Campaigning for the fifth phase ended on Friday evening, and all necessary arrangements have been completed, state Chief Election Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said in Lucknow on Saturday.
SAD dubbed "Kejriwal's meeting" as "unconstitutional and unacceptable".
Five Goa Congress MLAs, who went incommunicado a day before, attended the state assembly proceedings on the first day of the monsoon session on Monday, and claimed there was 'nothing wrong' in the opposition party.
A flop Bharat Jodo Yatra could unleash more resignations from a party which under its current leadership is dying a slow death, warns Virendra Kapoor.
The desertion by more than two-thirds of the Congress legislative party makes TMC, a newbie in Meghalaya, the principal opposition in the Northeastern state.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Tuesday allocated portfolios to the new ministers, keeping 14 departments with himself and giving home affairs to deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and health to other deputy O P Soni.
Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had convened an emergency meeting of newly reconstituted Council of Ministers in view of the 'Bharat Bandh' call given by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to protest against the three agri laws, an official statement said after the cabinet meeting.
Heavy police force was deployed at the Congress office in view of the march and roads leading to it were barricaded. However, many Congress workers reached the spot and started a public meeting.
Krishna chants gained more currency when Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav invoked the deity.
However, two Bahujan Samaj Party and one Samajwadi Party MLA who support the government skipped the CLP meeting, he added.
"The two (the Pradesh Congress Committee chief and the chief minister) consult each other, but the final decision is of Channi, who is the chief minister, not Sidhu," the former chief minister told reporters at the Chandigarh airport.
Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi was on Monday sworn in as the chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dalit to hold the top post in the state.
In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi he said that despite knowing him "for the better part of his 52 years in public life" and "that too at a deeply personal level", she never "understood" him or his "character".
The crisis in Rajasthan Congress intensified with Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot at loggerheads, while Gehlot is blaming the Bharatiya Janata Party for trying to destabilise the state government by poaching MLAs, Pilot is camping in Delhi to speak to the party leadership regarding the political turmoil in the state.
While the two MLAs will abstain in the event of a trust vote in the assembly, it is, however, not a withdrawal of support.
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
The Congress also has the support of 10 out of 13 independents, and other party MLAs like Rashtriya Lok Dal (1), which is its ally.
Those who quit included deputy chief minister Y JoyKumar Singh.
He has also convened the first meeting of the extended CWC on July 22 to chalk out the party's future strategy.
' These youngsters don't have patience, which is a key trait in politics'
On the second day of his meet with state Congress leaders, the party vice president said that he has "things to do" and promised to put in place a mechanism to directly communicate with them. Renu Mittal reports
Rahul Gandhi on Saturday set time-bound targets for the state Congress chiefs, who were asked to increase contact with workers, making it clear that reward will be linked to their performance and tickets will be given only after the candidates fulfill the set criteria.
With a series of elections including to Lok Sabha fast approaching, Rahul Gandhi is embarking on an exercise on Friday to set Congress' house in order in the states.
K Siddaramaiah, who led the Congress to victory in the May 5 assembly elections in Karnataka, took oath as the state's 22nd chief minister on Monday.
It was baptism by fire for Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi who had a first hand experience of life with partymen, in what is being called close encounters of the fiery kind during party's day-long deliberations on Friday, reports Renu Mittal.
The group, led by Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, met Assembly Speaker Rajesh Patnekar in the evening and gave him a letter, informing him about their breaking away from the party.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Congress Legislative Party leader Ashok Ram figure in a list of 77 candidates announced by the Congress for the six-phase Bihar assembly elections beginning on October 21. While Kaiser, who was appointed the PCC chief a few months ago, will be contesting from Simri Bakhtiarpur segment, Ram will fight the elections from Kusheshwar Asthan seat.
Reflecting new strains in the Congress-Trinamool tie up, Union minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday asked his party to counter Mamata Banerjee's charge that Congress was responsible for the break up of the alliance for the upcoming civic polls.
As the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress go all out to woo Dalits on the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, the district authorities in Ambedkar Nagar on Wednesday told Rahul Gandhi that he could garland the Dalit icon's statue only after the ruling party's function got over.Congress Legislative Party leader Pramod Tewari said his party had sought written permission from the district administration so that 39-year-old Rahul could garland Ambedkar's statue."We had sought wr
The ruling Left Front and the opposition Trinamool Congress and the Congress on Friday united against the demand by the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha for a separate Gorkhaland on the lines of Telangana. "We don't want division of Bengal," Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, said in Delhi.
Dr Mukul Sangma on Tuesday took oath as the chief minister of Meghalaya, replacing veteran Congress leader D D Lapang, who quit as the Congress Legislative Party leader on Monday night after losing the support of 21 of the Congress' 28 Members of Legislative Assembly in the 60-member state assembly.Governor Ranjit Sekhar Musahary administered the oath of office to Dr Sangma and three other cabinet ministers at a ceremony held at the Raj Bhawan in Shillong today afternoon.
Sources close to Goa Chief Minister Digamber Kamat said that the tourism industry, already reeling under severe recession, worked overtime to ensure the state does not implement the ban as it will send wrong signal to the tourists, resulting in more cancellations.
At a press conference after a meeting of the party's senior leaders, K C Venugopal said the Congress will also launch a massive signature campaign in which it aims to collect two crore signatures from farmers and the poor people against farm bills.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram is Congress nominee from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha while senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
Hooda said he accepts the decision taken by the party high command and will make all efforts to form a Congress government in the state.
The fund would be on the lines of Member of Parliament Local Area Development fund.
The MLAs were upset ever since the cabinet reshuffle and expansion on December 22 that saw removal of Jarkiholi.
Sharma said Jai Ram Thakur's sarcastic comments forced him to resign from the ministry, saying it indicated that the chief minister had lost faith in him.
Former Congress MP V Hanumantha Rao was on Friday booked after he allegedly abused a police official in the Telangana State Assembly premises when the cop did not allow him to proceed towards media point.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday termed Food Security Bill a "historic legislation" and asked party leaders to publicise its importance to masses as they gear up for elections scheduled early next year.
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