Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor were also present with the PM as he interacted with the students inside the train.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday snubbed Kerala Chief Minister V S Achutanandan for his comment describing Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi as an 'Amul baby'.
The fallout from the Justice K Hema Committee report on harassment and abuse in the Malayalam film industry intensified on Monday as a case was filed against well-known filmmaker Ranjith, and several female actors stepped forward with disturbing accounts of the mistreatment they faced at the hands of their various male counterparts.
Sunil Ambekar, RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh, said caste and caste-relations were a "very sensitive issue" for the Hindu society and it is an important issue "for our national unity and integrity".
Even as political pressure was building against Ranjith, actor Siddique quit as the general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) amid voices from within his fraternity seeking his resignation.
'In Parliament, he was the one person who stood for democracy and secularism even when the principal Opposition party was not very forthright in taking on the BJP and RSS.'
Gandhi, a former Congress president, represented Amethi in Parliament from 2002 till 2019.
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
Another former Congressman and the current BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said nothing has changed in the Congress since he was 'forced out' of the party for 'speaking against dynasty'.
Singh targeted the Congress using a 'snakes and ladders' analogy, saying the party will fall to zero from 99 after being bitten by a snake -- referring to the grand old party winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Kerala unit of the Congress has made it clear to its allies that it would not succumb to their pressure tactics while finalising a seat sharing deal for the party-led coalition United Democratic Front in the forthcoming assembly polls. One of the Congress's allies in the state is Janadipathya Samarakshana Samithi, a political outfit floated by veteran Communist leader K R Gowri, who became part of the UDF fold after being expelled from the Communist Party of India.
Communist Party of India-Marxist's acting state secretary and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener A Vijayaraghavan on Monday said that the Kerala government will have a 21-member cabinet.
Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani resigned on Tuesday night after pressure mounted on him from the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front to quit.
Apparently rattled by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's Malabar tour, Leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly, V D Satheesan on Tuesday said any kind of sectarianism or parallel activities would not be allowed in the party and warned that such moves would be dealt with 'seriously'.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will have to resign within two weeks from one of the two seats he won in the just-held Lok Sabha elections, a constitutional expert said citing provisions in the law as well as the Constitution.
"One can understand when a woman is raped once. But what if she repeatedly says it. A woman with self respect will either die by suicide after she is raped or try not to be sexually assaulted again."
The recently held presidential election and the historic victory of Droupadi Murmu are likely to create political ripples in Kerala as the NDA candidate received an unexpected vote from the southern state.
After Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the Congress is caught in a seat sharing tangle with its alliance partners in Kerala, so far the only clear winning state for the ruling party at the Centre. Senior leader and union defence minister AK Antony has landed in Kerala and has begun discussions with alliance partners of the United Democratic Front, on how best to resolve contrary claims.
In a stunning electoral victory, the ruling Communist Party if India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), rode back to power in Kerala winning 99 of the 140 seats, bucking the over four decade long trend of Communists and Congress-led United Democratic Front coming to power alternatively.
With the United Democratic Front securing power with a thin majority of 72 seats in the 140-member assembly in Kerala, tough administrative and organisational tasks are awaiting Congress as the lead partner in the bipolar scenario.
Rijiju's meeting with Bandyopadhyay came against the backdrop of the Opposition alliance's decision to pull out its members from the panel of chairpersons that will assist Mahtab in conducting the proceedings of the Lok Sabha till the election of the Speaker on Wednesday.
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
Modi hit out at the Congress for its president Mallikarjun Kharge's attempt to play down his party's poor show in the polls by describing it as "small state elections".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Over the last five days, Modi visited all of south, held roadshows, made an aggressive bid for his party, and took on the rivals with full gusto, especially the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana that was in power for 10 years.
'Chandrababu is wiser and a very good administrator.' 'Jagan is the opposite. He is not very wise, not a good administrator.'
The BJP was unable to win any seat in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala besides Puducherry in 2011.
President Droupadi Murmu on Monday administered oath to BJP MP B Mahtab as 'speaker pro-tem' of the newly-constituted 18th Lok Sabha.
Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, has been fielded from the Amethi Lok Sabha seat, the party said in a statement.
Asked about the BJP's claim that its performance in southern states will be exemplary, Tharoor said, "The claim of an 'exemplary' performance is yet another product of the BJP's propaganda mill."
Amid intense speculation over whether he would contest the Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh's Amethi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said he would abide by his party's decision on it.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
The direction came on an application filed in a suit by Congress member Pridhwyraj P, who was suspended from the party in 2019, seeking directions to quash the suspension order on the ground that it was in violation of the party's rules and by-laws.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will move the motion today in the Lok Sabha to choose Om Birla as the Speaker of the lower house amid a tussle for the post with the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
Election Commission data shows 15.88 crore (158.8 million) voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the second phase on Friday.
He said Priyanka could have been a wonderful candidate in Varanasi as well, especially looking at how good the Congress candidate did against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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