Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
In a letter, dated February 16, 2024, issued by the Cabinet Secretariat department, headed by the CM, officials of the Health, Road Construction, Urban Development and Housing and Rural Works departments have been asked to review the decisions taken during the previous grand alliance government in the state.
Sources said Paswan's party may contest on five of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
'The West has always opposed a strong nationalist leader in India and Narendra Modi is no exception.' 'The West prefers weak leaders who are amenable to Western pressure and Mr Modi's independent stance is not to the liking of the West,' asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In a poor village of daily wage earners in Siwan, Bihar, people speak about their hard lives and why they vote.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been receiving invitations for functions scheduled much after the Lok Sabha polls, which showed the 'entire world believes his return to power is inevitable'.
'They (INDIA bloc leaders) were not doing anything. Nothing happened after the first meeting of INDIA bloc that took place in Patna last year. Now, I have come back to the same place, where I was earlier (with NDA)'
'Nitish Kumar's newly-formed alliance with BJP would unravel before the 2025 assembly polls in Bihar'
"Word of the day! Definition of *snollygoster* US dialect: a shrewd, unprincipled politician. First Known Use: 1845. Most recent use: 26/7/17," Tharoor had tweeted in 2017.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Saturday maintained that 'there is no confusion' among the 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) partners in Bihar.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
A close aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday confirmed that a 'proposal' to make the Janata Dal-United president convener of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) came up at the meeting of coalition leaders through virtual mode.
"Public does not who 'Kharge Pharge' is. Even I don't know he was the president of Congress. Nobody knows him. Masses don't know him. The public knows Nitish Kumar. Nitish Kumar should become prime minister. He is popular all over India," Mandal said.
Tyagi, the JD-U's political advisor and spokesperson, was replying to queries about the suggestion that followed Kumar's speech at a party rally in Patna on Wednesday.
The BJP cited the amendments to the Representation of People Act, 1951 and the relevant portions of the Reserve Bank of India Act and the Income Tax Act for not revealing its donors.
The Congress leadership is upset over Nath's remarks against many leaders of the INDIA bloc, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Janata Dal-United supremo Nitish Kumar, over seat sharing.
'Singh was forced to submit his resignation to Nitish Kumar few days ago and convinced to announce his offer to resign at the party meeting.'
Kumar, who heads the Janata Dal-United, moved the motion soon after the House passed a proposal for the removal of Rashtriya Janata Dal's Awadh Bihari Chaudhary as Speaker of the assembly.
Most JD-U ministers favour a return to the BJP-led NDA ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
If Naidu returns to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, he will be the second major regional leader to have done so after Janata Dal-United president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the opposition and joined its fold last month.
The DMK leader's reference made was to one of the INDIA bloc meetings in which Nitish Kumar reportedly stressed on use of Hindi.
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Chosen for the country's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna a day ahead of his birth anniversary, Karpoori Thakur has been the veritable 'Jan Nayak' or people's hero of politics in Bihar, whose legacy parties cutting across ideologies seek to claim.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The high-level committee on 'one nation, one election' approached 62 parties out which 47 responded -- 32 in support of holding elections simultaneously, 15 against it.
Leader of the opposition in the assembly, Vijay Kumar Sinha of the Bharatiya Janaat Party, sat next to Choudhary and he was seen exchanging pleasantries with Kumar.
The BJP hopes to deepen its support among backward castes, especially the Extremely Backward Classes, in Bihar following the announcement of Bharat Ratna for former chief minister Karpoori Thakur, a leader who enjoys admiration from backward satraps of various hues.
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee will not be part of the virtual meeting on Saturday morning as she is preoccupied with prior engagements, they said.
Prasad was approached with queries by journalists at the airport, where he had reached, alongside son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, to board a flight to Delhi for the coalition meeting on Tuesday.
Kumar said that Rahul Gandhi's claim that the caste survey in the state was held under the Congress' pressure was 'nonsensical'.
A day after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar formed the government in Bihar in alliance with the National Democratic Alliance, hectic lobbying started for the post of assembly speaker, and other legislators to be included in the council of ministers.
'Nitish Kumar has no vision for the people of the state. He also had no justifiable reason for ditching us and going back to the BJP-led NDA'
It also asked why the data shared pertained to a period from April 2019 even though the scheme for anonymous political funding was introduced in 2017.
The Congress has not released a poll manifesto but a declaration of appeasement.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, against whom the newly formed National Democratic Alliance government has moved a no-confidence motion, on Wednesday dug in his heels.
Justice Khanna said all the intervention applications filed on the issue will also be taken on April 16 when the final hearing will take place.
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