The Uttar Pradesh government has withdrawn the 'Y-category' security cover provided to Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, saying it was not needed, even as his party decried the move as "unfortunate."
"The court of Additional Sessions Judge/First MP-MLA Court Durgesh also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Mukhtar and Rs 1 lakh on Afzal," ADGC Criminal Neeraj Srivastava said.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of former Union minister Sushma Swaraj, will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the New Delhi seat and incumbent MP Manoj Tiwari from Northeast Delhi as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced the names of five candidates from the national capital, dropping four MPs -- Meenakshi Lekhi, Harsh Vardhan, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri.
Manvendra Singh will take on the Rajasthan CM from Jhalrapatan constituency.
The outgoing BJP government had 12 cabinet ministers, including Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.
While former minister and MLA Aravind Limbavali's wife Manjula Arvind Limbavali has got the ticket for the Mahadevapura constituency, the party has fielded Katta Jagadish, son of former minister Katta Subramanya Naidu from Hebbal.
Heavy police force was deployed in the vicinity of the residence of former BJP MLA Rajvir Singh Pehalvan, located around 8-9 kilometres from the victim's village. One of the organisers of the meeting and Pehalvan's son Manveer Singh denied that the gathering comprised members from the upper castes and said they were from 'different sections of society'.
His likable boy-next-door face and casual approach to public speaking have a unique appeal for the younger generation, but it stops there, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ironically, rival Tamil Nadu governments expend the most on social welfare schemes, especially targeting women and youth and children, but that money comes only by selling more liquor. There is always the specious plea, which has been peddled very many times in the past, that without licensed liquor, drinkers would go after hooch and there could be more hooch tragedies and hooch deaths. No one is convinced, but no one can dispute it either, comments N Sathiya Moorthy.
Never before has the BJP faced such a crisis over the nomination of the Chief Minister as it is facing now, discovers Prakash Bhandari, veteran observer of Rajasthan politics.
'I love the country and the people so very much. My children grew up watching Om Shanti Om.'
Voting began on Thursday in the by-election to seven assembly constituencies in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
"Is being part of Modi's 'political family' a 'guarantee of protection' for criminals?" Rahul Gandhi asked.
Singh said it is the principle of BJP not to promote nepotism and fight against dynasty rule and his decision to resign is in line with the party's principles.
As Madhya Pradesh goes to polls, all eyes will be on 29 key assembly seats, out of the total 230, where the contest will be keenly watched.
The announcement from the Congress lawmaker brought fore cracks in the party, which on Tuesday lost the sole Rajya Sabha seat to the Bharatiya Janata Party and is apparently scrambling to keep its members together to prevent the fall of its government.
Sada, who was away in his constituency in Saharsa district, was asked to come to Patna by Kumar soon after Suman announced his resignation.
'History can speak for itself when I say my family has never been power hungry'
With the second list, the total number of candidates declared by the Congress went up to 83 out of the total of 90.
The Indian National Lok Dal on Saturday announced that Om Parkash Chautala would continue to lead the party and also contest Haryana Assembly elections due in 2014, despite his conviction by a Delhi court in a case of illegal recruitment of over 3,000 junior basic trained teachers in the state.
After coming out of jail, Noronha would frequently say that he wouldn't "spare" Ghosalkar.
Was C M Ibrahim's Rediff Interview the last straw for Deve Gowda?
The counting began at 8 am to decide the fate of the candidates contesting the polls, among whom all eyes will be on Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
Here's how some of the heavyweights fared in the Karnataka elections.
'The good governance which the Congress government claims has resulted in a regime where women in Rajasthan are afraid to go out of their homes.'
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray's son Amit Thackeray on Sunday got married to his fiancee and fashion designer Mitali Borude at a hotel in Mumbai's central area of Lower Parel.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's first list of 24 candidates for Lok Sabha from Madhya Pradesh featured former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, while Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur was replaced by another candidate.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Rohit Pawar further claimed "four-five" leaders around Ajit Pawar were trying to project the latter as the "villain" and putting all the blame for the party's split on him.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi are facing multiple problems in Lok Sabha seats like Sangli, Madha and Satara in western Maharashtra due to political dynasties, old rivalries and one-upmanship, prompting a flurry of meetings before five phase polls begin in the state on April 19.
The Congress had released 3 audio tapes in run up to the floor test, claiming that the BJP leaders were trying to 'poach' on the party MLAs
He alleged that an officer told him that he would be taken out of jail after two weeks and killed.
"He (Manjhi) was in constant touch with BJP leaders. He recently met several BJP leaders... He wanted to be part of the June 23 meeting of opposition leaders... but I had apprehensions that he might leak issues/matters that will be discussed on June 23.
All five leaders named have been critical of the saffron party's decision to appoint former chief minister B S Yediyurappa's son Vijayendra as its state president and Ashoka as the leader of opposition.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
"Special circumstances" exist in Punjab, Wasnik said and added that in view of these, the AAP and the Congress have decided to fight the Lok Sabha polls separately in the state.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
While the CPI-M in a statement after the secretariat on Friday maintained that Balakrishnan, who is also a Polit Bureau member, had sought leave for further treatment which had been accepted, the leader of opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala dubbed the move as a delayed dawning of wisdom.