THE Election Commission has asked the rival factions of the Shiv Sena, led by Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde, to submit documents by August 8 in support of their claims on the election symbol of the political outfit. Election Commission sources said the two sides have been asked to submit documents, including letters of support from the legislative and organisational wings of the party and the written statements of the rival factions. They said the requirement were made in line with the Paragraph ..

MNS LEADER Bala Nandgaonkar on Wednesday met Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil over a letter threatening Raj Thackeray and demanded action. Speaking to reporters later, Nandgaonkar said there would be repercussions across the State if the MNS chief was harmed. His office received the letter, he said, adding that it was written in Hindi with a smattering of Urdu words and referred to Thackeray’s warning that the Hanuman Chalisa would be played in front of mosques if loudspeakers were continued ..

THE Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five States where the party received a drubbing, the sources said. Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi will chair the meeting of the party’s top decision-making body at its headquarters here at 4 PM on Sunday, they said. The Congress lost Punjab to the AAP and could not win any of the four other States - Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur...

AAM Aadmi Party chief ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann on Thursday said the oath-taking ceremony of the new Punjab cabinet will be held at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of legendary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh in Nawanshahr district. He also said that no Government office will display photograph of the Chief Minister. Instead, photos of Bhagat Singh and B R Ambedkar will be put on walls in Government offices “The oath-taking ceremony will not be held at the Raj Bhawan, but at Khatkar ..

THE Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday stormed Punjab, winning 92 of the 117 Assembly seats, decimating the Congress and the SAD-BSP combine and making leaders like CM Charanjit Singh Channi, Parkash Singh Badal and Amarinder Singh bite the dust. While AAP bagged three-fourth of the seats, the Congress won 18, SAD 3, BJP 2 and BSP 1. An Independent also emerged victorious. AAP will now form its second Government in the country after the one led by Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. Kejriwal hailed the party’s performance ..

SEVERAL exit polls on Monday forecast a clear majority for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab with some of them giving an edge to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. Exit polls on CNN News 18, Times Now, India Today, Republic TV, News 24 and News X channels showed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) getting anywhere between 326 and 211 seats, and its main challenger Samajwadi Party-led alliance getting anywhere between 160 and 71 seats in ..

THE Maharashtra Government on Thursday presented supplementary demands worth Rs 6,250.36 crore in the State Legislature on the first day of the Budget session. The amount of Rs 1,400 crore was earmarked for special grants to Municipal Councils ..

MAHARASHTRA Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and various other State ministers sat on a dharna here on Thursday to protest against the arrest of their Cabinet colleague Nawab Malik by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case. NCP leader Pawar, whose party shares power with the Shiv Sena and Congress in the state as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), was the first to reach the protest site close to Mahatma Gandhi’s statue near the State Secretariat Mantralaya. He was later joined by ..

JUST two weeks ahead of Assembly polls in the Congress-ruled Punjab, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday announced incumbent Charanjit Singh Channi as the party’s chief ministerial face for the polls. State party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was in the race, hugged Channi on the stage as Gandhi announced his name after over 45 minutes of his speech, televised across the 117 Assembly seats. Political observers believe the decision of the Congress to go to the polls in the State, which is witnessing ..

RELEASING the first list of 107 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the BJP on Saturday fielded Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban seat and his Deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya from Sirathu in Kaushambi as it expressed confidence of retaining power with a big majority. Except for Adityanath and Maurya, all the names are for 105 of the 113 seats which will go to the polls in the first two phases on February 10 and 14, with 44 of them hailing from Other Backward Classes and ..

THE BJP on Thursday finalised its candidates for 172 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and is likely to field both Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who are currently members of the Legislative Council, party leaders said. Polling in most of these 172 seats will be held in the initial phases beginning February 10 and the party is also considering fielding Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma and State unit president Swatantra Dev Singh. Addressing the media ..

AS SEVERAL leaders from its fold joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the last few months, Congress has now decided to launch an all-out attack on the Mamata Banerjee-led party with its top leaders taking the charge. Mamata’s “there is no UPA” remark after a meeting in Mumbai with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, an ally of Congress in Maharashtra, evoked a strong response from the party, currently being led by interim president Sonia Gandhi. ..

THE BJP and its allies on Tuesday won 11 Assembly seats while the Congress bagged eight out of 29 seats in the latest round of by-polls, with results mostly favouring ruling parties in the States except in Himachal Pradesh, where the BJP lost all three Assembly seats and the prestigious Mandi Lok Sabha constituency to the Congress, and Telangana. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress got a ringing endorsement from the electors as it won all the four Assembly seats, including ..

