The Wednesday's preliminary meeting focused on various thematic issues including assured minimum facilities at polling stations, ease of registration for voters, electoral roll, timely resolution of grievances, arrangements of electronic voting and paper trail machines, postal ballot facility for senior citizens who are 80 and above, and people with disabilities.
SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal announced the decision to snap ties with the NDA on Saturday night, amid stepped up agitation by farmers in Punjab over the three legislations which were recently passed by Parliament amid Opposition protests.
The Supreme Court-appointed committee on the new farm laws on Monday said it held consultations with eminent academicians and agri-professionals on the legislations against which farmers have been protesting at Delhi's borders for over two months now.
The Aam Aadmi Party claimed on Wednesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party has approached four of its legislators in Delhi, asking them to switch sides and join the saffron party or else, face 'false cases, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and the ED (Enforcement Directorate)'.
Barring a brief lull in 2008 triggered by her standoff with Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the issue of family entitlement in ticket distribution, the suave and soft-spoken Alva's career has largely been a dream run.
Singh had said that he and his government were willing to mediate in the talks between the Centre and the farmers in the collective interest of all.
Although assembly election are 16 months away, it makes sense to let his party know he's very much in the running for the job he's currently holding.
"Sidhu could not manage a thing. I know him very well. Don't think that he is some sort of magic word for Punjab. He is going to be a disaster," he said.
"The two (the Pradesh Congress Committee chief and the chief minister) consult each other, but the final decision is of Channi, who is the chief minister, not Sidhu," the former chief minister told reporters at the Chandigarh airport.
Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding.
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
West Bengal, which is governed by the Trinamool Congress, became the second state after Congress-ruled Punjab, where such a resolution has been tabled and passed.
Actor-philanthropist Sonu Sood's sister Malvika Sood on Monday joined the Congress, with Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi batting for her candidature from Moga for the February 14 assembly polls.
Largest in area among the 75 UP districts, Lakhimpur Kheri, known for sugarcane cultivation, with nine sugar mills in the district, is home to three or four lakh Sikhs.
Channi also said the party is supreme and the government follows the party's ideology.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Former Uttar Pradesh-cadre Indian Administrative Service officer Anup Chandra Pandey was appointed as an election commissioner.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
At the press interaction, Sitharaman said secretaries from the department of financial services and economic affairs will be meeting a deputy governor of RBI soon to look into the "shortcomings" of the functioning of multi-state cooperative banks and see if any amendments can be made to the laws.
'Why don't you resign from the Lok Sabha? Why does the Akali Dal party not withdraw support from the Modi government?'
The SAD has been requesting the Centre not to introduce the three agriculture-related bills for the approval of Parliament until all reservations expressed by farmers' organisations, farmers and farm labourers are addressed, Badal said.
Nearly five years ago when he joined the Congress, ex-cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu had said he is a 'born Congressman' now coming back to his roots.
"Reports of @sherryontop (Sidhu) seeking time to meet @capt_amarinder are totally false. No time has been sought whatsoever. No change in stance... CM won't meet #NavjotSinghSidhu till he publicly apologises for his personally derogatory social media attacks against him," Thukral tweeted.
Yogi Adityanath's aura is no longer limited to Uttar Pradesh. At the age of 49, his journey to the higher echelons in the BJP has well and truly begun, predicts Sudhir Bisht.
In their letter, the lawmakers said that the US as a nation that is familiar with political protests can offer counsel to India during their current period of social disturbance.
The SKM had said that the rail blockade will held across the country from 12 pm to 4 pm.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
The farmer leaders said they are not willing to participate in any proceedings before a committee appointed by the Supreme Court, but a formal decision on this will be taken by the Morcha.
Revenge he will exact from a party he had led with great aplomb until the Gandhi siblings stepped in and, in order to show who was the boss, flung him aside, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The Shiromani Akali Dal had on Saturday quit the National Democratic Alliance over the farm bills issue.
The BJP continuing to look at the Dravidian polity through the religious prism has not worked in Tamil Nadu whereas it has yielded political and electoral results across much of the rest of the country, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
"Mr Modi has utterly failed. It is clear by now that we (NDA) cannot deliver more than this (since 2014)," he said.
In his remarks at the rallies, Pilot has cornered the Gehlot government over issues such as the repeated paper leaks and political appointments of retired bureaucrats while sidelining party workers.
It also said that the SKM will take note of all developments and will hold its meeting soon and announce further decisions.
The young and suave candidate of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Bhavya Bishnoi, looks to defend his 'family bastion' for five decades, while the main opposition Congress has placed its bet on veteran leader Jai Prakash in the Adampur bypoll in Haryana.
"We are here to oppose Modi's 'Mann Ki Baat'. We are registering this protest because the prime minister only says what he has to without listening to the voice of the people," Chaduni said during the protest.
"Once a law or act is passed by the Parliament, I think that the constitutional view is that, any state can't and should not say no but this has to be legally examined," Hooda said.
"If he wants to come alone or with just a few people, there is no problem. He can come a 100 times, we have no objection. "But if he comes with a big crowd from Punjab to disturb Haryana's atmosphere, then we will not permit. We are not going to allow that," Vij said.
State Bank of India's house economists on Monday said the recent farm sector reforms reek of parochial thinking and promote lazy farming as they only cater to cereal-producing states. In the recently concluded monsoon session, the government rushed through three legislation to change the way agricultural produce is marketed, sold and stored by dismantling the decades-old APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) mandis.
The Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government will have a total of 30 ministers, including 18 who had resigned earlier.
