The event was also attended by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
The Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar will go for a floor test on August 24 to prove its majority in the state assembly.
A senior JD-U leader said Lallan Singh has expressed his desire to give up the top party post.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
Following the death of Lok Janshakti Party leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Ramdas Athawale of Republican Party of India is the lone member from the Bharatiya Janata Party allies in the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
Currently, CM Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis are the only members of the cabinet.
Raut also highlighted that the party had goodwill toward the opposition's Presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha.
The BJP's year has been marked by a remarkable ability to adapt its message and methods, rebounding from Lok Sabha election setbacks with improbable wins in Haryana and Maharashtra. The party's campaign machine, drawing on the strength of the RSS and its affiliates, has demonstrated a capacity to shift focus and respond to regional dynamics. While the BJP faces challenges, its adaptability and Modi's unchallenged leadership suggest a continued strong presence on the Indian political landscape.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday took the Congress to the cleaners over making the 2024 general elections about the protection of the Constitution, saying Indians voted on the plank only once when they threw out the Indira Gandhi government in 1977 after the Emergency.
'When voting clause by clause on Waqf came up in the JPC, the TDP and JD-U supported the BJP on each and every clause.'
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
Prashant Kishor expressed the view that the recent 'chintan shivir' could not achieve "anything meaningful".
Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accused the BJP of a "conspiracy to save Home Minister Amit Shah's skin" following a clash in Parliament over allegations of disrespect towards B.R. Ambedkar. She alleged that BJP MPs instigated the violence and pushed opposition members, including Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, to prevent them from entering Parliament. Gandhi also challenged BJP MPs to say "Jai Bhim" and accused them of having "violent intentions" and insulting the legacy of Ambedkar.
The new government will have to spur investment to bosot economy, says Fitch.
Banerjee claimed that some people will try to "engineer riots" during elections and urged everyone "not to fall prey to the plot".
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan in Patna.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Markets ended at record highs on Monday on hopes that the new government would unveil reforms in the infrastructure space.
Markets ended lower, amid a range-bound trade, tracking weakness among Asian peers.
Among the 30 Sensex companies, Power Grid, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance Industries and NTPC were the biggest gainers. Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Titan were among the laggards.
"Is being part of Modi's 'political family' a 'guarantee of protection' for criminals?" Rahul Gandhi asked.
'The opposition wants the country to run on the basis of Shariat but this cannot happen'
The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.
Indices rallied almost 16 per cent from September till end of 2013 partly on expectations that the BJP-led NDA would form the government in 2014.
Bhandari, a three-term Congress legislator who was also a minister in the state in the past, joined the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders, including Union Minister Piyush Goyal and the party's national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam.
Among the 30 Sensex companies, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, State Bank of India, NTPC, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro emerged as the biggest gainers. Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints, Mahindra & Mahindra, Nestle, IndusInd Bank and Sun Pharma were among the laggards.
Intellectuals can debate the difference between what was achieved during the Congress regimes and the BJP-led NDA, the PM said.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Thursday launched his party's high-tech 'Parivartan Rath' campaign for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls and appealed to people to vote for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for development of the state and to end the 'jungle raj'
Renewed buying interest in late trades on hopes of BJP-led NDA win pushed indices to record closing highs.
An RJD leader said that the two brothers came together at the insistence of Misa Bharti, who made them sit together and explained that by fighting each other they will end up falling into the trap of the BJP-led NDA, which wants to "finish off the party.
The BSE Mid-cap index ended down 0.1 per cent and the Small-cap index ended down 0.5 per cent.
Terming the UGC directive on the rollback of the four-year undergraduate programme as a decision taken in "haste", the Congress on Tuesday said the step was going to "boomerang" on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government.
Ambani's Reliance has refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
Although sources in Jaganmohan Reddy's party say that a patch-up between the YSR Congress and the Congress in highly unlikely, they would still prefer Pranab for President as the UPA is better than the BJP-led NDA, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha has asked newly-appointed party president Rajnath Singh to name Gujarat Chief Minister Narendre Modi as the party's official prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The people of Amethi want to rectify their 'mistake' of 2019 and Congress workers as well as leaders are demanding that Rahul Gandhi contest from the constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party's Uttar Pradesh chief Ajay Rai said.
With Nitish Kumar on its side, a BJP-led government may feel increased pressure to conduct a nationwide caste-based census.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.