SENIOR Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury has lashed out at Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee for her comments against the Congress in Goa and said she was doing so to a party now that had always come out in her support and wondered if she was working as an “agent of BJP”. Continuing his diatribe, Chowdhury who is the WBPCC president, at a press meet on Saturday demanded to know why Banerjee, who is trying to cobble up opposition unity, had entered into an alliance with the BJP in the ..

THE Election Commission on Saturday barred the Chirag Paswan and the Pashupati Kumar Paras factions from using the name of Lok Janshakti Party or its symbol ‘bungalow’ till the dispute between the rival groups is settled by the poll panel. The commission also said that the two factions can use free symbols available to field their candidates for the by-polls to two Assembly seats in Bihar in the coming days. “Both the groups shall be known by such names by as they may choose for their respective groups, ..

AMID speculation of him joining the BJP, former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday evening. The meeting lasted for around an hour at Shah’s official residence here. On Wednesday, Singh tweeted after the meeting with Shah: “Met Union Home Minister @AmitShah in Delhi. Discussed the prolonged farmers’ agitation against #FarmLaws & urged him to resolve the crisis urgently with repeal of the laws & guarantee MSP, besides supporting Punjab in crop diversificat..

SENIOR BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said ups and downs are part of democracy and hoped the BJP would get another opportunity to form its Government in Maharashtra again. Addressing a gathering of Mathadi workers in Navi Mumbai to commemorate the 88th birth anniversary of labour leader late Annasaheb Patil, the former Chief Minister called for a speedy resolution of issues concerning head-loaders. “We will again get an opportunity to come to power. Ups and downs are part of democracy, “ ..

CONGRESS President Sonia Gandhi will take a final call on inducting election strategist Prashant Kishor in the party as Congress leaders are divided over the issue. According to party sources, Sonia has already started the consultation process. Kishor has more recently worked with the Trinamool Congress and has been credited as the man behind the thumping victory of the party in the West Bengal Assembly elections. As Kishor wants a full-fledged role and decision making authority on election related ..

CONGRESS Interim President Sonia Gandhi on Friday urged Opposition party leaders to work together and plan systematically for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, saying, the goal is to give the country a Government that believes in the principles of the Constitution. Addressing a virtual meeting of various Opposition parties, she said that this is a challenge but expressed hope that “together we can” do it. “Despite our political compulsions, the time has come when interests of our nation demand that we rise ..

BASAVARAJ Somappa Bommai was on Tuesday chosen as the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, succeeding B S Yediyurappa. A strong Lingayat leader from north Karnataka, he was elected to the post at the legislature party meeting held at a private hotel, and chaired by Central observers, Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and G. Kishan Reddy. Yediyurappa proposed Bommai’s name and it was agreed upon by the BJP legislators. Bommai will be sworn in as the 30th Chief Minister at the Raj Bhawan at 11 am on ..

SOUNDING the bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during her virtual Martyrs Day speech on Wednesday not only went for an all-out attack against the BJP party, but also indicated that the Trinamool is ready to play an important role in national politics as she urged all the political parties to forget their narrow self-interests and unite on a single platform...

TWELVE BJP MLAs were suspended from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for one year after the State Government accused them of “misbehaving” with presiding officer Bhaskar Jadhav in the Speaker’s chamber on Monday. Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis termed the allegation as false and said Jadhav’s account of the incident was “one-sided”. However, Jadhav sought a probe into the allegation that some Shiv Sena members and he himself made uncharitable remarks, and said he was ready to face any punishment ..

IN YET another jolt to the BJP, the party’s Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the TMC 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. Seven other BJP leaders from the region, too, followed in Sharma’s footsteps and joined the Mamata Banerjee camp. Roy, addressing a press meet here, said the BJP’s rise in the state began with the 2019 Lok ..

WEST Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Tuesday claimed that 37 party workers were killed in the State after the recent Assembly election results. He said this at an interaction held virtually with Uttar Pradesh BJP to review the situation in West Bengal post the Vidhan Sabha election results. The meeting alleged that the Trinamool Congress was sponsoring violence in the State. According to a release issued by the UP BJP, a discussion with West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh was organised in ..

BJP on Monday chose Suvendu Adhikari as Leader of Opposition in the new West Bengal Assembly. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced Adhikari’s name as leader of the BJP legislature party in the assembly after a meeting of the legislators at the party’s Hastings office. Adhikari had won election from Nandigram Assembly seat, defeating his former mentor-turned-political adversary Mamata Banerjee by a narrow margin of over 1900 votes...

