A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described him as secular, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday thanked him for the praise, saying the words give him comfort.
M I Khan in Patna Nearly twelve years after he left the National Democratic Alliance and resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will share the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at his 'hunkar' rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town on Monday. Paswan, who joined the NDA last week to contest the Lok Sabha polls and took a U-turn on Modi, will appear in public with the BJP's top brass including Modi at the rally. Paswan's son Chirag will also be present at the function. Upendra Kushwaha is another new face that will be at the event. Kushwaha is the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) that joined hands with the BJP last week. Both Paswan and Kushwaha are known as their own caste. Paswan is said to enjoy overwhelming support of his caste -- locally known as Dusadh, the only Dalit caste in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar categorised 21 other Dalit castes as 'Mahadalit' -- poorest of the poor. Kushwaha has been trying hard for last few years to emerge as a leader of his caste -- Koeri, an agrarian backward caste spread across the state. A senior BJP leader said that presence of Paswan and Kushwaha will send a strong political massage among respective castes in Bihar. "It will strengthen the BJP's social support base in Bihar," he said. In Bihar, the BJP is widely seen as an upper caste party. The much-hyped rally is seen as a bid to mobilise support and strengthen the support base in the state. The state in the Hindi heartland that sends 40 Lok Sabha members to Parliament is politically very important. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party had won 12 seats, while the Janata Dal-United won 20 seats, when they had contested as a combined force. It is expected that Modi will target Kumar, who has openly opposed him by repeatedly saying that the prime ministerial candidate should be of nsecular credentials.
Sinha says he is not in favour of the BJP baying for Kumar's blood and calling the break up with JD-U a betrayal.
Known as an astute strategist whose non-political interests range from playing chess and watching cricket to stage performances and listening to classical music, 54-year-old Shah is often hailed as the BJP's most successful president for crafting its way to power states after states.
Discontentment of allies may not look serious now, but the BJP needs to develop a better mechanism to deal with the allies ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls in 2019.
One of the most prominent leaders of the socialist movement in the 1970s, George Fernandes was a senior Janata Dal leader before he founded the Samata Party.
Senior IPS officer Vivek Srivastava was on Wednesday appointed as Inspector General in the elite Special Protection Group which guards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other VVIPs, including the Gandhi family.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy questioned the party's decision to suspend Kirti Azad over the DDCA row.
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A day after reports surfaced about an alliance between the Lok Janshakti Party led by Ramvilas Paswan and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Bihar, a senior leader of the saffron party has strongly spoke out against any such tie-up.
'Modi had not discussed demonetization with me prior to his announcement on 8 November 2016. 'I learnt of it along with the rest of the country. 'I was not surprised when he did not discuss the issue with me prior to making the public announcement. 'It fitted in with his style of making dramatic announcements.' A fascinating excerpt from Pranab Mukherjee's The Presidential Years: 2012-2017.
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has called on India to not 'overreact' to the terror strike on the Pathankot Indian Air Force base saying that both nations were victims of extremism and also accused New Delhi of creating pressure on Islamabad over terrorism.
The Odiya strongman, who delivered stunning victory to the BJP as the in-charge of Bihar unit, straight away got down to work after taking charge of the high-profile ministry.
Bharatiya Janata Party veterans L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha, who had virtually revolted after Bihar poll debacle, met in New Delhi on Thursday to discuss the suspension of MP Kirti Azad and issues related to party leadership.
'We demand immediate release of all public representatives of mainstream political parties and innocent citizens,' the resolution said.
'Nobody would dare directly target Modi, and while there are murmurs about Amit Shah after Bihar, nobody is willing to say this openly. Arun Jaitley, in some calculations, is most expendable for Modi,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah's claim about the party giving first prime minister from the Other Backward Class in Narendra Modi, was on Saturday sharply contradicted by both the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Launching a frontal attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the state of the economy, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said though Singh is a "doctor of finance, the rupee is in hospital".
Let's see which other lawmakers chose funky ways to get to Parliament:
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held a one-on-one meeting with senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani, with whom he is not on the best of terms since the party patriarch opposed his elevation as poll campaign head.
On Tuesday night with veteran BJP leaders raised a banner of revolt against the leadership of Narendra Modi in the wake of Bihar debacle saying that the party has been "emasculated" in the last one year.
The accent on 'making the south feel wanted' was the reason why P Muralidhar Rao, who was dropped as general secretary, was partially reinstated in the central apparatus as prabhari in charge of Madhya Pradesh. 'Pressure from the RSS was brought to bear on Rao's return,' a source said. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi sharpened his attack on Nitish Kumar, saying the Janata Dal-United leader's "arrogance" and "ambition" to become prime minister drove him to split from BJP, and compared the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in Gujarat and Bihar to claim he practised "true" secularism.
70-plus years after Independence, 'Hindu India, metamorphosised as 'Hindutva India', is proving the British right -- and for all the wrong reasons. Mohan Bhagwat should have answers for the why of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Azad is currently serving his third term in the Lok Sabha, representing the Darbhanga constituency in Bihar.
'If Rajinikanth has any interest in joining politics he would tell me first.'
BJP president Amit Shah's influence in the Narendra Modi cabinet revamp was evident from the inclusion of Jagat Prakash Nadda, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
Here's all you need to know about the man who could be India's next president.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi this month will be undertaking one of the longest ever abroad visits by an Indian head of government in recent times. He is scheduled to be on a nine-day, three-nation visit to Myanmar, Australia and Fiji from November 11 to 19. Later in the month, he will be in Nepal to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit on November 26-27.
Speaking at a rally in poll-bound Bihar, Modi said that the Congress has no right to talk about tolerance after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Former colleagues recall the veteran political leader as a visionary with strong ground connect.
'The people are angry. They feel let down.'
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
The vision of a 'New India' would talk about constructing a nation where the so-called appeasement of religious minorities would stop, Hinduism would be accorded "due status" and there will be one law for all citizens, including for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, reports Archis Mohan.
Bihar! The state goes to the polls next year. Narendra Modi has chosen a Bhumihar, Rajput and Yadav as his ministers from the state.
Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi talks about the Bihar polls with M I Khan/Rediff.com
He said that efforts were being made either to close or man such crossings in the next two years.
'If any party talks too much about Muslims, it will lose.'
Fuelling further the bitter quota debate in Bihar polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused his rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad of having come together in July 2005 to demand a review of the policy to provide for religion-based reservation.
Sudhir Kumar Ojha from Muzaffarpur, an advocate known for his penchant to file cases against the high and mighty, has fired a legal salvo at the irrepressible cricketer-turned-politician.
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