Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination papers for the July 18 election, with a host of leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah accompanying him.
In the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 23, 116 seats spread across 13 states and two Union Territories, will go to the polls.
Adani group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led group. The group has maintained it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
The Bihar unit of Samajwadi Party, which had protested over denial of seats in the grand alliance for Bihar Assembly polls, claimed to have fruitful talks with the alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over seat sharing.
Maharashtra Government on Thursday suspended former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh and initiated disciplinary proceedings against him over "certain irregularities and lapses", an official said.
'People are questioning these highways and expressways in UP because ultimately, they want to get bread and butter first.'
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday urged top opposition leaders to rise above political compulsions to take on the BJP in the interest of the nation and start planning "systematically" to realise the "ultimate goal" of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha polls
In a sharp attack on the UPA Government, the Left parties on Wednesday accused it of "aiding and abetting" Israel in its bloody offensive against Palestine and demanded snapping of military and security ties with it. Significantly, the CPI(M) was joined by CPI, Samajwadi Party and the NCP, a constituent of the UPA, in demanding that India should not have any relationship with Israel at the cost of the Palestine.
Gandhi met Pawar within hours of the BJP's defeat in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
The third phase will see the maximum number of seats going to the polls in this election spread across 12 states and 2 Union territories.
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Announcing the name of candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she will be contesting from the Nandigram constituency as announced earlier.
BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is predicted to win both seats -- Varanasi and Vadodara. Kejriwal is places at number 2 in Varanasi, says the ABP News-Nielsen exit poll. Senior BJP leader L K Advani is likely to win the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha for the sixth time.
Opposition parties on Tuesday asked the government to call an all-party meeting to resolve the current impasse in Parliament, while sticking to their demands for a discussion on Pegasus snooping issue and a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the matter.
"All opposition parties should work together. It should be a one-to-one fight against the BJP. All opposition parties should help the strongest one in the state against the BJP," Banerjee said.
The Opposition alleged that without any provocation from the Opposition, "outsiders who were not part of Parliament security were brought in to manhandle the Opposition leaders and members, including women Parliamentarians who were only protesting against the Government's conduct, highhandedness and muzzling of the voice".
'Voters from the forward castes voted for JD-U because they feared Laloo Yadav's return, but since that fear is no longer there they may not see the need to vote for Nitish Kumar anymore.'
He said most of the states where farmers were committing suicide were being run by Congress or its United Progressive Alliance constituents. "We (NDA government) had left the country in a healthy economic state. Now things are bad," he alleged.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said the "unfortunate" and "unprecedented" developments in West Bengal
Some parties, including the Congress, also demanded immediate sacking of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra, following Samyukt Kisan Morcha's allegation that his son was travelling in one of the vehicles involved in the incident.
Sharpening its attack on MNS chief Raj Thackeray over his agitation against toll collection, the Shiv Sena said it had "predicted" the outcome of today's stir.
The police do not have it in them to confront the Hindutva groups in a country ruled by a Hindutva party. No wonder Munawar Faruqui feels this is the end for him, asserts Jyoti Punwani.
The Samajwadi Party on Thursday pulled out of the 'grand alliance' in poll-bound Bihar, saying it felt "humiliated" as it was not consulted while deciding seats and would contest the assembly elections in the state on its own.
Kanyakumari is the tip of India and will convey the symbol that from the tip of India, the Congress is on its way up.
Seeking to firm up a new political address after his suspension from Samajwadi Party, actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar Friday met former prime minister V P Singh and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar.
Seeking another term at the Centre, the party sought to woo the minorities by asking its workers to "seize the opportunity" by moving forward and bringing Muslims and Christians into the partyfold.\n\n
On paper, as many as 136 members should have opposed the Bill in a House of 241 members, reports Archis Mohan,
Police arrested four people for the assault on Wednesday.
The PM name is to be decided only after the Lok Sabha results, a top opposition leader said.
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the Constitution amendment bill to restore the power of states to make their own OBC lists after a thaw in the logjam as Opposition parties backed the legislation but demanded the removal of the 50 per cent cap on reservation, with many of them also calling for a caste-based census.
Calling Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi 'mentally unstable' over his remarks about having personal information about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's involvement in corruption, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said the former was suffering from an 'attention seeking disorder'.
The opposition parties snatched the high-profile Kairana LS seat in from BJP with a united force.
'The BJP's solo aim in Mumbai and Maharashtra is to finish off the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP.'
The strengthening of regional outfits may weaken the grand old party's chances of leading a joint opposition front for the 2019 general elections.
5 states that contribute just under a fifth of the Lok Sabha's seats will go to the polls early this year.
According the latest CNN-IBN-CSDS-Lokniti post poll survey, the National Democratic Alliance is projected to win 274 to 286 seats, and the Bharatiya Janata Party is projected to win 230 to 242 seats on its own, it best ever poll tally.
The Congress's share has almost halved, down from 12 in 2014 to six now.
