The longest-serving chief minister of any Hindi- speaking state, Nitish Kumar seems to have acquired an aura of indispensability when it comes to the highest seat of power in Bihar.
Tribals constitute 7-8 per cent of the state's population, and are a deciding factor in 47 assembly seats and seven Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the Junglemahal districts of Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Jhargram in southern Bengal and Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar in the north.
JD-U leaders contend that R C P Singh may have misled the BJP leadership into believing that Nitish Kumar was ready for a smaller share in power at the Centre.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
The loss of trusted allies like Shiv Sena in recent past and the realisation that in the caste-dominated politics of Bihar, BJP cannot do without Nitish Kumar, forced BJP to finally give Singh and the JD-U their honourable due.
'Nitish Kumar was not happy about promoting R C P Singh as Union minister.'
Nitish Kumar has to make an existential choice: Between governance and politics, argues Aditi Phadnis.
A day after meeting Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday held talks with AAP leader Sanjay Singh and Apna Dal (K) chief Krishna Patel in the run-up to the 2022 assembly polls.
The Rajya Sabha member was not keeping well for the past few days and was admitted to a private hospital in Lucknow, where he died around 7 pm.
For the post of deputy chief minister, the names of Swatantra Dev Singh, Baby Rani Maurya, Brijesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya are in talks.
Former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma on Friday quit the Congress and rejoined the Samajwadi Party, a move which is likely to shore up the SP's prospects in the 2017 assembly polls.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
Voting for the seventh and final round will be held on March 7 for Varanasi and its eight adjoining districts.
Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Rupjyoti Kurmi was allegedly assaulted by Central Reserve Police Force personnel on Friday when he had gone to inquire about the kidnapping and subsequent release of two garden labourers in Assam's Jorhat district.
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
Sources in various parties suggest that two lakh votes of the Patel community, locally known as OBC kurmi, for which mother-daughter led Apna Dal (S) and Apna Dal (K) are competing and over one lakh of OBC Rajbhars would be crucial in deciding the outcome of the assembly seats in Varanasi.
Sunday's denial of Rajya Sabha ticket to Union minister indicates that an end game to the JD-U-BJP rift may be in sight.
Despite being the MP from Lakhimpur, Teni is not actively involved in campaigning for the assembly polls as according to party insiders, the BJP does not want to risk its chances by using him.
The tussle for power between Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and health minister TS Singh Deo appears to have quietened at the top, but the feud is very much visible at the lower level in the ruling Congress.
The SP's bid to dent the BJP's formidable social equation is playing out in a big way in the Poorvanchal or eastern region of Uttar Pradesh as the ruling party is working overtime to keep its caste equation unharmed.
The Assam State Women's Commission, in its complaint, said that the former MP, who is known to have sided with a group of dissident Congress legislators, commented that Jorhat Superintendent of Police Sanjukta Parashar's 'unusual proximity' with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was a cause for concern.
Less than half the ministers in Team Yogi are not long-term BJP members. Many old-timers have been dropped.
The poll results will depend much on whether the caste and community coalition worked out by Akhilesh can withstand the onslaught of the Hindutva forces who have increased their efforts to polarise the electorate on communal lines.
Keshav Prasad Maurya's election from Sirathu in Kaushambi will be among the keenly watched contests in UP. If he and the BJP win, will he be luckier this time?
When I first spoke about Nitish Kumar being PM material, many of you scoffed at me. Now you can see... it has happened often that I say something and it becomes a widespread sentiment later on," JD-U leader Upendra Kushwaha said.
'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
It is now a different time in Bihar. It is a different place -- one in which Raghuvansh Prasad Singh's options are very limited, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'Both the BJP and SP have workers and cadres across the state, and now it will boil down to which party manages booths smartly and gets its voters to come out.'
Adequate security and Covid safety measures have been put in place for the electoral exercise.
The BJP-led alliance in Assam is all set to form the government for the second successive term winning 72 of the 102 seats declared so far and is leading in three others.
The private college and hospital has been in the thick of controversy following irregularities and fraud, raising questions on why the Chhattisgarh government wants to acquire the debt-ridden institution by paying double the amount of its valuation.
The Bihar CM has made a sagacious attempt to consolidate his extremely backward castes (EBC) support base while trying to make a dent into RJD's Muslim-Yadav combine.
For the first time, Akhilesh is leading the SP almost single-handed into a major election, but he is not the only one running the show Shikha Shalini reports.
In the event of a triangular contest the winning party will need about 40 per cent of the votes polled. And it is here that the votes of the numerically smaller communities will come into play.
The victims, labourers of Salmira tea estate, fell ill after they drank the illicit brew on Thursday night, the police said.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
Joining hands with smaller parties with a political base in different castes was a part of the BJP strategy as it won big in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Yogi expands UP Cabinet in attempt to balance caste, regional aspirations head of the assembly polls early next year.
Verma, a Kurmi who recently formed the Samajwadi Kranti Dal (SKD) after breaking away from Yadav, has fielded candidates in almost all seats in the area and appears set to corner a large chunk of votes from his community.
The West Bengal chief minister said no refugee living in the state will be deprived of citizenship. "You have an address, ration card, voter card, driving licence. There is no need to get this new card of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Don't worry, you will always find this didi beside you. Your family is my family. I will not let anybody take away the rights of our people," she asserted.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances