In 2022 Nanaji Dembi pulled down the Hurriyat office board in Srinagar, an act of defiance that grabbed headlines. Despite such nationalistic bravado, the BJP has denied him a ticket for the assembly election.
The BJP got the benefit of a split in Muslim votes in some seats of western UP, and its candidates registered wins from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh Lok Sabha seats.
The BJP, which romped to power in 2019 on the back of an unequivocal mandate from UP, winning 62 of its 80 seats, was cut to size this time and had to be content with only 33 seats.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
A video had surfaced on social media which purportedly showed SP leader Mukesh Siddharth making the controversial statement.
A Muslim man used to work on the tandoor at my restaurant. But due to this issue, I asked him to leave. Because people can make an issue over it. We don't want such trouble here
The BSP has not entered into any alliances and has also been keen to shed the tag of being a 'B-team' of the BJP.
Seventeen of the 25 ministers in the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan, including Govind Ram Meghwal, who also led the party's campaign committee, lost in the assembly elections.
Bharatiya Janata Party's National Democratic Alliance partners have got five cabinet ministerial berths in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as against none in the outgoing government, given the party's dependence on allies for a majority in the Lok Sabha.
On the eve of the counting of votes in Rajasthan, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have started reaching out to independent candidates, including rebels, and smaller parties.
Narendra Modi will take oath as the prime minister for a third consecutive term on Sunday evening as President Droupadi Murmu has invited him to form the government.
Days after Jayant Chaudhary's terse 'not a coin, won't flip' response to the BJP's apparent attempt to woo him, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the Rashtriya Lok Dal chief was a 'kid with little knowledge of history'.
"I am fighting a big battle to save my country from the corrupt. That is why they are behind bars today and not getting bail even from the Supreme Court," Modi said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in Rajasthan on Sunday, winning 115 seats out of the 199 where assembly elections were held last week.
In the last six assembly elections, the state voted the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress to power alternately.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has decided to cut short his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh by skipping western part of the state and saving five days, a party leader said on Monday while citing board exams.
The SP has offered 11 seats to the Congress and seven seats to the RLD for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed an interim stay on directives passed by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display names of owners.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
The country's top wrestlers, including Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, have been protesting since April 23, demanding criminal action against WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Rajasthan is all set to vote on Saturday to elect members of a new assembly with the Bharatiya Janata Party aiming to unseat the ruling Congress, which is fighting hard to change the trend of alternate governments in the state.
The Congress on Friday claimed that a 'silent undercurrent' is brewing across western Uttar Pradesh against the 'failures' of the Modi government, as it flagged issues such as 'neglect' of sugarcane farmers and examination paper leaks.
Reacting to Nehwal's tweet almost one-and-a-half-hour later, Rashtriya Lok Dal president Chaudhary tweeted, "Sarkaari shuttler recognises BJP skill in smashing peoples' verdict! I think voters need to play a subtle drop shot on celebs trying to influence their decisions!."
Sources within the Congress, including those who have been members of the teams that drafted its 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha poll manifestos, said the Karnataka government decision lacked any empirical basis.
An eighth BJP candidate on Thursday filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, setting the stage for a contest with the Samajwadi Party on February 27.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
Yadav denied any possibility for a post-poll alliance between the BJP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal's Jayant Choudhary.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Commenting on the seat sharing in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said in Ballia that a decision will be made as soon as Surya Uttarayan occurs.
The SP president posted a picture with the helicopter in the background and said no reason was given for it.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
A police complaint has been lodged at Barakhamba police station in Delhi, against 26 Opposition parties "for improper use of the name of INDIA and use of the said name for the undue influence and personation at elections."
The Rampur assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh which fell vacant following the disqualification of SP leader Mohammad Azam Khan is one of the five seats going for the bypolls.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
The BJP's top leadership will drop its MPs found to be facing anti-incumbency, according to its internal surveys -- a pivotal tactic to ensure the party achieves its target of winning 370 seats.
With a significant number of Opposition leaders present at the swearing-in ceremony of the Congress government in Karnataka, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Opposition unity requires much more than optics of this nature and stressed the need for meeting of minds, a common agenda and sacrificing partisan interests.