BUILDING a strong narrative over the years against the AIADMK and BJP-led Governments in Tamil Nadu and the Centre, DMK President M K Stalin reaped huge success in Assembly polls, recreating the 2019 magic when he won the Lok Sabha polls hands down for his party and allies. The DMK has won 133 seats, and Congress bagged 18 seats, according to final tally...

The statistical details may vary from exit poll to exit poll that streamed into public domain at the lapse of 7 p.m. embargo of the Election Commission, all pollsters appear unanimous that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) achieved a quantum jump in West Bengal and retained its hold in Assam. If Puducherry showed a BJP tilt, the outcomes for Tamil Nadu and Kerala proved to be almost on the dotted line. No matter the details that would get confirmed only on May 2, the single most critical factor in ..

A DAY after a purported audio tape -in which she is heard proposing a rally with the bodies of Cooch Behar firing victims- surfaced, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday alleged that her phone is being tapped and said she will order a CID probe into it. Addressing an election rally here, she accused the BJP of being involved in the conspiracy as the party “cannot match” the ruling Trinamool Congress’ campaigning on development programmes. “They (BJP leaders) are even eavesdropping ..

AFTER the resignation of Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, Union Minister of Law and Justice and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had forfeited the moral authority to govern. Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, Prasad said: “Deshmukh resigned citing moral grounds. Chief Minister Thackeray, where is your morality? Will we hear something on your morality? I think Uddhav Thackeray has forfeited the moral authority ..

CURTAINS came down at 5 pm on Thursday on the high decibel campaign in first phases of Legislative elections in West Bengal and Assam, leaving the contesing parties to resort to door-to-door voter-contact drives, even as opinion polls predicted return of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Assam. Both the States would go to polls in the first phase on March 27. The 30 seats in West Bengal are spread across ..

BENGAL has brought together the nation through ‘Vande Mataram,’ and on this land, CM Mamata Banerjee was terming people “bohiragoto,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday, announcing that if voted to power, a son of the soil will be made the BJP Chief Minister of the State. Addressing an election rally in Kanthi in the Purba Medinipur district, Modi said that Bengal was the land of icons like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore and Subhas Chandra Bose and on this land, no Indian ..

VETERAN TMC MP Sisir Adhikari - father of BJP heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari - joined the BJP here on Sunday in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders of the party. The patriarch of the Adhikari family -- which wields considerable influence in Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district -- said that he had to work really hard to rise through the ranks in the TMC, but the treatment meted out to him and his sons, of late, forced him to switch camp...

THE CBI on Monday questioned relatives of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee in connection with its investigation into the multi-crore coal pilferage case. The central agency had on Friday issued a notice to Ankush Arora, husband of Menaka Gambhir who is the sister-in-law of Banerjee, for questioning in the illegal coal mining case. The agency also asked Gambhir’s father-in-law Pawan Arora to join the investigation...

TRUE to her street fighter image, Mamata Banerjee was back on the roads of Kolkata on Sunday, four days after being injured at the hustings in Nandigram, leading a TMC march on a wheelchair and declaring an injured tiger is far more dangerous. Accompanied by senior TMC leaders, Banerjee was seen greeting the crowd with folded hands, with security personnel pushing her wheelchair. Banerjee joined the five km road show from Mayo Road to Hazra More as part of observation of Nandigram Diwas to commemorate ..

TERMING Congress as “most corrupt”, Union Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani on Saturday said the Opposition party only showed dreams of development in Assam and indulged in “politics of divide”. Addressing three back-to-back rallies in her maiden election campaign in Assam, the senior BJP leader appealed to the people of Assam to vote for the BJP to continue to avail benefits of various central and state schemes. Kickstarting her day-long programme at Mariani, she said Prime Minister Modi and Chief ..

BHARATIYA Janata Party’s surprise choice for the top job in Uttarakhand Tirath Singh Rawat was sworn-in as the State’s new Chief Minister on Wednesday, replacing Trivendra Singh Rawat ahead of next year’s Assembly polls. The oath of office was administered on Rawat by Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya at a simple function held at the Raj Bhawan here in the evening in the presence of a host of dignitaries. Rawat alone was sworn-in on Wednesday, which means the members of his Cabinet will be finalised ..

A DAY after an all-women grand show in Siliguri, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday hit the road with a massive rally in the heart of Kolkata to observe International Women’s Day. The mega rally started from central Kolkata’s College Street crossing and culminated at the Dorian crossing in Esplanade. Armed with placards and posters, thousands of women activists from the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress took part in the rally, raising ‘Mahilara Didikei Chae’ (women want Didi) slogans. ..

