With Rahul showing a significant lead over Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi in opinion polls across southern India but lagging in the north, the Congress believes his contesting from the south will help galvanise cadres.
There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
Most exit polls on Sunday forecast another term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with some of them projecting that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance will get more than 300 seats to comfortably cross the majority mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.
The victory of the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front in 12 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state has made Chief Minister Oommen Chandy stronger as Kerala is one of the few states that bucked the anti-Congress trend in the country.
The None of the Above option, like previous polls, had few takers in the assembly elections to West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The ruling Left Democratic Front in Kerala on Monday finalised the seat-sharing exercise among its constituents for all 140 assembly segments for the April 13 polls with lead partner Communist Party of India-Marxist getting the lion's share of 93.
In 2022, Rajasthan met for 30 days, Chhattisgarh 18 days, MP and Mizoram for 15 each, and Telangana for 10 days.
Prakash Karat, the head (general secretary) of the country's premier Left party, the Communist Party of India -Marxist, tells Saubhadra Chatterji it won't be doomsday if they lose power in West Bengal.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be in Gujarat's Surat city on Monday to file an appeal before a sessions court against his conviction in a criminal defamation case, his lawyer said on Sunday.
For Pinarayi, a victory in Thrikkakara would have come as public endorsement of his development initiatives, including controversial K-Rail project, which has witnessed widespread protest
The Bharatiya Janata Party's two-day 'Chintan Baithak' began at Cherai on Wednesday to discuss the party's strategy for the local bodies elections in September and the assembly polls due next year.
The measures include an information search prompt with the Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) and State Election Commissions to provide reliable information around the elections, a custom emoji to encourage participation, a series of pre-bunks and debunks to tackle election-related misinformation, and a youth discussion series titled #DemocracyAdda aimed at voter literacy and civic participation among young Indians for the upcoming elections.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
The convicts were later airlifted to Kerala to lodge them in the Kannur central jail, official sources said.
Priyanka also dismissed Bharatiya Janata Party leader and union minister Uma Bharati's controversial remarks that the country will see her the way it views a "thief's wife".
Expressing resentment at party MP Shashi Tharoor praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress' Kerala unit on Wednesday decided to submit a report to the party high command seeking suitable action in the matter.
Kerala-based Peoples Democratic Party leader Abdul Nasser Madani finds himself in political isolation with mainstream parties in the state keeping away from him, despite past dalliance with him, after he was chargesheeted in the Bengaluru blasts case.
The third phase of Lok Sabha elections scheduled for Tuesday will see the maximum number of seats going to the polls in a single phase -- 117 across 15 states and Union Territories. It will also be a test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which will aim to defend the maximum number of seats at 62. This time the BJP will be tested in its bastion Gujarat -- where polling will be held for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state -- apart from Karanataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party had done well in 2014. Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Tuesday.
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?
The postponement of poet Ayyappan's funeral to Tuesday following the intervention of the Kerala culture minister M A Baby has created furore in the state with several writers and thinkers coming out against the state government's decision.
Congress-led United Democratic Front on Friday managed to wrest power from the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist-controlled Left Democratic Front in Kerala with a wafer-thin majority of two seats in the 140-member Assembly, in the closest poll battle in the state in three decades.
'The entire electorate of Wayanad is joyful. Rahulji is with us and we are with him wherever he is.'
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Women's rights activists and political leaders -- cutting across party lines -- have voiced concern against the murder, which they believe was a first of its kind in the state for the sheer brutality of the crime.
The exit poll results were released at the end of the polling in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, marking the closure of voting in four states and Puducherry.
He said the poll victory in Assam, the first for the party in the north east, has made it clear that BJP is rapidly receiving "popular acceptance" in all parts of the country which "augurs well" for the democracy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided it would not adopt the path of appeasement and vote bank politics.
Talking to reporters at a media briefing, 33-year-old Sreesanth said his name has been cleared by the court in a match-fixing case and he is, therefore, not worried about any Opposition attack on him regarding the controversy.
A defeat in Assam would be bad news for the Congress which is in power in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur.
Rajasekharan resigned from the post as he is keen on contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket from Kerala.
It will be a 'tough fight' between the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress in this month's assembly polls in West Bengal while in Kerala the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front had an 'edge' over the Congress-led United Democratic Front, Communist Party of India General Secretary A B Bardhan said on Friday.
Opposition leaders on Saturday lauded the Congress for its victory in Karnataka and thanked the people of the state, saying that this win has showed that 'Modi is not invincible'.
He said his party will continue to fight the "worst sentiments" the prime minister represents.
Gohil, speaking after the HC ruling earlier in the day, maintained that in the past the apex court has provided relief to accused in different cases.
The bench said that it has to be in exceptional circumstances when the conviction needs to be stayed and it cannot be a norm.
Nemom was one of the segments where the BJP had pinned its hope the most in the present election to open its account in the assembly.
Former Kerala minister T H Mustafa was on Thursday suspended from the Congress for calling Rahul Gandhi a "joker" and saying that the party vice-president should be removed if he does not resign in the backdrop of the party's debacle in the Lok Sabha polls.
He also lauded the efforts of the BJP workers in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, saying they put up a "spirited performance".
The passage of the women's reservation bill has ignited hope among stakeholders about attaining gender equality in India's political landscape, especially at the policy-making level, even as some raised concerns over its effectiveness given the uncertainty in the deadline for its implementation.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday virtually ruled out contesting CWC polls if the party decides to hold them, saying he is not considering any further elections after having fought the AICC presidential polls and it is "for others to step forward".
