Amid intense political developments in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday filed his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha elections.

All five candidates, including Nitin Nabin, Shivesh Kumar Ram, and Upendra Kushwaha of the ruling alliance, also submitted their nominations on the same day.

Several senior NDA leaders were present during the filing process, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who arrived in Patna from New Delhi for the occasion.

Indian intelligence agencies have warned that cases relating to hoax bomb threats are set to increase in the coming months, especially with a number of elections coming up.

In the last year, many schools and airlines have been receiving such calls. The airline industry, in particular, was the hardest hit as a result of these calls, as the recalling and rescheduling of flights caused heavy losses.

The full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI), led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, is likely to visit West Bengal on March 9 to review the post-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) scenario in the state ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

According to sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, the full bench is scheduled to hold a review meeting in the state on March 10. If proceedings remain on schedule, the Commission is likely to announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections next week.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday launched a blistering attack on the BJP-led central government at a massive rally at Jantar Mantar, asserting that 140 crore Indians would unite to unseat a dictatorial government. 

At the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s mega public rally led by National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal at Jantar Mantar, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann declared that the recent court verdict marked a historic victory of truth in Indian politics and affirmed that AAP has emerged stronger as a national force.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Friday said that the discharge of charges against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal, senior AAP leader and Punjab Prabhari Manish Sisodia, and others in the excise policy case by the court has vindicated the party’s consistent stand that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other central agencies have been reduced to mere puppets in the hands of the Union government to target political rivals.

Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains said that the acquittal of the party’s National Convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia by the court will be recorded as the biggest victory of truth and honesty in the history of Indian democracy.

Around 2500 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) will be needed if the Bengal Assembly polls are held in single phase, according to initial estimate by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Tuesday said that decades of Akali and Congress rule deliberately kept Punjab’s children uneducated while political families thrived, asserting that those parties were never concerned about public progress but only about securing power for their sons, daughters and relatives. Addressing a gathering in Sardulgarh after laying the foundation stone of a Government ITI that will skill 240 students every year, he said the BJP is now banking on defectors from other parties to chase electoral dreams, but Punjab has chosen a different path. 

Launching a broad attack on the Centre, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday questioned the government’s handling of a recent protest by the Youth Congress, alleged large-scale manipulation of voter lists, and asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc remains united ahead of crucial elections.

Ahead of the assembly elections slated for early 2027, the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab on Monday announced the "Meri Rasoi" scheme to provide nutritious food to 40 lakh blue card holders in the state from April.

This was announced by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann after a meeting of the Council of Ministers here.

Tamil Nadu’s final electoral roll has been officially published on Monday following an extensive Special Intensive Revision (SIR) undertaken in compliance with directions from the Election Commission of India and the Supreme Court.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann are scheduled to undertake a two‑day visit to Gujarat from February 21, party leaders said on Friday.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday declared the schedule for the biennial elections to the Council of States, Rajya Sabha, to fill 37 seats falling vacant from 10 states.

According to the Commission, polling will be conducted on March 16 between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., and the counting of votes will take place the same day at 5:00 p.m.

Calling out Congress’s casteist and elitist remarks into a flashpoint on Punjab’s streets, senior leaders, ministers, MLAs, and hundreds of karyakartas of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab on Sunday held a high-voltage band-baja protest outside the residence of Leader of Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa, slamming Congress leadership for mocking Dalits, degrading honest livelihoods, and exposing its deeply feudal and dynastic mindset. 

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Monday congratulated Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on her party's victory in an election, wishing for Japan's further development under her leadership and hoping to meet her in South Korea via shuttle diplomacy.

Lee posted the congratulatory message on social media platform X after Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party secured a two-thirds majority in the 465-member House of Representatives in snap elections held Sunday, News Agency reported.

Telangana Jagruthi President K. Kavitha on Friday announced that she will announce a new political party within three months.

She told media persons here that she is waiting for a good ‘mahuratam’ (auspicious time) to launch the political party.

Kavitha, daughter of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) President and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), quit the BRS last year after she was suspended from it for anti-party activities.

The Election Commission of India (ECI), on Friday, completed the two-day interaction session with more than 1,000 Central Observers, who will be deployed in about a dozen poll-bound states, this year.

During the meeting at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIDEM), elaborate discussions took place on maintaining the fairness and integrity of the electoral procedure and the observers were briefed by the top ECI office-bearers on the electoral preparedness.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar and five others died in a plane crash near Baramati on Wednesday. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has confirmed that all six passengers on board are dead.

The plane crashed while landing near Baramati. Visuals from the spot show fire and smoke, mangled remains of the plane, and ambulances rushing the injured to nearby hospitals. There were people at the wreckage site trying to extend help in every possible way.

This incident occurred around 9 a.m., an hour after the plane took off from Mumbai.

At a public function in Majithia on Sunday, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann delivered a clear message on faith, governance and the future of the constituency while laying the foundation stone for 23 rural link roads worth ₹11.32 crore. The Chief Minister said it would have given him heartfelt happiness if the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) President, Advocate Harjinder Singh Dhami, considered himself as a soldier of Sri Guru Gobind Singh ji, but expressed concern that he instead calls himself a soldier of Sukhbir Singh Badal.

