States like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh had on Friday announced similar incentives.
Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
Naveen Patnaik is known as an "absentee landlord" who needs bureaucrats like Pandian to run his government.
Patnaik has continued his grip over Odisha with his party, the BJD, winning 112 assembly seats in the 147-member House.
On July 21, the former Jharkhand governor Murmu registered a historic win over her rival Yashwant Sinha in the Presidential election, becoming the first woman tribal candidate and the second woman in the country to occupy the highest office in the country.
'I tried a public donation drive to support my campaign for progressive politics without much success so far. I also tried to cut down the projected campaign spending to the minimum'
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party sealed its alliance with the Telugu Desam Party on Saturday for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, with former chief minister of the southern state N Chandrababu Naidu asserting that the combine will sweep the polls.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
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.
Out of the 20 candidates announced by the BJD for the 21 Lok Sabha seats, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's party has nominated at least seven leaders who came from either the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Congress.
Preparing to take office for a record third consecutive term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday pledged to work with all states, regardless of the party in power, to build a developed India.
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
The Election Commission will announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's own charisma exceeds that of his party, but 2024 is proof that no party can ultimately depend on one person to deliver victory all the time, points out R Jagannathan.
Bharatiya Janata Party MPs Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre were among those who missed casting their votes in the presidential poll on Monday.
Call it the art of staying rooted yet bending with prevailing political winds. With Telangana going to the polls in December, and assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra and Odisha scheduled next year, what factors have influenced parties' recent moves?
An Election Commission official said minor clashes between political workers were reported from some areas.
Sucharita Mohanty, the daughter of former Congress MP Brajamohan Mohanty, in a mail to Venugopal on Friday claimed that her campaign was hit hard because the party denied her funding.
The opposition caused repeated disruptions in Parliament Friday over the NEET paper leak issue, with both Houses being adjourned for the day without transacting much business apart from the Rajya Sabha taking up the Motion of Thanks for the President's address amid protests including by the Biju Janata Dal, which almost always supported the BJP in the previous Lok Sabha.
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.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
BJD managed to retain 112 seats securing another term for Patnaik in the CM chair.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Mitra, who was arrested on October 23 this year and lodged in the high-security Jharpada jail in Bhubaneswar, was admitted to the Capital Hospital here late Saturday night, a hospital official said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress on Sunday were set to share the honours in the Lok Sabha and assembly bye-elections in 13 states.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
Modi said the National Democratic Alliance government wouldn't have been able to do any development work in the country without the support of the people.
'The concept of an MP IPL team is the brainchild of Kamal Nath.' 'If the Congress government comes to power in the state, he will assemble an IPL team for MP with the assistance of his business contacts.'
The Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly was asked about his decision to support Yashwant Sinha, a former Union minister, and not Murmu who is tipped to become the first tribal woman to occupy the top post.
In Odisha and Kerala, the BJP is being accused of engineering splits in the BJD and the Congress
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had on Tuesday sent a letter to the Election Commission requesting withdrawal of the MCC from all coastal districts to make it easier for the government to handle the impending cyclonic storm "Fani" in the state.
by relentlessly campaigning to highlight the indifference of the Centre to safeguard the interests of Odisha in these inter-state disputes, the BJD is seeking to pin down the BJP.
Voting for the presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint Opposition pick Yashwant Sinha began at 10 am and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to cast his vote followed by BJP President JP Nadda.
The reopening of the Ratna Bhandar became a major political issue during the recently held assembly elections in the state.
He said the empowerment of women is very close to his heart.
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