Rajya Sabha

The party has already announced its support for Kapil Sibal, who is contesting as an independent candidate. Another SP nominee is Javed Ali. By announcing support to Jayant Chaudhary, the Samajwadi Party has made the first move to cement the SP-RLD alliance for the Lok Sabha elections. Jayant is expected to file his nomination papers on Friday.

In UP, where the elections to 11 seats is due, the BJP can win seven and the Samajwadi Party three - and the latter will still have 20 surplus votes. However, a problem will arise for the 11th seat if the BJP fields its eighth candidate, which will necessitate an election. And it is here the surplus votes will be key. However, the ruling BJP has an advantage as it needs less than 10 votes but the opposition is short of 15 votes.

The Congress can win eight seats on its own, but the fate of a few senior leaders is unclear -- Kapil Sibal, one of the most vocal voices in the G-23 group, Anand Sharma and P. Chidambaram, who are hoping to get a renomination. Sources say Sibal may get the support of Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh like the last time. He may get the excess votes of SP and its allies.

"The Chief Minister is the supreme authority on this matter and he will take decisions on Rajya Sabha candidates," Lalan Singh said. His statement came soon after R.C.P. Singh said that he did not know about his selection as a Janata Dal-United candidate for the Rajya Sabha election.

The upper house tenure of Singh, who is the sole JD-U representative in the Narendra Modi government, is ending on July 7 this year. JD-U national President Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh on Monday announced the name of Anil Hegde as one of the Rajya Sabha candidates but the decision on another seat has not been taken yet.

Out of 59, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has currently 25 seats while its allies, the Janata Dal-United had two and AIADMK three. After adding one Independent, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has at present 31 seats out of the 59. It will be very challenging for the NDA to retain these 31 seats because as per Assembly calculations, it may lose 7-9 seats this time.

The FIR against Singh was registered at a Bhopal police station on the basis of a complaint lodged by the BJP district (Bhopal) president Sumit Pachauri on Tuesday. Singh, who is also the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, was booked under Section 153 (a), 295 (a), 465 and 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code, sources told IANS.

The notice has been issued on the basis of a criminal case filed against Samajwadi Party MP Bachchan by Anuj Daga -- son of former BJP legislator Jitendra Daga, accusing her of cancelling a land sale deal, even after receiving a portion of the payment. Daga's lawyer Enosh George Carlo, talking to IANS on Saturday said that in the complaint, Jaya Bachhan has been accused of demanding a higher price than the agreed amount.

The Budget Session started on a positive note without disruptions and forced adjournments during the first 12 full sittings, the best such a stretch during the last about three years. The House witnessed forced adjournments on six days, all during the second part of the session. The Members sat beyond the scheduled hours on 11 days. In all, 21 of the 27 sittings were free of forced adjournments.

The controversy started after Chatterjee, late Monday evening, shared in social media a fake post relating to the death of the former prime Minister. Since then the Trinamool Congress secretary and the party spokesman launched scathing attacks against Chatterjee without naming the latter. At around 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Ghosh made a counter post on his Facebook wall on this issue.