On the sacred occasion of Maghi, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann visited Sri Muktsar Sahib, where he paid obeisance at Gurdwara Sri Tuti Gandi Sahib and addressed a large public gathering, reiterating the Punjab Government’s position on the tracing of 169 missing saroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. On a day deeply rooted in Sikh history and sacrifice, the Chief Minister said the tracing of the saroops was a matter of duty rather than achievement.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) will consider the record of election-related violence in the last seven elections in West Bengal since 2014 as the determining factor for the extent and pattern of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) deployment for the 2026 Assembly polls in the state.

These seven elections, whose poll-violence records will be under ECI's consideration, include the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, 2019, and 2024, the state Assembly elections in 2016 and 2021, and the polls for the three-tier panchayat system in West Bengal in 2018 and 2023.

The Indian stock markets remain closed on Thursday on account of municipal corporation elections in Maharashtra.

In an earlier notification, the BSE said there will be no trading in the equity segment, equity derivatives, commodity derivatives, and electronic gold receipts on that day. It also said that equity derivative contracts originally scheduled to expire on January 15, 2026, expired a day earlier. These revisions will be reflected in the end-of-day contract master files.

The NSE also said that January 15 will be a trading holiday in both the capital market and futures and options segments.

Polling will be held on Thursday for 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including the high-stakes Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), with counting of votes scheduled on Friday.

While elections were originally scheduled for 2,869 seats, 68 candidates have been elected unopposed. Consequently, voting will now take place for 2,801 seats.

The 29 corporations include two newly-formed civic bodies -- Jalna and Ichalkaranji. The list includes major cities like Nagpur, Pune, Thane, Nashik and Navi Mumbai, many of which have been functioning under administrators since their terms expired between 2020 and 2023.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is unhappy over the low number of private housing complexes with 300 or more residents identified so far in Bengal for setting up polling booths for the crucial Assembly elections scheduled later this year.

Sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, said that so far, only 69 such private housing complexes with 300 or more residents have been identified in West Bengal, far less than the estimated requirement.

US President Donald Trump Thursday night said the United States will oversee Venezuela’s recovery and oil sector before the country can move toward elections, arguing that years of collapse under Nicolas Maduro have left the nation unable to conduct a vote.

Trump made the remarks in a sit-down interview on Fox News’ Hannity, his first television interview since the US operation that led to Maduro’s capture.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has clarified that the precise deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) for the forthcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal will be determined by the extent to which state police personnel can be deployed for poll-related security.

The determining factor will also be on how and where the available state police personnel will be deployed by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, for election-related security.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is set to visit Thiruvananthapuram to participate in celebrations marking the Bharatiya Janata Party's historic victory in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, a milestone achievement for the party in Kerala's political landscape.

The visit assumes added significance as it comes amid earlier indications that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also visit the state capital, with HM Shah scheduled to arrive ahead of the Prime Minister.

According to BJP sources, the Union Home Minister will reach Thiruvananthapuram on January 11.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday invited all citizens to download the ECINet App and give their suggestions to improve the App ahead of the platform’s formal launch is scheduled later this month.

Deputy Director P. Pawan issued a note seeking suggestions, adding that feedback can be given by using the 'Submit a Suggestion' tab on the App till January 10.

ECINet is one of the major initiatives of the Commission taken under the leadership of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has now decided to apply its own independent mechanism for identifying housing complexes with multiple towers for setting up polling booths for the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state.

The ECI has decided the matter amid the failure of the District Magistrates (DMs), also the District Electoral Officers (DEOs), to identify housing complexes with 300 voters or above for setting up the polling booth, sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, said.

Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday sought suggestions from partymen on a proposed agitation against the "discontinuation of MGNREGA" and directed early preparations for Assembly elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, and other states in April-May 2026.

Addressing the Congress Working Committee (CWC) at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters at Indira Bhawan in New Delhi, Kharge said a nationwide movement, 'MGNREGA Action Plan', is needed to oppose the government decision to "discontinue" the rural job scheme.

The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) on Tuesday announced the list of 40 star campaigners for the polling to the 29 municipal corporations, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The list, submitted to the State Election Commission, features a blend of national heavyweights and prominent state leaders to spearhead the party's campaign.

The Congress party's move comes when it has decided to go solo in Mumbai, strongly opposing the "inclusion" of Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in the Maha Vikas Aghadi.

Kerala's political formations are bracing for a decisive day as counting of votes in the local body elections begins at 8 am on Saturday across 244 centres statewide.

With turnout dipping in both phases of polling, the political fronts are closely crunching numbers to gauge which way the public mood has shifted ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

Punjab Finance Minister and senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema, on Tuesday cornered the Congress party over serious allegations of corruption, suggesting that the party should put up a 'menu board' outside its office. He quipped that this board would inform the public about the fixed rates for obtaining tickets for the post of Chief Minister, Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament, Member of Legislative Assembly, and other positions including Panchayat elections.