member Anil Desai and Bharat Rashtra Samithi member K Keshav Rao among others.
The BJP won both the Rajya Sabha seats from Assam.
A day after he cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls, Bishnoi also said that he listened to his soul and acted on his conscience.
Cricketer Yusuf Pathan will contest from the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat, whereas Kirti Aazd will fight from the Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency.
Political temperatures were soaring in several states that could see close contests, with parties trying to keep their flock together and trading accusations of poaching of MLAs.
'Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli?'
In a major setback to Maharashtra's ruling alliance of Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday won three of the six Rajya Sabha seats, while the ruling combine questioned the eight-hour delay in counting of votes.
Lovely hailed the BJP leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for giving him and his colleagues the opportunity to join the party when they felt lost.
JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
The Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantric-JVM) has refused to support Congress in the Rajya Sabha elections if both the parties failed to reach consensus on fielding a joint opposition candidate.
Modi said that Congress' tally in the Lok Sabha polls will be an "all-time low"
The Rajya Sabha elections have again highlighted dissension and lack of cohesion in the opposition ranks from Maharashtra to Karnataka and Haryana.
Veteran party leader Anil Vij will seek re-election from his Ambala Cantt stronghold.
The counting was scheduled to start at 5 pm Friday, but it could not be taken up as the Bharatiya Janata Party approached the Election Commission alleging violation of rules by three MLAs of the state's ruling alliance of Maha Vikas Aghadi.
The Congress rebels are seeking to install a person of their choice as the new chief minister of the state.
These MLAs are: Shankarsinh Vaghela, his son Mahendrasinh, Raghavji Patel, Bhola Gohil, Dharmendra Jadeja, P K Raulji, Amit Chaudhary, Karan Patel.
'They have no chance of winning if free and fair polls are conducted.'
Even before the first votes are counted in Maharashtra, fissures have emerged within the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on who will head the next government. Both camps are claiming the chief minister's post, with constituents in both camps laying claim over the chief minister's post. The MVA, consisting of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), and the Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, have expressed confidence that their respective alliance will form the next government after votes are counted on Saturday. While a majority of exit polls have predicted that Mahayuti will retain power, a few have favored the MVA.
The BSP chief said she does not want to see any damage to the SP-BSP-RLD alliance.
While the Union finance minister has opted out of the election race -- one of the many Congress bigwigs who are not very confident of their electoral prospects this time around, Ghulam Nabi Azad has volunteered to contest from the Udhampur seat even though he is a sitting Rajya Sabha member. Anita Katyal reports on the Congress' fourth list of Lok Sabha candidates that was released late on Thursday night.
Nirupam had been at loggerheads with senior party leaders in the state and the move has come as a bid to quell the intense infighting within the Mumbai Congress.
'AAP's clear goal is to remove the BJP from Haryana politics. But if anyone considers us weak, then it will be their biggest political error'
With the second list, the total number of candidates declared by the Congress went up to 83 out of the total of 90.
Claiming a heavy transfer of cash to Jaipur, Gehlot said there were reports about the BJP's plan similar to that of Madhya Pradesh and some of the party MLAs were offered Rs 25 crore in cash with Rs 10 crore in advance.
A blame game began in the Congress on Tuesday as it failed in its bid to come back to power in Haryana after 10 years, with senior party leader Kumari Selja saying the party high command should assess all reasons that led to the disappointing result and identify the people responsible.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut were among the 16 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from four states where polling was held on Friday after tussle over cross voting and alleged breach of election rules delayed the counting by around eight hours in Maharashtra and Haryana.
'I gave enough evidence and proof to punish corrupt officials.' 'But my own government has not filed any FIR against such officials.'
As many as 37 ministers have been dropped from the government in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third term and these include seven with cabinet rank -- prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane.
'Money power was deployed like an army in a war.' 'None of the MVA parties had that kind of money.'
All legislators of the Sena have been summoned to Mumbai and they will stay together till the polls on June 10.
Union Minister of State for Mines T Subbarami Reddy, Advisor on Public Affairs Dr K V P Ramachandra Rao and Telugu Desam Party founder N T Rama Rao's son Nandamuri Harikrishna are among the six candidates who filed their nominations on Saturday for Rajya Sabha biennial elections from Andhra Pradesh slated for March 26.
The ruling alliance also has some smaller parties like Republican Party of India-Athawale, Asom Gana Parishad, Mizo National Front, National People's Party, Naga People's Front, Pattali Makkal Katchi and Bodoland People's Front, which have one seat each, totalling seven seats.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
Raut said there is always give and take in an alliance and they gave Ramtek and Kolhapur seats to the Congress. He said Sena-UBT has also given Amravati to the Congress.
