Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The move is expected to shield the BJP from Jat anger.
Voicing his support for the farmers' protest in India, the Speaker of Wisconsin State Assembly has urged the Indian government to reconsider its decision on the three farm laws and listen to the concerns of the affected farmers.
BJP candidate and former chief minister Bhajan Lal's grandson Bhavya Bishnoi on Sunday defeated his nearest rival and Congress nominee Jai Prakash in the Adampur assembly seat by-election, retaining the family bastion.
He said he had so far not spoken to either the BJP or the Congress on the matter.
Never before has the BJP faced such a crisis over the nomination of the Chief Minister as it is facing now, discovers Prakash Bhandari, veteran observer of Rajasthan politics.
Jindal, 75, had been elected to the state assembly for the third time from the Hissar assembly constituency.
Should he begin the yatra from Gujarat's Porbandar, the birthplace of the Mahatma, on October 2, and skip campaigning for the five assembly polls?
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday stormed into the state assembly with a huge margin as his party, Congress, made a clean sweep of all the three byelections in Haryana held on June 2.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday asked the newly elected members of Legislative Assembly of the state to donate their first salary towards the Jammu and Kashmir flood relief fund.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
According to experts, Bishnoi had been sulking since the Congress ignored him for the post of its Haryana unit chief during a revamp earlier this year.
The Supreme Court, examining whether states can sub-classify the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the grant of a quota within a quota, said on Thursday that the state governments cannot be selective in granting reservation benefits to backward classes as it will lead to a dangerous trend of appeasement.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
The biggest challenge will be to convert his regime into a coalition of minds. But given the fact that he is instinctively an authoritarian leader and supporter of the hard Hindutva line, the survival of his government will depend on his ability to balance between his heart and mind, between instinct and pragmatism, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
'Some men and women did seek shelter in our dhaba but not one of them disclosed that they had been raped. They were in our dhaba for over two hours till such time as the cops arrived. If they had been stripped and raped, or had been lying the fields for a long period of time, they or the male members of their families should have spoken about it.'
With Haryana going to polls on October 13, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday came out with a list of 'broken promises' in the Congress' 2005 manifesto, alleging that the state government had failed on all fronts. BJP General Secretary and party's in-charge for Haryana affairs, Vijay Goel, told reporters that the Congress had 'befooled' the people of the state and failed to keep the promises it had made during the previous assembly poll campaign.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday said the accused in the Kanhaiya Lal killing case in Udaipur were 'linked' to the Bharatiya Janata Party and should have been 'hanged by now' but the investigation by the National Investigation Agency was not progressing as it should.
"We have given time to the Haryana government to bring and pass the Jat reservation Bill by March 31 (when the ongoing Budget session ends)," Malik told media persons.
The rules for the CAA are likely to be issued before the MCC comes into effect, sources privy to the development said.
Senior Congress leaders from Haryana have asked for the resignation of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda before the assembly elections in the state slated to be held by October this year.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
Top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nitin Gadkari and Sushma Swaraj on Sunday said the BJP-Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) alliance in Haryana was as firm as a rock and was here to stay.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as the Congress is in power there.
Former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal's son Surender Singh and industrialist O P Jindal, who died in a chopper crash on Thursday, were cremated with full state honours on Friday.
Notably, all the games played inside the academy are created by Gurmeet Ram Rahim himself and are not played at national or international level.
Indian National Lok Dal leader Om Prakash Chautala today said his party is the "only alternative" to the Congress in Haryana and claimed that success of a recent rally is an indication of wave in favour of INLD.
The government announced the decision apprehending spread of rumours through social media by anti-social elements ahead or during the rally called to be held on Monday.
"Mock polls" are part of the first level check (FLC) process.
'We see that a BJP MP abuses a Muslim MP in the Parliament. People are saying that he should not have said all this in the Parliament, they are saying that his tongue was bad. This is the representative of the people for whom you voted'
Thackeray had addressed the audience as his deshbhakt and deshpremi brothers and sisters" instead of the traditional invocation of "Hindu brothers and sisters" at the Shivaji Park gathering in Mumbai.
The Centre directed security forces to use force to clear blockades.
While Azad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has been made in charge of Uttar Pradesh, Nath will look after Punjab and Haryana, party General Secretary Janaradan Dwivedi said.
Film star-turned politician Yograj Singh is hopeful that his son, cricketer Yuvraj Singh will campaign from him for the October 13 assembly polls in Haryana.
Coming out against dynastic politics and nepotism in Haryana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the electorate to junk such parties and elect a Bharatiya Janata Party government with majority, saying he did not want support of "dangerous" people lodged in Tihar Jail, apparently referring to former CM Om Prakash Chautala.
The 53-year-old legislator from Adampur met with the BJP leaders in New Delhi and later, heaped praises on them. He was expelled by the Congress from all party positions last month.
As part of efforts to ensure peaceful, free and fair assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana, the Election Commission has directed the authorities to set up effective pickets and carry out patrolling to check influx of both licensed and illicit arms and ammunition into the poll-bound states.
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.
Khattar, 66, had developed fever and body ache three days prior to testing positive for COVID-19.
