Kicking off Bharatiya Janata Party's poll campaign in Jharkhand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched an attack on the state government over the issue of development and asked the people to free the state from dynastic rule to end corruption.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
The Congress alleged that the claims made by the ED against Baghel are part of a "conspiracy" hatched by the BJP to tarnish the Chhattisgarh chief minister's image and asserted that the people of the state would give a befitting reply to such tactics in the upcoming Assembly poll.
Newly elected Samajwadi Party MP RK Chaudhary, one of the founders of the Bahujan Samaj Party, has claimed BSP chief Mayawati has been ignoring the Bahujan movement which has led to her party's rout in these Lok Sabha polls.
Two incidents of hurling of crude bombs were reported in Sealdah and Khanna areas of Kolkata, and police contingents were rushed to the spot to bring the situation under control, a State Election Commission official said.
For the first time in 20 years, Erdogan's political future is really on the line. He must now prove that he is a leader who can get things done and can mobilise effectively the machine of the state to provide relief to the affected people and help them rebuild their homes and their lives.
Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
This appears to be a common refrain in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri Lok Sabha constituency where farmers want better prices for their produce and respite from the stray cattle menace and others want political leaders to talk about job creation instead of issues like the Ram temple and Article 370.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday exchanged jibes over the red diary that a sacked state minister claims records financial misdeeds of the CM and his colleagues.
Had an inquiry been done, the then home minister (Rajnath Singh) would have to resign. Many officers would have been jailed and there would have been a huge controversy, Malik said.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav had thrown barbs at the prime minister over his having no family.
The premises are alleged to be of the domestic help of Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam's personal secretary Sanjiv Lal.
'He has emerged as a formidable leader who cannot be ignored anymore, who cannot be mocked.'
Amid the row over Congress leader Sam Pitroda's remarks, the party on Wednesday asserted that it has no plans whatsoever to introduce an inheritance tax and cited former Union minister Jayant Sinha's remarks to allege that it is the Modi government that wanted to do so.
The home ministry dispatched a terse reminder to the West Bengal government on Wednesday to submit a detailed report on the post-poll violence in the state, warning it that the matter will be taken 'seriously' in case it fails to do so, and asked it to take necessary measures to stop such incidents 'without any loss of time', officials said.
This will pave the way for emergence of 24,000 new panchayat-level leaders in Telangana, he said.
In a series of tweets, the Home Department of the West Bengal government said the Governor's act of making the letter public was "violative of all established norms, and disrupts sanctity of such communications".
Gufran, a resident of neighbouring Pratapgarh district, was injured in an exchange of fire with the Uttar Pradesh Police's Special Task Force near Samda village in the Kaushambi district, Superintendent of Police Brijesh Kumar Srivastava said.
Kharge also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the people should not believe Modi's "guarantees".
Sporadic post-poll violence continued on Tuesday in West Bengal claiming several lives as chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked officials to act decisively and Prime Minister Narendra Modi rang up Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to express anguish over the law-and-order situation.
The repolling started at 7 am amid tight security with four central forces personnel deployed in each booth, besides state police. Till 11 am, 10.9 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
In an apparent bid to reach out to Dalit voters, Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Friday urged people to remember Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar while voting in next month's assembly polls and said he "worships" the leader.
'The kind of situation we are seeing...we don't believe that this can happen in a settled democracy like India'
Flaying both the Congress-led United Democratic Front and Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance and a section of the "right wing" media for trying to tarnish the image of the government and its development and welfare programmes, he said the people have rejected their 'vicious propaganda' by giving the Left a decisive mandate.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has set up four teams, each headed by joint directors Ramnish, Anurag, Vineet Vinayak and Sampat Meena, to probe the political violence which ensued after the victory of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on May 2 in a bitterly fought eight-phase assembly poll in West Bengal.
Hindu temples are also coming up in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the prime minister told the gathering.
Marking the first anniversary of the National Democratic Alliance government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday presented a report card for one year which he asserted has been free of corruption and scams but has brought bure din (bad days) for those who have "robbed" the country in their 60 years of rule.
A bench of justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna deferred the matter after lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay mentioned it saying it be heard on April 5 or 6 as it was unlikely to be heard during the day.
Modi warned BJP workers and supporters to be aware of the Congress which, he said, has stopped abusing him and is "working silently" to capture rural votes.
Whether the age-old cry of kendrer banchana will be able to drown out pangs of Sandeshkhali, the EVM will tell.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that the price of domestic cooking gas cylinder has been raised by Rs 50 and that of commercial gas cylinder by Rs 350 at a time when every person in the country is facing the brunt of high inflation.
Announcing the fifth poll 'guarantee' of the Congress ahead of the May 10 assembly polls in Karnataka, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised free travel for women in public transport buses, if it's voted to power in the state.
The Mayawati-led BSP will fight 20 of the 117 assembly seats in Punjab, while the rest will be contested by the SAD.
In his speech on April 25, SP leader Azam Khan allegedly referred to Kargil war and also used religious slogans.
BJP candidate Akash Saxena defeated his Samajwadi Party rival Asim Raja by 33,702 votes.
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'It is clear that Britain is a country with a limited future,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
Maoists on Monday called for a boycott of assembly elections in poll-bound states terming the exercise as a 'farce'.
Maharashtra Congress leader and former Lok Sabha MP Milind Deora has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into Rs 12,000 crore spent by Mumbai's civic body on road works between 2017 and 2022.
