Five Congress legislators on Wednesday threatened to resign if senior party leader and minister K H Muniyappa's son-in-law Chikka Peddanna was given a ticket to contest from Kolar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, bringing into open the divisions in the outfit.
Omar Abdullah was on Thursday unanimously elected as the leader of the National Conference legislature party, party president Farooq Abdullah said in Srinagar.
Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn-in as new chief minister of Maharashtra while allies Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar took oath as deputy CMs at a grand ceremony in Mumbai on Thursday evening.
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 BJP retained power in MP in the November 17 polls emphatically winning 163 seats in the 230-member assembly, leaving the Congress a distant second with 66 seats.
A broad consensus has emerged among top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and other Mahayuti allies to drop ministers facing serious allegations of corruption in the new government, a Shiv Sena leader said on Tuesday.
The ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra is heavily banking upon a six to 10 per cent shift in voters -- mostly women -- in its favour to return to power with anywhere between 160 and 170 assembly seats, say four MLAs belonging to Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.
The bench said that multiple local factors made it difficult for the top court to "frame uniform or standard guideline for trial courts across the length and breadth of this country" and it left the issue of ensuring speedy trial to the high courts as they have the power of superintendence over the trial courts.
Shinde had retained most of the sitting MLAs, who chose to be with him when he led the rebellion two years ago. They delivered for him on Saturday when votes for the state polls were counted.
He said the resolution was not part of the assembly's listed business and reflects the mindset of the newly-elected government in the Union Territory.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) has once again knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Maharashtra assembly speaker to expeditiously adjudicate the disqualification petitions filed against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and other Sena MLAs, who had tied up with the Bharatiya Janata Party to form a new government in June 2022, in a time-bound manner.
Senior Congress leader and Maharashtra assembly poll candidate Balasaheb Thorat has asserted that the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will win a clear majority and also indicated his chief ministerial aspirations. Thorat, who is among the senior leaders in the MVA after NCP (SP) head Sharad Pawar, said he enjoys cordial relations with leaders of the alliance. He also criticized the ruling Mahayuti coalition, accusing it of corruption and communal politics.
Incidentally, after the rebellion in June last year led to Shinde becoming chief minister, one of the reasons they gave for breaking away from Uddhav Thackeray was the dominance of the NCP in the Maha Vikas Agahdi government.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray MP Sanjay Raut on Monday demanded a re-election in Maharashtra using ballot papers, claiming there were irregularities with the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he is willing to discard old ideas and embrace new ones as long as they fit into his essential ideology of 'nation first'.
Raut claimed that by not deciding on the disqualification petitions, Chandrachud kept doors and windows open for defections.
"The Supreme Court has noted that the decision on which faction was representing Shiv Sena has to be decided by the Speaker," he added.
'The court can decide once I take the decision, but the court cannot order the speaker and force him to take a decision within a certain timeframe'
Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel has claimed 51 out of the 53 party MLAs had told NCP chief Sharad Pawar that a possibility of joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party should be explored after the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra collapsed last year.
It said in a parliamentary democracy, the speaker is an officer of the assembly and performs the function of presiding over the House proceedings and representing the House for all intents and purposes.
The parents of a doctor who was raped and murdered at state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata four months ago expressed unhappiness over the opposition BJP's role in demanding justice for their daughter. They said they would hit the street over the issue, feeling that the incident has been forgotten by the principal opposition party of West Bengal. They criticized the reinstatement of some of the junior doctors accused of patronizing a threat culture in state medical colleges, raising doubts about the intent to bring to book those responsible. The parents have been vocal in their demand for justice and have opened a Facebook account and posted videos urging people to stand with them. The case is currently being investigated by the CBI.
Lokesh Sharma, the former OSD of Rajasthan's ex-chief minister Ashok Gehlot, has turned approver in a phone tapping case that happened during the political crisis in the state in 2020. Sharma was accused of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and unlawfully intercepting telephonic conversations. He has alleged that Gehlot was involved in tapping of phones and gave evidence to support his claim. Sharma claims that he was directed by Gehlot to circulate recordings of phone calls to the media.
'Those who have wronged or harassed the Maratha community should be taught a lesson through the ballot'
BJP members, including the Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, opposed the resolution, saying it was not part of the listed business.
Amid intense discussions among Mahayuti allies over the distribution of portfolios and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena's insistence on the home ministry, the clarity on the composition of the council of ministers is expected by Sunday, sources said.
Responding to a query, Mathur said there is no "formula" for electing the chief minister.
The respect for the four-time former chief minister, often referred to as Saheb, in his stronghold of western Maharashtra is palpable in much of the region. But his estranged nephew also appears to enjoy a stature of his own in Baramati, a constituency represented by the senior Pawar for six terms before he passed the baton to Ajit Pawar in 1991.
Speaking to reporters in Panaji, the BJP's Goa desk in-charge C T Ravi said there was no discontent among the eight MLAs who joined the party earlier this year.
To keep their MLAs together, political parties are organising dinner meetings and arranging hotel stays for them ahead of the council elections, which are taking place just three months ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had in August made a strong pitch for national unity as he cited the turmoil in Bangladesh to warn against the consequences of divisions in society.
The accusation comes a day after the President's secretariat forwarded the assertions of the Opposition BJP that Delhi was facing a constitutional crisis to the ministry of home affairs for "proper attention".
On the eve of the Haryana assembly poll results, the issue of chief minister-ship has taken centre stage in the Congress with all eyes on its high command's next move as the party expects to regain power after 10 years in the state.
'We are happy that the money has come to us immediately after it was announced.' 'For once, the government did what it promised.'
'The BJP should identify those involved in the protest against singing Gandhiji's bhajan and take action against them.' 'Such people should be removed from the party because they harm the BJP's image.'
'The Speaker has to act in an impartial way and in accordance with what the Supreme Court has laid out in its judgment.'
Except for Anant Patel, the rest 16 MLAs of Congress were present in the House on Monday.
'Young people say they know all this emphasis on Hindu-Muslim differences is politically motivated.' 'If you stop watching TV and turn off social media, you'll find the situation on the ground different.'
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Tuesday asserted that there should be no "fiddling" with the mandate of people in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Centre and the Raj Bhavan must not indulge in any "machinations".
The bench asked the petitioner to circulate three copies of the petition for the three judges and cautioned with imposition of fine.
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