On Wednesday night, Sidhu's media adviser Surinder Dalla claimed that Sidhu has been officially intimated that he could go on November 20 instead of November 18.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party head Ajit Pawar on Monday said discussions were underway among the Mahayuti partners to finalise a formula for the new government formation in the state.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
'Had the Congress made Sidhu its CM face, they would have won 80 out of 117 seats.'
The discussion between the former deputy chief minister and the Gandhi siblings comes days after the dramatic developments in Punjab where the Congress replaced Amarinder Singh as chief minister and appointed Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit leader, to the top post of the state.
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.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's unexpected announcement on Sunday that he will resign after two days drew mixed reactions from parties, with some saying it was a compulsion due to bail restrictions on his functioning and others hailing it as a right call to go back to the people.
The new bill will now be introduced in the Lok Sabha for passage in the upcoming Winter session of Parliament beginning November 29.
So far, the maximum 83 deaths have taken place in Tarn Taran district, followed by 14 in Batala and 13 in Amritsar. The tragedy has been unfolding since Wednesday evening in the three districts.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
Soon after taking the oath of office, the newly-sworn in Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said his government is standing with farmers and will appeal to the Centre to withdraw the three farm laws.
A Mohali court on Friday sent to 14-day judicial custody sacked Punjab minister Vijay Singla, who said he worked with 'utmost sincerity', has full faith in his party and will come out clean of corruption charges.
The Karnataka government on Wednesday put the reservation bill for Kannadigas in private firms on hold amid fierce criticism from business leaders and tech tycoons.
Punjab faces many mortal threats. For most of these the people of Punjab are themselves responsible. And unless they take a brutal hard look within, their future generations have to be resigned to continue living with this constant slide, warns Shekhar Gupta.
In his resignation letter, Kishor stated that as he decided to take a temporary break from an active role in public life, he will not be able to discharge his duties as the principal advisor to the Punjab CM.
Mann stares at a twin-headed monster: Resuscitating the state's debilitated public-sector enterprises and controlling the spiralling debt to keep the state machinery and his poll-fuelled populist schemes running.
The 79-year-old widely respected and popular leader steered the Congress in 2017 to a landslide victory in the 117-member assembly to occupy the chief minister's post for the second time.
The party is eyeing at expanding its footprint across the country and has tied up with the Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls against the BJP in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat.
Haryana is witnessing a multi-cornered contest this time, with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party facing anti-incumbency and a resurgent Congress.
At least 13 candidates are in the race for the position of managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of Punjab National Bank (PNB), the second-largest public sector bank (PSB), according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. "Among the candidates, some are executive directors (EDs) and managing directors in major PSBs. "Financial Services Institutions Bureau (FSIB) will conduct the interviews next month," said a source.
Bhagwant Mann will take oath as the chief minister of Punjab on March 16 at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, party sources said on Friday after he met the party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.
Without naming anyone, Mann, who is an MP from Sangrur, claimed that a senior BJP leader contacted him four days ago and asked him, "What would you take to join the BJP?"
The Congress high command has so far maintained that the party will fight the February 20 elections to the 117-member assembly under a "collective leadership"
Amanjot Kaur Ramoowalia, a former member of Akali Dal's women wing and daughter of former Union minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, Gurpreet Singh Shahpur, Chand Singh Chatha and Baljinder Singh Dakoha, all associated with the former BJP ally, joined the saffron party in presence of a number its leaders, including cabinet minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
The move comes a day after Channi reached out to Sidhu and offered to resolve issues through talks.
Nadda enjoys warm relations with Modi, who was for a long time in charge of the party's affairs in Himachal Pradesh.
The resolution was passed during the state Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Kamal Nath, public relations department minister P C Sharma told reporters. Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal have already passed resolutions demanding scrapping of the CAA.
The Congress naming Channi, a Dalit face who comes from the Rupnagar district in the state's Malwa belt, assumes significance as Punjab has a population of nearly 32 per cent from the community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held deliberations with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda amid speculation about a reshuffle in the Union cabinet, an exercise Modi has not undertaken since forming the government for a second time in May 2019.
Vikas Yadav, 39, was employed by the Cabinet Secretariat, which houses India's foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the federal prosecutors claimed on Thursday in an indictment filed in a US court in New York.
The government on Thursday reappointed former IPS officer Ajit Doval as the National Security Adviser (NSA), according to an official order.
Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi was on Monday sworn in as the chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dalit to hold the top post in the state.
Sidhu, who had been at loggerheads with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, had stayed away from all Congress activities ever since he resigned as cabinet minister last year.
The development has come amid a power tussle that polarised the ruling party in the state headed for elections in just about four months.
As state-level leaders tried to placate Sidhu, he made it clear through the video that he was in no mood to budge on his 'principles'.
The MHA has also sought an immediate report from the state government besides asking it to fix responsibility and take strict action against those responsible.
Sidhu told Gandhi that he is working hard and will work harder now, and that he will join his duty as Punjab Congress president, Rawat said.
Paswan said he was willing to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly polls as an NDA partner "if the BJP so desires", and made light of estranged uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras' recent meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved public private partnership mode for the rollout of BharatNet project for broadband services in villages in 16 states with viability gap funding of Rs 19,041 crore, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. Prasad said the decision to involve private players was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on August 15, 2020 that around 6 lakh villages in the country will be connected with broadband in 1,000 days. "The Cabinet has in-principle approved implementation of BharatNet in 16 states in a public private partnership model with total expense of Rs 29,430 crore.
Sunita Kejriwal is slowly emerging out of the shadows to assume a bigger role to give a fillip to the AAP's campaigning which has been affected by the chief minister's arrest in a money laundering case in March.
