The Bharatiya Janata Party's tally in Rajya Sabha has dipped below 90 for the first time in several years but the party and its allies are expected to not only recoup the their losses but also make some gains when by-elections to fill the existing vacancies are held in the coming weeks.
This is for the second time in the last three months that Sinha has come out with praising words for Rahul Gandhi and his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said Narendra Modi should be referred to as a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and not as the prime minister in the saffron party's campaign as he is a 'caretaker PM'.
An angry Banerjee slammed a minister, a former Trinamool Congress mayor and a few bureaucrats for their "below-par performance".
What India needs more than one simultaneous election is better governance both at the central and state level. Yes, we need reforms, but our priority should be to make elections less expensive, make it more democratic, do away with freebies which are actually bribes before elections, allow only those who are educated to contest, and bring in a bill to make it impossible for criminals to contest, advocates Ramesh Menon.
They then vandalised the premises, breaking CCTV cameras and locking the main gate before leaving, he said.
Tiwari, who had rebelled against the TMC leadership but had mellowed down after the BJP declined to induct him into the party in December last year, joined the saffron camp in the presence of party state chief Dilip Ghosh at a programme in Sreerampur in Hooghly district.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die on Thursday, a day ahead of the scheduled end of the Winter session, that saw a security breach in the lower house, suspension of over 140 MPs and the expulsion of Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra.
'This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with the grieving families. We hope to reach Tinsukia in about two hours and spend some time with the families'
As the Bharatiya Janata Party, which the former Union minister and two-time MP quit in 2021, and the Trinamool engage in a verbal war ahead of the general elections due in a couple of months' time, Babul Supriyo is very clear that if the BJP wins, as is widely expected, "democracy may not exist in India."
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
At least four Opposition leaders on Tuesday claimed to have received messages from Apple warning them of "State-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise" their iPhones and posted the purported screenshots on their X handles.
The 34-year-old TMC national general secretary was seen entering the new office of the central probe agency in central Delhi around 11 am.
Former Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Friday vacated her government accommodation in New Delhi, her lawyer said.
The TMC, which is keen to leave a mark in its outing in Goa, had suggested a broad alliance but not much has moved on the proposal due to competing interests and apparent lack of faith between the opposition parties.
The TMC leader, who was expelled from the Lok Sabha on December 8 last year, was earlier asked to vacate the house by January 7 after her allotment was cancelled.
Noor, niece of Congress stalwart A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury, have quite often been taking stands which were not in line with that of the party's state leadership.
The allegations drew sharp reactions from the ruling TMC, which condemned the "vulture politics" of the saffron camp, further requesting it not to politicize the death.
Moitra said she has been found guilty of breaching a code of ethics that does not exist and that there was no evidence of cash or gift given to her.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's brother Prahlad Modi, who is also the vice president of All India Fair Price Shop Dealers' Federation, on Tuesday staged a dharna here with various demands of the organisation. Prahlad along with several other members of the All India Fair Price Shop Dealers' Federation (AIFPSDF) gathered at Jantar Mantar, holding banners and raising slogans.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party, which has often been mocked by opponents for not having a well-defined ideological plank, seems to have finally found its calling in Bengali sub-nationalism, as a section of top party leaders feel only an 'inclusive message of regionalism, which the Bengalis can identify with, will counter the aggressive nationalism and Hindutva practised by the saffron camp'.
The BJP is now inventing new angles to keep its campaign relevant -- even if it's old wine in an old bottle, which is what the allegation on 'Katchatheevu' is, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The CBI's visit to Abhishek's residence comes after Rujira told the central agency that she will be available for examination between 11 am and 3 pm on February 23, replying to a notice that the sleuths had hand-delivered her on Sunday.
According to the sources, he wrote to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee apprising her of his decision to resign from the party's primary membership.
The three-member TMC delegation, led by state minister Partha Chatterjee met EC officials and registered a complaint into the incident and demanded a thorough probe.
In yet another jolt to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party's Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday, as senior leader of the state's ruling party Mukul Roy, who also switched sides two weeks ago, claimed that this was the 'beginning of the saffron party's end' in the state.
TMC has denied the charge and the police has arrested eight persons in connection with the incident that occurred on Saturday afternoon in Khanakul area of the district.
Shah said BJP worker's family had complained that his body had been taken away forcibly.
Sources said Rujira had reached Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata with her two children around 7am before being stopped before immigration.
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, on Saturday joined Trinamool Congress days ahead of the high-octane West Bengal assembly polls.
"No lndian Prime Minister has so brazenly indulged in an unethical and undemocratic act and violated the Model Code of Conduct by indirectly campaigning for his party from foreign soil," he said.
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra was expelled on Friday from the Lok Sabha after the House adopted the report of its Ethics Committee that held her guilty of accepting gifts and illegal gratification from a businessman to further his interest.
The raging controversy over the fake COVID-19 vaccination camps in parts of Kolkata snowballed into a political storm ensnaring into it several TMC leaders, prompting the opposition BJP to demand a CBI probe into a 'larger conspiracy' in the case.
The curious onlookers that greet the candidates are, however, unaware about the importance of history. They are just there to catch a glimpse of 'Rani Ma' Amrita Roy or Mahua Moitra.
Villagers alleged that a seven-month-old child was snatched from her mother's lap and thrown away by miscreants in Sandeshkhali.
A devastating fire at a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata that claimed nine lives turned into the epicentre of a political slugfest on Tuesday, with the Trinamool Congress government and the Bharatiya Janata Party pointing accusatory fingers at the Railways and the state administration respectively, even as the bereaved families grieved at the loss of their near ones.
