A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party scored big wins in three assembly polls, talk within the party shifted to the likely chief ministerial picks in these states, with senior leaders holding discussions on Monday.
It dropped sitting MP from Guna, Krishnapal Singh Yadav, to field Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from the seat.
The results mark a defining turn in the fortunes of several regional satraps, especially in the BJP, around whom politics in their states have revolved for decades.
The fire was noticed at around 9.10 pm and it was doused within half an hour, officials said adding that no arrival flight was affected.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday laid the foundation stone for the Noida International Airport at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh. It will be one of the largest aerodromes in Asia.
Scindia said on Twitter the Romanian prime minister has assured his continued support to Indian students crossing the Romanian borders.
The exercise will continue till 6 pm in all the polling stations except those in Maoist-affected areas of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori districts where it ended at 3 pm, an official said.
The Congress has a wafer-thin majority in the Madhya Pradesh assembly whose current effective strength is 228.
Sarma said the defamation case will be filed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Guwahati on April 14.
Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh elections, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra have arrived in Bhopal as part of the ruling party's programme wherein every legislator will be allotted one assembly seat each that they are supposed to visit to take stock of the ground situation, party leaders said.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
Mishra lost from Datia seat by a margin of 7,742 votes to Congress candidate Rajendra Bharti.
While Chouhan has emerged as a favourite to remain at the helm in MP despite the presence of some challengers, the leadership race is wide open in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, two states where the BJP has snatched power from the Congress.
'...the Congress tally in 2028 would further plummet under 50.' 'A fresh face as CM would further strengthen the BJP and weaken the Congress in Madhya Pradesh.'
Among the five Indian nationals, four had just arrived in Kathmandu from India on Friday.
The safety and security of citizens is primary for the government, he said.
The Congress is now gearing up to take on the BJP over alleged corruption, jobs and issues tied to tribals, farmers and women.
With this, the ruling BJP has so far declared candidates for 136 seats. Earlier, the BJP had announced 79 candidates, including two lists of 39 each, and another list of one nominee.
The resignation also signals a continuing saga of unaddressed concerns of young leaders, once considered close to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
Asked how he will feel now to work with Scindia whom the BJP targeted during the assembly polls campaign, Chouhan said, If anyone was popular among Congress leaders, it was Maharaj, so we used 'Maaf karo Maharaj' slogan. Now Shivraj and Maharaj are together in the BJP."
He expressed hope the project will increase tourist footfalls and boost employment generation opportunities for people of the region.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
The government on Monday asked airlines to devise a mechanism to ensure reasonable airfares amid a surge in air ticket prices, particularly on certain routes that were earlier served by Go First. In the case of the unfortunate Odisha tragedy, airlines have been advised to provide free carriage (cargo) services to the families of the deceased, the civil aviation ministry said. During an hour-long meeting of the airlines advisory group, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia shared his concerns about the steep rise in airfares on certain routes.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said she declined the offer of the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest elections pleading that she did not have the 'kind of funds' required for fighting the Lok Sabha polls.
On Monday, former state health minister Rustam Singh quit the Bharatiya Janata Party after being denied a ticket from Morena and joined the Bahujan Samaj Party, which has fielded his son from the seat.
With low-visibility conditions significantly disrupting flight operations at the Delhi airport, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday said all stakeholders are working round-the-clock to minimise fog-related impact as well as passenger inconvenience, and asserted that unruly passenger behaviour is unacceptable.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
What some of our leaders were up to on Saturday and Sunday.
"They (opposition parties) are not concerned about the development of the children of the country's poor. Their common minimum programme is to increase corruption for their family. Democracy means 'of the people, by the people, for the people'. But these dynastic parties have the mantra of 'of the family, by the family, for the family'. For them, their family is first, and the nation is nothing," he said.
State Congress president and former chief minister Kamal Nath has been fielded from his home-turf Chhindwara, from where he is currently the legislator.
The list includes constituencies where the BJP came second or third in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and also some which the party has never won.
Scindia said he joined the BJP "by leaving everything" and came with only a full heart. He said his aim is "not politics but doing public service" and told the BJP leaders: "We had fought against each other in 2018, but today we are one."
In a major relief for pilots in dealing with fatigue, aviation watchdog DGCA on Monday came out with revised norms that increase their weekly rest time to 48 hours and limit the number of landings to two during night operations. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also extended the night hours for pilots and now, it covers the period from 0000-0600 hours whereas it was 0000-0500 hours earlier. Besides, all airlines have to compulsorily submit quarterly fatigue reports, which "should follow a follow a non-punitive and confidentiality policy".
Scindia was incidentally in the Congress for a long time and was considered a close associate of Gandhi.
The BJP lost 15 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Union ministers have been deployed in all 15, tasked with turning the result around.
The PM urged all citizens to light diyas in their houses on January 22 so that the whole country basks in glory.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday cruised to a two-thirds majority in Madhya Pradesh assembly, winning as many as 163 of the 230 seats in the House, leaving the Congress a distant second at 66.
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