Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa today nominated four party leaders, including a former minister, for the June 11 Rajya Sabha elections. Ms Jayalalithaa announced the candidature of R Vaithilingam, housing minister in the previous AIADMK Cabinet, former Rajya Sabha member A Navaneethakrishnan, advocate A Vijayakumar and SR Balasubramanian for the biennial elections. Mr Vaithilingam had lost the May 16 Assembly elections from Orathanadu while Mr Balasubramanian had joined...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party declared victory on Thursday in the northeastern state of Assam, an election boost that will help his right-wing nationalist government rebuild some momentum after poll losses last year.Grabbing power in Assam, one of five states electing new assemblies, would be a first for the Bharatiya Janata Party in India's volatile northeast, a sign its political influence is expanding beyond its traditional northern and western belt.The BJP led in the races...

Counting of votes in the high-stakes Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry begins this morning at 8 am and the first trends are expected to be available after an hour — at about 9 am. By 12 noon, a clear picture could well emerge of who the winners are.According to various exit polls shown on TV channels on May 16, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala appeared to have voted for change giving BJP its first government in the northeastern state dislodging Congress which...

n the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Jammu and Kashmir, senior PDP leader Muzzafar Hussain Baig on Friday urged him to send a clear message that "intolerance and communalism" will not be tolerated any more as the situation in the country was "worse than ever before". Baig, a Lok Sabha MP, also told the Prime Minister not to lose out on the opportunity to send a clear message to the violators during his visit to J and K tomorrow. "I beseech you both to rise to the occasion and assure...

 Congress on Wednesday demanded that Smriti Irani resign as HRD minister after a trial court took cognizance of a complaint about her educational qualifications, the party taking pleasure in the fact that PM Narendra Modi's weapon to take on Rahul Gandhi was on the back foot. AICC spokesman Ajay Maken said Irani could not be the minister in-charge of education when an inquiry seeking details from Delhi University about her degrees was on. "Is it not a conflict of interest? She should resign...

The first visit of All India Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to Telangana has come as a major confidence booster for the state Congress. The huge response has buoyed the party leaders and cadre, especially it was the first major event organized by the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee after the state bifurcation. The Congress has not conducted any major event after its debacle in the general election except some rallies against shifting of TB and Chest hospital in the city and power crisis. There...

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and AAP leader Yogendra Yadav on Tuesday appeared before a Delhi court in connection with a defamation case, after they faced a flak from the judge for not appearing. Earlier in the day, Kejriwal, Sisodia and Yadav were directed by a court here to appear before it later in the day in connection with a criminal defamation complaint, saying there was no ground for exemption from their appearance. Metropolitan Magistrate...

Breaking his silence, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said his former party colleague Jayanthi Natarajan had been pitted against him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he had been fighting for the poor and other weaker sections of the society. "Ek din maine Modiji ke baare mein kuch kaha, agle din unhone Natrajan ko khada kiya (One day, I said something about Modi, the very next day, he put up Natarajan)," the Congress Vice President said at a rally here. This was his first reaction to Natarajan's allegation...

AAP chief Arvind Kerjiwal is correctly enrolled in the voters' list for the upcoming Assembly polls in the national capital, the Election Commission told the Delhi High Court. The poll body made the submission before the bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru, which had on Monday sought its response on Congress leader Kiran Walia's plea seeking removal of Kerjiwal's name from the Delhi electoral rolls on the ground that he has illegally declared himself to be a resident of the national capital. "Arvind...

The infighting in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is grappling with its lacklustre showing in the 2014 general elections, has now apparently reached the top leadership. After AAP leader Yogendra Yadav resigned from the party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC) last Saturday, senior leader Manish Sisodia reportedly questioned his motives and strategies that did not help the party in the general elections. Yadav, a native of Haryana, resigned from the party's top decision-making body following...

An emotionally charged Narendra Modi on Tuesday said people have voted for "new hope and aspiration" and he would try his best to live up to their expectations after he was unanimously elected the leader of the BJP parliamentary party. BJP leader and the NDA prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi receives a bouquet from newly-elected BJP Members of Parliament as he arrives at the Parliament building in New Delhi. (AFP ... BJP president Rajnath Singh arrives in Parliament in New Delhi. (AFP...

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah, at a press conference early today, accused the Samajwadi Party (SP) workers of booth capturing. Alleging cases of booth capturing in the ongoing Lok Sabha election the BJP leader has called for increased security measures in the remaining two phases of the elections. "For last two phases, there should be paramilitary troops, micro observers and cameras in all booths," he said. The allegation were refuted by the SP leaders, who called it a sign...

CONGRESS president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel Friday refuted Narendra Modi’s claims that they shared a warm friendship. “This is a political stunt to create confusion and create a cloud of doubt in the midst of elections. How can Modi be able to make friendship with me when he has never been able to strike friendship within his own party?”, Patel said, reacting to Modi’s claims in an interview to the Doordarshan, which were edited out by the broadcaster. He said Modi’s claims...

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who is on the Lok Sabha election campaign, will be holding two election rallies on Saturday. The Congress's poll campaign chief will be first visiting Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh where he will be interacting with the tribals. Later in the day, Rahul will head to Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh where he will be addressing a public meetin...

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday slammed BJP for hobnobbing with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in Maharashtra saying the people of Bihar will reject the party's collusive politics of communalism and regional chauvinism. "Bihar mein hunkar and Maharashtra me abhaar (roar in Bihar and thanks giving in Maharashtra)," Kumar said on a Facebook post while taking potshots at the BJP leadership, including its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for thanking the MNS for deciding against...

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday blamed the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for lack of development in mineral-rich Jharkhand. BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is garlanded along with party president Rajnath Singh at the Vijay Sankalp rally in Ranchi. (PTI Photo) Addressing a rally in state capital Ranchi, the Gujarat chief minister highlighted Jharkhand’s unemployment problem and said the central government had done nothing...

A man, claiming to be an activist of the BJP, threw black paint at AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Monday while he was addressing a press conference here. The man, who identified himself as Nachiketa Walnekar, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist, created a ruckus at the packed press conference, but was then bundled away by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) activists. Kejriwal, who was sitting on the dais with other party leaders, got some drops of the paint on his face. However, AAP national executive...

Bob Woodward said this evening on CNN that a "very senior person" at the White House warned him in an email that he would "regret doing this," the same day he has continued to slam President Barack Obama over the looming forced cuts known as the sequester. CNN host Wolf Blitzer said that the network invited a White House official to debate Woodward on-air, but the White House declined. "It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, 'You're going to regret doing something...

President Barack Obama’s deputies have quadrupled the number of signatures that petitioners on the administration’s “We the People” website must collect to get an official response from the White House, following a series of popular, provocative and disrespectful signature drives by his critics. Some of the petitions sought approval for states to secede after Obama’s re-election, while others called on the White House to disavow executive orders that restrict gun rights, or to deport CNN’s British-born,...

Dawn Josephson could barely believe it when she found health insurance that would actually cover the cost of treating her young son’s eye condition. Josephson, a freelance editor, wife and mother of two in Jacksonville, Fla., had been spending as much as $1,000 a month of her family’s budget on surgery, doctor visits, tests, and treatments in the seven months since 2-year-old Wesley awoke one morning with his eyes pointed toward each other, a condition called strabismus. That was on top of the...