Congress' electoral debacle has claimed its first victim with senior leader Pranab Mukherjee resigning from the post of general secretary owning moral responsibility for the party's rout in Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections. Mukherjee, who was in charge of Haryana in the AICC, tendered his resignation to party President Sonia Ganghi on October 7. Accepting responsibility for the defeat, he told reporters on Sunday that it was "an error of judgment" on his part to have taken the decision to support the Bansi Lal government and later to withdraw it.

BJP nominates Oswal's son

The BJP has nominated Bimal Prasad Oswal, the eldest son of the slain candidate Pannalal Oswal, as the party nominee for Dhubri parliamentary seat in Assam where elections would be held on October 28. The election was deferred following the abduction and subsequent killing of Oswal by Ulfa militants. Besides Bimal Oswal, seven other candidates, including Abdulhamid of the Congress,the ruling alliance partner CPI's Allauddin Sarkar and Ahmed Hussain of Nationalist Congress Party, are in the fray. Oswal is an advocate and also owns an Ayurvedic manufacturing firm at Dhubri.