Today in Politics: Modi’s Kuwait visit; Shah in Tripura for NorthEast plenary

India and Kuwait have institutionalised their cooperation through mechanisms such as the Joint Commission for Cooperation (JCC) that was established during the visit of Kuwaiti Foreign Minister to India in December 2024, which is headed at the Foreign Minister level, seven new Joint Working Groups (JWGs) have been established in the areas of trade, investment, education, technology, agriculture, security, and culture.

Punjab municipal corporation elections

Punjab will see its fifth election of the year Saturday with the municipal corporation polls scheduled to take place in the state.

The election cycle started on March 16, when the code of conduct came into effect in Punjab for the Lok Sabha polls that were held in the state on June 1.

Ten days later, on June 10, the Jalandhar (West) by-election was announced — and the code of conduct again came into place in the Jalandhar district.

In September, following a Supreme Court order, Punjab conducted panchayat elections after a gap of more than five years.

November saw the bypolls for four Assembly seats that were vacated as the sitting MPs contested the Lok Sabha elections.

Now, the stakes are high for all political players in Punjab as the state heads for its first municipal elections after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) entry into Punjab politics in 2014, and its subsequent rise to power since. The last polls for five municipal corporations and 43 municipal councils, which are going to polls on December 21, were held in 2018.

Punjab has 13 municipal corporations. Eight of these went to polls in February. The remaining five — Patiala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Phagwara — will vote on December 21. All five were won by the Congress in 2018.

The AAP is going into the elections with hopes high after the November bypolls saw the party winning three of four Assembly seats — Chabbewal, Dera Baba Nanak and Gidderbaha.

While Chief Minister and AAP leader Bhagwant Mann will hope that the party’s successful run from the bypolls will continue, the municipal elections are also a test for new AAP Punjab chief Aman Arora, who took over on November 23.

For the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), with its sliding fortunes, it is a fight to get back into the game. The party stayed away from the recent Assembly bypolls after former Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and other senior SAD leaders were charged guilty of violating the Sikh religious code of conduct and had to serve a punishment. With the SAD’S footprint in Punjab declining over the years, leaders are hoping to put up a fight at least in its pockets of influence.

For the BJP, these are its first solo local body elections, having parted ways with SAD in 2021. The BJP is believed to be primarily eyeing urban seats.

Like the BJP, the Congress is also betting on urban seats, and hopes to reverse the setback of the bypolls. All four seats that went to bypolls were vacated by Congress MLAs who were elected to the Lok Sabha. But the Congress only managed to win Barnala, with its candidate Kuldeep Singh Kala Dhillon defeating the AAP’s Harinder Singh Dhaliwal by almost 2,200 votes.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived in Agartala Friday evening to attend the 72nd North East Council (NEC) plenary meeting on Saturday.

Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, along with governors, chief ministers of all the eight northeastern states, and senior officials, will also join the deliberation on the future roadmap for the region.

— With PTI inputs