Congress repeats success in Kashmir
Jammu:
Jubilation swept Congress party office in restive Jammu
and Kashmir, where it is a junior coalition ally, as the
party won two of the six parliamentary seats in the state
on Thursday. State's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP)
took one seat, while the main opposition National Conference
bagged two. An independent won the Ladakh parliamentary
constituency. The results came as the Gandhi dynasty swept
back to power in New Delhi.
Landslide victory for Sikkim Front (Go
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Gangtok:
The ruling party in Sikkim on Thursday won a landslide
victory in the assembly elections. The Sikkim Democratic
Front (SDF) won 31 seats out of the total 32 Assembly seats
leaving only one to the Opposition Congress party. The party
also won the state's lone parliamentary seat. Prominent
among the winners were Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, Health
Minister Dorjee Dazom Bhutia, Food Minister K B Chamling
and Speaker Kalawati Subba. Former chief minister Nar Bahadur
Bhandari of the Congress party was among those who lost
the elections. Four of the SDF candidates including the
chief minister were declared elected before the votes were
counted as there was no opponent against them.
Rajasekhara meets Sonia (Go
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New
Delhi: YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister-designate
of Andhra Pradesh, on Thursday arrived in New Delhi to meet
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Reddy will be sworn in on Friday.
Senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel, Shivraj Patil and the
general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh, Ghulam Nabi
Azad, also accompanied Reddy to the official residence of
Sonia Gandhi. Reddy, a populist farmer-friendly leader,
was nominated on Wednesday by the Congress party which assembly
swept polls on Tuesday. The Congress and its allies won
hands down bagging 226 of the state assembly's 294 seats
as the Congress began emerging as the single largest party
on the national scene. The tech-savvy outgoing Chief Minister
N. Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP) along with
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), could muster only 49 seats.
The BJP and the TDP together hold 36 of the state's 42 parliamentary
seats. Based on trends, the Congress party is leading in
34 constituencies, the BJP in five and others in two parliamentary
constituencies.
Krishna bites the dust, Navin heads
for majority (Go
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Bangalore/Bhubaneswar:
Tottering under the onslaught of the BJP and the JD
(S), the ruling Congress in Karnataka was routed today in
the Assembly polls. Emerging trends prompted Chief Minister
S M Krishna to submit his resignation, to Governor T N Chaturvedi
as the prospect of a hung assembly loomed large on the state.
With results for 84 of the 224 seats declared so far, the
BJP-JD (U) combine had bagged 30 seats, followed by the
Congress 29 and JD(S) led by former Prime Minister H D Devegowda
20 in a fierce neck-and-neck triangular contest. Others
secured five seats. The Congress contested on its own, while
the BJP had alliance with its national partner JD (U) and
JD(S) with communists. The prospects of Congress and JD
(S) coming together to make up the required numbers were
hotly debated but JD(S) said it would hold a meeting of
its party legislators here tomorrow. Several state ministers,
including Kagodu Thimappa, Suman Vasanth, Vasanth Salian
and D B Chandregowda, fell by the wayside in what was attributed
to the anti-incumbency coupled with the Vajpayee factor
whose impact was quite strong in Karnataka.
In Orissa, the BJD-BJP combine is set to secure a majority
in the state assembly. They have established leads in 89
of the 147 seats in the house. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik
is set for yet another innings at the helm though the Congress-led
alliance substantially improved their position. The Congress
combine leads in 43 seats. In the last assembly elections,
the BJD had won 68 seats while the BJP and Congress had
38 and 25 seats respectively.
BJP to analyze causes for defeat: Venkaiah
Naidu (Go
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New
Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party will analyse the causes
of poor showing in some states said party president M Venkaiah
Naidu today. Admitting that the Lok Sabha Election results
were not to the party's expectations he said: ''Our's is
a political party and we will sit down and analyze the situation."
He agreed that as per the trends, so far the party was falling
very short of the number it was expected to get in the Lok
Sabha. Senior party leaders met at the Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee's residence this afternoon to take stock
of the situation arising out of the NDA's poor showing at
the hustings. Talking to reporters a short while ago after
a meeting of the Union Cabinet, Parliamentary Affairs Minister
Sushma Swaraj said that the cabinet had unanimously passed
a resolution extolling the leadership of the Prime Minister
at the helm of the NDA for the past six years. The cabinet
wished him well and hoped that he would continue to serve
the alliance and the nation in the years to come. On his
part, the Prime Minister praised the members of the NDA
for their yeoman service to nation, and urged it to accept
the verdict of the Indian public with all the humility at
their command. Swaraj said that after his brief message,
Vajpayee left for Rashtrapati Bhavan to submit his resignation
to President Kalam at 6.30 p.m.
Asia Cup Cricket Tournament 2004 schedule
(Go
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Colombo:
The match schedule for the Asia Cup cricket tournament
to be held in July was released by the ACC on Wednesday:
Group-A: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong Group-B: Sri Lanka,
India, UAE Schedule: Phase one: Friday, July 16 Bangladesh
v Hong Kong (SSC) India v UAE (Dambulla) Saturday, July
17: Pakistan v Bangladesh (SSC) Sri Lanka v UAE (Dambulla)
Sunday, July 18: Pakistan v Hong Kong (SSC) Sri Lanka v
India (Dambulla) Phase two: Wednesday, July 21: A2 v B2
(SSC) A1 v B1 (Premadasa) Thursday, July 22: Reserve day
Friday, July 23: A2 v B1 (Premadasa) Saturday, July 24:
Reserve day Sunday, July 25: A1 v B2 (Premadasa) Monday,
July 26: Reserve day Tuesday, July 27: B1 v B2 (Premadasa)
Wednesday, July 28: Reserve day Thursday, July 29: A1 v
A2 (Premadasa) Friday, July 30: Reserve day Saturday, July
31: Rest day Sunday, August 1: Final (Premadasa) Monday,
August 2: Reserve day
