Explore Business Standard
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will hold a joint rally in Mumbai on November 6, where it will release its guarantees for the state assembly elections, a senior Congress leader said on Wednesday. Addressing reporters, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said the event will be held at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in the evening of November 6, and will be attended by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray. Elections to the 288-member state assembly will be held on November 20 and the counting of votes will take place three days later. The deadline to file the nomination forms for the elections ended on Tuesday. As many as 7,995 candidates filed 10,905 nominations with the Election Commission (EC). On November 6, Rahul Gandhi will be on a one-day visit to Maharashtra. He will first participate in 'Sanvidhan Bachao' meeting in Nagpur in the morning, Patole said. Gandhi will then atten
Ruling out the possibility of an alliance with the AAP for the Haryana Assembly polls, senior Congress leader Kumari Selja has said her party is strong in the state and will fight the elections on its own. In an interaction with PTI editors at the news agency's headquarters here, the Lok Sabha MP and the party's prominent Dalit face also dismissed the possibility of a hung assembly, asserting that the Congress would secure an "excellent majority" in the 90-member House. Selja also asserted that the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) has lost a lot of ground in Haryana as it is "breaking up" and does not have a chance in the upcoming polls. "The JJP has lost ground. This time you will not find many takers for the JJP. Even last time, most of the candidates who won were from the Congress. Today, it is already breaking up. Most of their MLAs have already left them. I don't see much of a chance for the JJP in this election," the AICC general secretary and former Haryana Congress chief said. Sh
Odisha Governor Raghubar Das on Monday said the state government will fill 1.5 lakh vacant government posts in a fair and transparent manner, with 65,000 positions set to be filled within the next two years. He made these remarks during the inaugural session of the newly formed 17th Odisha Legislative Assembly. In a bid to transform Odisha into a vibrant manufacturing hub, the state government will prioritise industries such as automobile, electric vehicles (EV), semiconductors, and IT/ITES under the Make in Odisha' initiative, he said, adding such a move will generate over 3.5 lakh jobs by 2029, thereby boosting economic growth and employment opportunities across the state. Das emphasised the government's commitment to enhancing skill development and apprenticeship opportunities for youth to equip them with essential experience and expertise. Highlighting the empowerment of SC and ST youths, Das underscored the government's efforts to foster entrepreneurial initiatives among these
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the use of legislative majority test by Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar while deciding that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction was the real Shiv Sena, and summoned the original records relating to the disqualification row from the speaker's office. Hearing a plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction against the speaker's order declaring the Shinde bloc as the "real political party" after the split in the Shiv Sena in June 2022, the top court also took note of the claim of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the group led by the chief minister, about "forgery" in some relevant documents. The original records shall be summoned from the office of the adjudicating authority (speaker), said the bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, and fixed the Thackeray faction's plea for hearing on April 8. The bench said it was keeping open the issue of maintainability of the
The Delhi Assembly on Saturday initiated a discussion on the motion of confidence brought by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who alleged that the BJP tried to poach AAP MLAs to topple his government. Starting the discussion, the AAP's Kasturba Nagar MLA Madan Lal alleged that the BJP was persistently trying to "fail" and "paralyse" the Kejriwal government -- either by poaching party MLAs or interfering in its workings. Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, the lone opposition representative in the House following the suspension of BJP members for the session, was not present when the discussion began. This is the third motion of confidence of the Kejriwal government in the last three years. It comes amid the AAP's claims that the BJP wanted to break the party by offering money to its MLAs and toppling its government in Delhi. The previous confidence motions came in August 2022 and March 2023, amid AAP allegations that the BJP was carrying out "Operation Lotus" to poach its ..