Modi Sarkar 2.0 formation: As it happened

With its government in alliance with the JD-S facing a potential crisis in Karnataka, the Congress is rushing its two senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and K.C. Venugopal to Bengaluru to handle the situation.
Azad and Venugopal will reach Bengaluru on Tuesday evening and are expected to hold discussions with senior state leaders of the alliance like Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy of JDS and Congress leaders -- Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameswara, D.K. Sivakumar and Siddaramaiah, sources said on Tuesday.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, BJP National General Secretary said, "Three MLAs and 50-60 Councillors are joining BJP today. Such joinings will continue in future also."

Nearly a week after the crushing defeat in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday asked party members not be to disheartened by the loss.

The outgoing Chief Minister along with his wife Nara Bhuvaneswari and son Nara Lokesh participated in 97th birth anniversary celebrations of his father-in-law and party founder N.T. Rama Rao at the TDP office in Guntur.

Addressing the party leaders and workers after hoisting the party flag, Naidu asked them not to get demoralized.

Paying rich tributes to NTR, as the late leader was popularly known, Naidu said he brought honour and recognition to Telugu people at the national and even international level.

He advised party leaders to follow the footsteps of NTR, who despite electoral defeats did not lose self-confidence and played the role of a constructive opposition.

He recalled that NTR was the pioneer of the welfare schemes. 

The Uttar Pradesh Police said on Tuesday that the killers of Surendra Singh, a former village head and a BJP leader in Amethi, were his local political rivals.

It had been widely speculated that Singh was murdered because he had campaigned for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Smriti Irani.

Director General of Police O.P. Singh said that on the basis of evidence, the victim had a local-level rivalry. One of the accused wanted to contest the panchayat election but Singh was supporting another aspirant.

The police have filed a First Information Report against the five accused.

Wasim, Nasim, Golu and Ramchandra have been booked for the murder while the fifth person, identified as Dharamnath Gupta, has been charged with conspiracy to kill the BJP leader.

Three of the accused were arrested on Tuesday and the police are searching for the remaining two.

Feroz Alam a.k.a. Raja had considerable political clout till about a day ago. His SUV bore the name plate ‘BSP coordinator Patiyali and he moved around with half a dozen young boys.

On Monday, Raja was arrested for getting the MBA paper leaked.

He confessed that he wanted to get the paper leaked to help his girlfriend who was taking the MBA examination and he used an AMU employee, Irshad, to get the paper. He promised to get a permanent job in the university for Irshad.

Raja, who has now been arrested and sent to jail, told the police that he had promised his girlfriend that he could obtain the examination paper.

On the advice of his friends, he sent her a fake solved paper and his girlfriend gave him a piece of her mind when she realized that it was fake. She even stopped talking to him.

Feroz Alam met a friend, Haider, and the two convinced Irshad to get the paper leaked. Haider and Irshad are now Feroz Alam's companions in jail. The girlfriend, however, is absconding.

Rajasthan's six BSP MLAs will meet party chief Mayawati in Delhi on June 1 during which the party's performance in the Lok Sabha polls in the state will be reviewed, a legislator said Tuesday.

BSP MLA Wajib Ali told PTI that the party's support to the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government would continue.

"There is no agenda of withdrawing support from the government, rather we will discuss how efficiently we can work with the government here," he said.

"We will discuss the party's performance in the Lok Sabha elections in the state. Future strategy will also be discussed in the meeting," the MLA added.

The six BSP MLAs were scheduled to meet Governor Kalyan Singh here on Monday but the meeting was cancelled at the last moment.

Ali said that based on the discussions with the party chief, a decision would be taken regarding the meeting with the governor. 

This victory is a victory for Modi. He is a charismatic leader. In India after JL Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi he is now a charismatic leader. I will be going for the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi ji: Actor turned politician Rajinikanth in Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Delhi: BJP leaders LK Advani and Sumitra Mahajan pay tribute to Veer Savarkar on his birth anniversary, at the Parliament.

Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets former President Pranab Mukherjee. 

Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav has said that the death of Payal Salman Tadvi, a medical student in Mumbai, was actually "a murder of the constitutional protection given to the Scheduled Tribes".

Payal Tadvi belonged to the Scheduled Tribe community and was a victim of casteist slur.

Akhilesh Yadav tweeted that the "suicide of the brilliant Dr Payal Tadvi belonging to the Scheduled Tribal community is a result of comments against her caste and the reservation system.

"This is a case of murder. It is a murder of the protection given by the Constitution. Is this the direction the country is heading towards?"

Payal Tadvi, 23, was a postgraduate student at the Nair Hospital in Mumbai.

She allegedly committed suicide on May 22 following harassment at the hands of three senior doctors. 

We oppose FIR against Vishweshwar Bhat (editor of Kannada daily, Vishwavani). JD(S) is trying to curtail freedom of expression: Former Karnataka CM and BJP leader BS Yeddyudappa in Bengaluru

Pakistan has tried to downplay India's decision not to invite Imran Khan for Narendra Modi's swearing-in on Thursday, saying the Indian Prime Minister's "internal politics" does not permit him to extend an invitation to his Pakistani counterpart.

