Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
The party says it has trained over 1,00,000 workers in the last one year.
Venkaiah Naidu told the members that provocative statements are being used by anti-BJP forces to deflect the attention from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda.
Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi, the JD-U spokesperson accused him of "not being serious" in fighting corruption.
The Janata Dal-United's decision to break its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party not only changed the political equation in Bihar but also created a buzz in the political circle from Patna to Delhi that whether Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman and JD-U MP Harivansh will continue on his post or going to resign.
Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Janshakti Party on Thursday night stitched a pre-poll alliance with the Ram Vilas Paswan-led party returning to the NDA fold, 12 years after it quit over Gujarat riots, and it will fight seven out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar under a seat-sharing deal.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
Modi's decision to bring Shah in his cabinet signals that he will now play a crucial role in the government.
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday slammed the opposition alliance INDIA as a collection of arrogant dynasties who will take India back by two centuries as he exuded confidence that people will bless the "garib ka beta" with a record-breaking mandate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The announcement made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to repeal the three contentious farm laws is expected to bring to an end the year-long confrontation between the government and the farmers, which has left more than 700 dead in its wake.
Government-controlled oil-marketing companies (OMCs) have held back petrol and diesel price revisions for a week and are expected to continue doing so, ostensibly owing to political reasons. It appears that the Centre has informally conveyed to the three major OMCs to not revise fuel prices for the time being, two people in the government said. This informal directive follows the talks between the Centre and states on cutting taxes and bringing the auto fuels under the good service tax regime not fetching the desired results, so far.
"Give up arms and come for talks or our forces will hunt you down," the home minister said in election rallies in Jammu and Kashmir.
After the first meeting called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Delhi and attended by 17 parties, the leaders said that it has been decided that a common candidate who will 'uphold the democratic ethos of the country' will be chosen as the opposition nominee.
The Trinamool Congress on Thursday dismissed that it has reached an understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha where the National Democratic Alliance does not have a majority.
The Vodafone India head said hope is high now with the new government coming with a strong mandate and he is sure that the new government will quickly start to address some of the blocking factors for stronger economic growth.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its two Assam allies -- the Asom Gana Parishad and the United People's Party Liberal -- on Wednesday 'almost finalised' their seat-sharing pact for the Assam assembly polls and a formal announcement will be made in a day or two, sources said.
Notwithstanding Bharatiya Janata Party's assertion there will be no witch-hunt if it comes to power, Uma Bharti has said that Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra will be in jail if the National Democratic Alliance comes to power. Bharti also alleged that Vadra had made money by breaking all norms.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh today accused the National Democratic Alliance government of turning the programme to clean Ganga as a "Hindutva project" by attempting to polarise politics through the initiative on the holy river.
In a letter to NDA Chairman and BJP veteran leader L K Advani, with whom he shares an uneasy relationship, Yeddyurappa requested him to involve Karnataka Janatha Party in all the deliberations of NDA by inviting it to all the meetings.
Kumar said after the meeting that all parties from Bihar spoke in one voice on the need for a caste-based census, and asserted that statistics about different castes will help in formulating development schemes effectively as many of them have not benefitted so far in line with their actual population.
With the "secular alliance" successfully halting a Bharatiya Janata Party victory in Bihar bypolls, an elated Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar today expressed satisfaction over the "experiment" and said the results would have been better had the parties discussed seat sharing in better way.
As in the past, many of the exit polls gave a clear majority to the BJP-led NDA going way off the mark in ground realities while those that predicted victory for the 'grand alliance' did not anticipate the sweep.
Siddaramaiah asserted that the Karnataka government was a 'strong' one and ridiculed state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa for repeatedly claiming that the coalition will collapse.
Asserting that Bihar will see a tsunami of development if the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance was voted to power in the state, party chief Amit Shah on Sunday hit out at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying he was just a mascot for the "corrupt" Congress and "symbol of jungle raj" Lalu Prasad.
The National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu swept the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality in Rairangpur, in this nondescript, tribal-dominated town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, ahead of her journey to Delhi.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
How Modi retrieves the situation and how he enlists new allies in the next two years will show if the BJP is fighting fit, report Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
The fulcrum of victory or defeat of parties attempting to form a government is held by smaller players and those willing to defect.
Out of the 26 seats where Modi addressed election rallies, the BJP won only 10.
He asserted that the government purchase of farm produce will remain, adding that the mechanism of minimum support price will continue in the same way it always has.
In renaming TRS and repositioning it as a 'national' party, KCR is also eyeing a pole position in opposition politics ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The former union home and finance minister also alleged that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government would not have taken the bold decision had Jammu and Kashmir been a "Hindu-dominated" state.
APCC president Ripun Bora said following discussions with various parties, it has been decided that the Congress will join hands with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist and the Anchalik Gana Morcha.
Modi knows how to turn Gujarati pride into an emotive issue at election time and a Gujarati President would have its own electoral resonance and significance, note Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
All opposition parties should come together to get rid of the BJP-led NDA government to ensure "Modi-mukt Bharat", he said, reminding the audience of BJP's "Congress-mukt Bharat" slogan.
Several ministers in his government joined Naidu in the fast, which was held in all 13 districts of the state.
Claiming that that the law is a rejection of secularism, the Kerala CM said his govt will question its validity on all platforms.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar he will oppose a case of sedition against JNUSU oresident Kanhaiya Kumar, reports M I Khan.
