Pappu Yadav has been asserting that he will contest the seat he had won thrice in the 1990s, with the claim of "assurances" from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
A court in Wayanad on Wednesday directed the police to register a case against Bharatiya Janata Party Kerala chief K Surendran on charges of bribing tribal leader and Janathipathya Rashtreeya Party (JRP) president C K Janu to contest as an NDA candidate in the Mananathavady Assembly constituency in the April 6 elections.
In a blow to the Congress in poll bound Kerala, Senior leader P C Chacko on Wednesday announced his resignation from the party, alleging group interest in deciding party candidates for the assembly elections.
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
Prominent celebrity losers include national award-winning actor Suresh Gopi, comedian Dharmajan Bolgatty, actress Priyanka Anoop, actor-anchor Krishnakumar and television serial actor Vivek Gopan.
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.
'If Kerala votes back the LDF, if Tamil Nadu brings the DMK and if Bengal votes for the Trinamool, we will project a formidable opposition to the BJP.'
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Devaswoms are meant to manage temples, not the faithful. Why didn't they simply stick to their set of responsibilities and execute it well and efficiently?, asks Shyam G Menon.
'We want to prove to the world that they will get the best code written from a small place like Wayanad.'
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
The direction to Kerala Rail Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL), or K-Rail as it is popularly known, was welcomed by Congress-led United Democratic Front opposition as they termed it a victory of the first phase of the struggle against the semi-high speed rail corridor.
Kerala Bharatiya Janata Party chief K Surendran said the BJP's central leadership alone will decide on the party's chief ministerial candidate.
If you have an appetite for crowds and the visual spectacle of many focused on one task or activity, a pooram will engage you, notes Shyam G Menon.
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Heatwave conditions have been prevailing in Odisha since April 15 and the Gangetic West Bengal since April 17, according to the MeT department.
Bad management, an exhausted government vigilance mechanism, delay in roping in private players, relaxing norms, and over-dependence on antigen tests may be the reason behind the surge, reports Shine Jacob.
As Modi takes guard for a third term with trusted and seasoned hands around him, the BJP is hopeful that he will prove his detractors wrong and continue to fuel the party's expansion horizontally and vertically with his inventive policies in government and new set of ideas in politics with the core of Hindutva, development and welfarism remaining intact.
The decision to elect Sadik Ali Thangal as the new state chief of the party was taken at a high-powered committee of the IUML held in Malappuram, Mohideen said.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
In the event that like in the 17th Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi again gets locked out of the House, the Congress needs a second-in-command who will keep the momentum going inside Parliament, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Meanwhile, allegations and counter claims continued on polling day as well, with Chandy's son -- Chandy Oommen -- claiming that his father and their family had been hounded for over 20 years.
The BJP often forgets that in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, the voter does not mix religion, which is personal, and politics that is in the public sphere, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
The plea had also sought to bar the BJP and its leaders from using the "Jai Shri Ram" slogan during the poll campaign in the state.
The Kerala government on Friday decided to recommend a judicial inquiry against central probe agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate, which are investigating the gold and dollar smuggling cases.
A little over a year after it retained power in Kerala with a massive victory, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front suffered a huge setback on Friday in a bypoll held to Thrikkakara assembly constituency, with Congress candidate Uma Thomas winning with a historic margin of 25,016 votes, giving a boost to the morale of the party-led United Democratic Front in the southern state.
Three of the four major states delayed testing despite worsening indicators. Only Tamil Nadu quickened the pace after the first signs of deterioration.
He said the Congress has already begun preparation for the Lok Sabha polls with the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' led by party leader Rahul Gandhi and his own visit to various places across the country.
Justice Krishna S Dixit, presiding over a single judge bench, issued notice to the parties concerned and paused the ongoing investigation.
It may be for the first time that any leader in any political party in Kerala had taken such a step to register their protest against the party leadership for denying poll ticket.
'The path of militant Hindutva that the BJP's national leadership chose as its main electoral plank literally dug the grave for the party in Kerala,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race to win the Republican nomination for this November's US presidential election after polling a pathetic 8% in the Iowa caucus, has already begun schmoozing the famously amenable to flattery Donald J Trump.
If Pitroda's blunder cost him his office, what should the BJP's unrepentant attitude cost it?, asks Shyam G Menon.
Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls.
Beyond a point, competition is boring. The fun is in the doing, irrespective of outcome. By the time I was in college, I knew I valued awareness more than success, notes Shyam G Menon.
Gadgil and the report prepared by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by him are back in news after over two dozen people lost their lives in landslides and flash floods in the past few days in the hilly regions of Western Ghats in central Kerala districts of Kottayam and Idukki.
Shah said that the complaint was lodged based on the provisional certificate which he got after receiving the shot at a vaccination centre on Thursday morning.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
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