The government on Monday announced in New Delhi that it has invited leaders from BIMSTEC countries to Prime Minister Modi's inauguration, leaving out Pakistan, which is not a member of the regional grouping.

The BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) comprises Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

Reacting to reports that India has not invited Pakistan Prime Minister Khan to Prime Minister Modi's inauguration, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said a meeting for the sake of dialogue to find a solution to the Kashmir issue, as well as Siachen and Sir Creek disputes, would have been a significant measure instead of attending the swearing-in ceremony.

Delhi: Rajasthan Deputy CM Sachin Pilot arrives at the residence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

Chennai: Newly elected DMK MLAs take oath at the state secretariat; DMK President MK Stalin also present.

Newly-elected MPs of the Shiv Sena will take oath of the 17th Lok Sabha in Marathi, a party leader has said. In the just-concluded elections, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party won 18 out of the total 48 seats in Maharashtra. The Sena ally, the BJP, bagged 23 seats.

"MPs have the choice of language in which they can take oath. We are proud of Marathi language and our land.

Moreover, the Shiv Sena was born to protect and promote Marathi. Hence all our MPs will be taking oath in Marathi,"

Sena MP from Kalyan, Shrikant Shinde, said Monday night. The BJP-led NDA, of which the Sena is the oldest constituent, is now gearing up for Assembly elections in Maharashtra, which are due in October this year.

The first session of the 17th Lok Sabha is likely to start from June 6 and go on till June 15.

Delhi: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Randeep Singh Surjewala arrive at the residence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said Congress President Rahul Gandhi's decision to resign will be suicidal not just for his own party but also all opposition.

"Rahul's offer to resign suicidal. Opposition parties had the common goal to dislodge BJP but failed to build a national narrative. The result in a particular election can never alter the reality in as diverse and plural a country as India," Lalu Prasad, who is in jail since last year in the Fodder scam case, tweeted.

The RJD faced a complete rout in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, while Lalu Prasad was imprisoned at the Birsa Munda Central Jail. He has not kept well and had also been undergoing treatment at a hospital in Ranchi.

Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi was among several BJP leaders on Tuesday who remembered Hindutva philosopher Vinayak Damodar Savarkar on his 136th birth anniversary.

"We bow to Veer Savarkar on his Jayanti. Veer Savarkar epitomises courage, patriotism and unflinching commitment to a strong India. He inspired many people to devote themselves towards nation building," Modi said in a tweet.

Savarkar, was an independence activist, politician, lawyer, writer, and the formulator of the Hindutva philosophy.

He was born on this day in 1883.

Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu also tweeted saying the "nation will always remember the sacrifices made by him during the freedom struggle".

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders leader Arun Jaitley, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Rajnath Singh also remembered him.

Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi will attend the May 30 swearing in ceremony of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister for the second term. An official source said Bedi left here for Delhi Tuesday.

The Lt Governor will in the meanwhile complete three years in office on Wednesday, but will not be in the union territory because of her visit to Delhi.

She has been at loggerheads with Chief Minister V Narayanasamy and his government on various administrative issues ever since she assumed office in May 29 2016. 

Days after the Lok Sabha poll results, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath has moved swiftly to keep his flock of Congress MLAs together to thwart any poaching attempt by a resurgent BJP.

Nath, whose five-month-old government is surviving on a wafer-thin majority, has asked each of his Cabinet colleague to look after at least five legislators to check any desertion to the opposition camp, a Congress leader said Monday.

Apprehension about the government's stability has crept in the Congress after its humiliating defeat in the recently concluded general elections in Madhya Pradesh, where it won just one of the 29 parliamentary seats, conceding the rest to the BJP.

Former Samajwadi Party MP Kamlesh Balmiki was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Khurja in Bulandshahr, police said.

Prima facie it appeared to be a case of poisoning but the details would be known only after the post mortem report comes in, Khurja circle officer Gopal Singh told reporters.

According to the police, they had received a call late on Monday afternoon from the former MP's nephew Lalit Balmiki, who informed that his uncle was lying dead inside his room.

"His cousins had come down to check on him after he did not revert their calls. They had to force themselves through the first two doors, bolted from inside, before they could enter the room where Balmiki was lying dead," said Manish Mishra, Bulandshahr Superintendent of Police.

The police official said that the house was bolted from inside. It was somehow opened by four members of the family. The iron gate of the room, where Balmiki's body was found, was also locked from inside and the family members had to open that as well.

Balmiki, 52, had won from the Bulandshahr parliamentary constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Andhra Pradesh: Tamil Nadu CM Edappadi Palaniswami and his family offer prayers at Lord Balaji temple in Tirumala.

In a bid to revive the party organisation ahead of assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress leadership in West Bengal is reaching out to disgruntled leaders.

"We are reaching out to leaders and party workers who for some reason have become inactive. We are trying to bring back everybody into the party fold," a senior TMC leader leader said.

Kolkata mayor and senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim on Sunday called up former city mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who had taken a sabbatical from active politics. He urged Chatterjee to return to the party fold and look after the organisation, but the latter did not commit anything.

TMC district presidents also called up disgruntled leaders and urged them to forget the 'misunderstanding' and return to the party.

Meanwhile, reports say many TMC leaders have joined the BJP.