AFTER tough negotiations that stretched for days, the DMK on Sunday allotted 25 Assembly seats and the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha constituency to its key ally, the Congress. A formal pact for the April 6 Assembly election was signed by DMK President M K Stalin and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee chief K S Alagiri at the Dravidian party’s headquartes ‘Anna Arivalayam’ here...

THE ruling AIADMK has allotted 20 Assembly constituencies and the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat to its ally BJP for the April 6 Assembly elections, after several rounds of negotiations. Following up with the release of its first list of six candidates for the polls on Friday, the AIADMK firmed up the electoral agreement with BJP late Friday night. An AIADMK release pledged its full support to the candidates of the BJP in the polls and the pact was signed by O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswami from the ..

THE BJP on Saturday said it would not give up its demand for the ouster of Maharashtra Forest Minister Sanjay Rathod over the death of a woman in Pune, and slammed the State Government for filing a case of corruption against the husband of its leader Chitra Wagh. Chitra Wagh, Vice President of State BJP, was vocal on the issue of Rathod’s alleged link to the woman’s death, and therefore her husband was targeted, the party claimed. The Opposition party had earlier warned that it would not allow the ..

THE Congress tried to smoothen things out after the group of dissenters chose to attack the party leadership over ignoring them and not consulting the party leaders in decision making or not building a consensus on any decision. Senior spokesperson of the party Abhishek Manu Singhvi said at a press conference that the leaders are highly “respected” in the party but they should have done more to “strengthen” the party in the poll-bound States. Singhvi played down the issue and said, “Each of the perso..

BHARATIYA Janata Party (BJP) President J P Nadda on Saturday launched the party’s ‘Parivartan Yatra’ from Nabadwip in West Bengal’s Nadia district, and asserted that the people have decided to bid farewell to the Mamata Banerjee Government in the Assembly elections. He also accused the TMC Government of politicising the administration and criminalising the police. Claiming that the TMC’s slogan of “Maa, Mati, Manush” (mother, land and people) has been reduced to “dictatorship, tolabaji (extortion) ..

CONGRESS’ MLA Pradeep Chaudhary from Kalka stands disqualified following his conviction by a Himachal Pradesh court in a nearly a-decade-old case, Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta said on Saturday. Chaudhary was sentenced to three years in jail by a Nalagarh court in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh following his conviction earlier on January 14 in a ca..

AAP MLA and former Delhi Minister Somnath Bharti was on Saturday sentenced to two years in jail by a court here in a 2016 case of assaulting the security staff at AIIMS and causing damage to hospital property. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kum..

A MAHARASHTRA teacher, who did not allow coronavirus-induced lockdown to come in the way of continuing his classes for his students in rural areas, has won recognition for his efforts that involved use of conference calls and storytelling. Balaji Baburao Jadhav (35), who hails from Sangavi village under Renapur tehsil of Latur district in central Maharashtra, has been selected for the Honey Bee Network Creativity Inclusive Innovation Award 2020. He is a Zilla Parishad teacher at Vijayanagar in Maan ..

MAKING a U-turn on his political plunge, superstar Rajinikanth on Tuesday announced that he will not join politics and start a party as announced earlier, citing his frail health. He had first announced in 2017, after years of speculation, that he would indeed enter politics ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and field candidates from all 234 seats in the State. The veteran announced earlier this month that he will launch his political party in January and disclose the specifics ..

RCP Singh, a close confidant of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, was on Sunday chosen as the new president of Janata Dal (United). Kumar had proposed the name of Singh for the top post, which was then approved by other members during the party’s national executive meeting, a senior leader told PTI on Sunday...

THE People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) swept the maiden District Development Council (DDC) polls by winning 110 seats, while the BJP emerged as the single largest party by getting 75 seats after securing the largest vote share in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Wednesday. The results of two constituencies - one each in Bandipora and Kupwara districts of north Kashmir - are still awaited as counting of votes has been deferred there till further orders...

POLITICS makes strange bedfellows. It can also wreck a marriage. Sujata Mondol Khan, the wife of BJP MP from West Bengal’s Bishnupur Saumitra Khan, Monday found her marriage on the rocks when her husband of 10 years threatened to divorce her after she joined the ruling TMC. Claiming that “misfit and corrupt leaders” were getting more importance in the BJP than those loyal to the party, Mondal Khan shifted allegiance..

SUPERSTAR Rajinikanth on Thursday asserted that he would launch his political party in January 2021, ending years of suspense and in a big morale booster to his supporters and fans. The top star, promising his brand of spiritual politics, dramatically asserted that he was even ready to risk his life for the sake of people’s welfare by making a foray into politics. The 70-year old actor categorically said that his party would fight Assembly elections in 2021 and “emerge victorious.” Assembly elections ..