The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
Banerjee said the prime minister will now have to move around the country and also abroad with two crutches.
Nayab Singh Saini on Wednesday staked claim to form the next government in Haryana, hours after he was unanimously elected as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party in the state.
The JMM-Cong-RJD alliance won 47 seats in 81-member assembly while the incumbent BJP managed to win only 25 seats. CM Das lost his seat to a party rebel despite giving the first full-term government to the state.
The BJP is leaning on Yogi's 'batenge to katenge' theme to weave a unifying narrative that transcends caste and communal lines.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Meanwhile, JMM supporters were seen protesting at the nearby Morabadi Ground and in some other places in protest against the ED action against Soren.
The high-level committee on 'one nation, one election' approached 62 parties out which 47 responded -- 32 in support of holding elections simultaneously, 15 against it.
The meeting, proposed at the CM House, has been called to discuss strategy over the current political situation and the Enforcement Directorate's proposed questioning of Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday, he said.
What some of our leaders were up to this week.
The Congress on Friday welcomed the statements of opposition leaders condemning Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lok Sabha and said it was now time for the party to take on the job of building the opposition unity in a "systematic way".
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
An interim report on the action has also been sent by the field investigation wing of the income tax department to the Central Board of Direct Taxes in Delhi, the administrative body for the department.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday held Jharkhand and DVC responsible for the current "man made" flood in the southern part of the state and contended that it was caused due to the unplanned and enhanced discharge of water from dams and barrages in the neighbouring state without information.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
The Indian National Congress is in no way connected with the businesses of Dheeraj Sahu, MP. Only he can explain, Congress general secretary in-charge communications, Jairam Ramesh said.
Rahul Gandhi's retort to PM Modi came after the latter attacked him at an election rally saying why he has "stopped" naming Adani and Ambani in his attacks and whether he has received money from them in return.
Arun Beereddy (37), a native of Telangana's Hyderabad, was arrested from Delhi. He handles the 'Spirit of Congress' account on X, the official said.
Kalpana said her husband is not with the family on their wedding anniversary but she will not be emotional as he will "defeat conspiracy and emerge as a winner".
Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases from September 18 while Haryana will go to polls in a single phase on October 1, the Election Commission announced on Friday.
Scenes from the election campaign in New Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Amritsar, Ranchi and Guwahati.
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks on Pakistan sparked a political row on Friday, with his party quick to dissociate itself from the comments while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party latched on to them, accusing the Congress of being an apologist for Pakistan and the terrorism emanating from its soil.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
Marandi returned to the BJP after 14 years and the party now wants him to lead the state unit. But a generation of new leaders isn't familiar with him, explains Radhika Ramaseshan.
The high court, which refused to prepone the date of hearing of the petition, said an endeavour shall be made to hear and dispose of the petition on April 10.
A special CBI court in Godhra on Saturday granted the probe agency four-day custody of Jay Jalaram School's principal Purushottam Sharma, teacher Tushar Bhatt, and middlemen Vibhor Anand and Arif Vohra, all of whom are alleged to be involved in irregularities in the May 5 NEET-UG exam in Godhra.
After six years of probe, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed the closure report before a special court last week as it could not find enough evidence in the case to proceed with prosecution, the officials said.
Every student of Classes 9 and 10 will receive Rs 2,200 and that of Classes 11 and 12 Rs 7,500 as scholarships, said the manifesto, which was released by Prasad in Ranchi, in the presence of Chief Minister Raghubar Das, Union Tribal Minister Arjun Munda and BJP's state unit president Laxman Gilua.
Amidst suspense about his whereabouts, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has reached his official residence in Ranchi, a source in the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said on Tuesday.
The opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will hold a 'maha rally' at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on March 31 to safeguard the country's interests and democracy, Aam Aadmi Party leader Gopal Rai said on Sunday.
Please promise, especially those millions who trust you with their hard-earned money, never to let your voting preferences determine your actions on the markets. The most appalling and scary phenomenon was fund houses and brokerages going out on election yatras and writing copious reports promising more than 300 for the BJP. That was your wish as voters. Your investors are paying for it now, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
BJP now governs 35% of country's landmass as against 71% in 2017. 43% of country's population is now governed by the BJP or allies in the states as against over 69 per cent two years ago. In all 3 state polls since its Lok Sabha win, BJP's vote share has fallen by big margins.
In a major organisational rejig ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Saturday appointed Avinash Pande the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, replacing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while Sachin Pilot was made the general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh.
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.
