The value of the vote of a Member of Parliament is likely to go down to 700 from 708 in the presidential polls scheduled in July due to the absence of a legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Saturday.
Parliament on Monday passed The Farm Laws Repeal Bill, to repeal the three contentious agri laws against which farmers have been protesting for over a year, with its passage in Rajya Sabha.
The 78-year-old Naveen is on the cusp of creating history. He must win the forthcoming Assembly polls to become India's longest-serving chief minister, a record held by Sikkim's Pawan Kumar Chamling.
Stalin's sister and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi will for the first time try her luck in the Lok Sabha.
Senior Congress leader Rajani Patil is set to be declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra after the opposition BJP on Monday withdrew its candidate from the next month's bypoll.
More than a year after playing a key role in installation of a Bharatiya Janata Party government in Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia was rewarded with a berth in the Union Cabinet, a familiar terrain for the Rajya Sabha member who had served as a junior minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
If everything goes according to plan, a resuscitated SAD could emerge as a central player in Punjab in three years, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to vote in large numbers. "Today, there are bypolls taking place in various places across India. I urge those voting in these seats to vote in large numbers and strengthen the festival of democracy," he said in a tweet.
Noted industrialist Rahul Bajaj's candidature for the June 15 Rajya Sabha byelection has led to fissure in the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition with Congress on Monday announcing fielding Avinash Pandey.
'Of equal importance was the AIADMK's precarious assembly membership, what with 11 of its MLAs including deputy chief minister OPS facing court cases for disqualification and by-elections due in another 21. To shore up the party's numbers for anticipated eventuality on the 11-MLAs' front, the AIADMK leadership in general and chief minister EPS in particular, were even more focussed on assembly seats than LS seats, just now,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
He said his faction will formally file a petition with the Election Commission of India on Friday.
The party delegation is on a two-day visit to Kashmir to attend a series of meetings on the current situation in the valley.
A Kudumbashree worker, who had gone missing last week, was found allegedly murdered and buried in a ditch in the compound of a former colleague's house in Tuvvur in this district, police said on Tuesday.
This is Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya's maiden Lok Sabha election, but political experts and voters feel he can easily win Porbandar seat in his home state Gujarat, despite the electorate facing some key issues like unemployment.
To mollify the protesters, Jyotiraditya Scindia drove to the palace gate and asserted that he stood by them and Goyal.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi are facing multiple problems in Lok Sabha seats like Sangli, Madha and Satara in western Maharashtra due to political dynasties, old rivalries and one-upmanship, prompting a flurry of meetings before five phase polls begin in the state on April 19.
Zala, a close associate of Thakor, was the MLA from Bayad in Sabarkantha district.
In four seats in the coming Rajasthan assembly polls, relatives have been pitted against each other, which includes a husband contesting his wife and nieces up against their uncles.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
The party also announced that Kamal Nath will contest the bypoll for the Chhindwara assembly constituency.
The saffron party is assured of victory in eight of the ten seats in UP going by its dominant numbers in the state assembly.
Manjhi had demanded that the NDA field at least one member from his party for the six Rajya Sabha polls in the state scheduled next month
'My role will be to take her message across the country.'
Bishnoi said the Congress has deviated from its ideology and is no longer what it was during Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi's time.
The BSP is contesting on 20 seats in Karnataka election with an alliance with Janata Dal-Secular while the SP is contesting on 27 on its own.
At the meeting attended by 33 parties, the prime minister said suggestions from public representatives, especially from the Opposition, are valuable as they make the discussion rich.
He served as an effective link between the party and government during the two terms of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) between 2004 and 2014. As political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he had access to leadership that no other leader in the party had and worked the channels to work out various issues.
On Monday, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly said, The day, the people of Chhindwara wish that I should retire from politics, I will call it quits."
rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.
Patel's victory, which came against heavy odds, has given the Congress and the rest of the Opposition the confidence that Modi and Shah weren't invincible.
Akhilesh said that the defeat of the Dalit candidate would cement his party's relations with Mayawati-led BSP.
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
These are the 25 seats to watch out for as Gujarat goes to the polls over two phases on December 1 and 5.
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Monday alleged that the police and administration are preventing people from casting votes in Mainpuri parliamentary and Rampur Assembly constituency in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
On the Congress and the NCP collectively fairing better than the 2014 polls in the state, Raut said the opposition also needs to be strong in a democracy.
"Just bargaining was going on over what he (Ajit) should be getting. As per our information, he has been given a promise of chief minister's post by pushing Eknath Shinde aside with the help of Assembly speaker's decision (on disqualification of 16 Shiv Sena MLAs)," the former CM claimed.
In the video, Scindia is heard saying, "My people of Dabra, raise your hand and make your fist to convince (state chief minister) Shivraj Singh and me, make us believe that you will press the 'hand' button on November 3."
Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday claimed a 'deal of Rs 2,000 crore' has taken place so far to 'purchase' the Shiv Sena party name and its 'bow and arrow' symbol.
