Gujarat was labelled Hindutva's crucible and Modi was to become the chief 'chemist'. A revealing political saga excerpted from Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay's The Demolition, the Verdict and the Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project.
Apparently not wanting to be left in the lurch if ally Janata Dal-United decided to break the alliance, the state Bharatiya Janata Party unit is bracing itself to contest all 40 parliamentary seats in Bihar.
Despite improving its tally by 12 seats in Karnataka, the poll verdict indicates that the Janata Dal-Secular will have to stay out of power for the next five years. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
The BJP has sought the disqualification of Soren as an MLA accusing him of allocating a mining lease to himself while he held the state Mining portfolio in 2021.
Plans for a 500-car road show were abandoned after the controversy surrounding his release.
'The Shav Sena did kill its own colleague (Congress) in Bihar'
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh paid tributes to late Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, socialist leader Sharad Yadav, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mother Hiraben Modi at its annual general body meeting in Samalkha on Sunday.
Veteran Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Awadh Bihari Chaudhary was on Friday unanimously elected as speaker of the Bihar legislative assembly.
Barring a few exceptions, most known criminal-politicians and their wives, who contested the Bihar assembly polls emerged winners on Wednesday. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United,and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party, top the list of parties with poll winners who have a criminal background.
Nitish Kumar wants to assure the BJP leadership that he will continue to be a part of the NDA. But he also wants to secure a larger number of seats for his party in the 2025 assembly elections in Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
Samal also claimed that the Odisha BJP was confident of winning both the polls.
Notably, both the meetings were presided over by Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, who was sworn in as a minister earlier this week with environment, forestry and climate change portfolio.
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.
With the resignation of Nitish Kumar as Bihar's chief minister, here's a look at the numbers that matter and the possibility of a new political realignment in the state.
The current situation in Kerala politics is perhaps best described as a case of the state's traditional two front politics now seeing a third front (the BJP) muscling in with the potential outcome being either a messy three front affair or a renewed endorsement of the two front pattern but with one of the old fronts compromised or quashed, observes Shyam G Menon.
The Janata Dal (United) has clarified that its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party would remain intact despite recent bickerings, saying it was a "necessity" for the two parties to remain together.
Will Amit Shah's meetings with Nitish Kumar improve BJP-JD-U relations?
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.
The JD-U has five members in the Rajya Sabha, including deputy chairman Harivansh whose fate now hangs in the balance as he may have to resign since his party has moved out of the ruling alliance.
Taking a potshot at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on the issue of advertisements featuring him with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad on Saturday asked the Janata Dal - United leader to sever ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Referring to Kumar's statement to the media -- expressing his disapproval over the advertisements in local newspapers -- Prasad said there was nothing new about the issue.
Party's chief spokesperson K C Tyagi said Kumar has agreed to take over the mantle from Lalan Singh.
In the clip, Prasad and Sahni were seen enjoying fish and roti, with Prasad explaining that he eats quickly during election campaigns.
While the outcome will be known once the meeting is over, more than one of the prospective attendees denied the party's ties with the BJP having worsened to an extent to call for a realignment.
The final round of voting for the Jharkhand Assembly elections is taking place on Wednesday, with the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition seeking to retain power while the BJP-led NDA aims to take control. The election will decide the fate of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his wife, and several other candidates. Key issues during the campaign included alleged infiltration from Bangladesh, corruption, and Hindutva.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
The committee headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar is meeting later on Thursday to adopt its draft report in what is likely to be hotly contested by opposition members of the panel.
A former state minister, Siddiqui can be heard adding "when my children reacted with disbelief, pointing out that I was still living here (in India) I told them they will not be able to cope".
Two-time chief minister and five-time MLA Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy has once again demonstrated his political acumen by bagging a seat in the union council of ministers, despite his party joining the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance just last year.
Can Nitishbabu create an anti-BJP phalanx like Jayaprakash Narayan did in 1977 or will his efforts come undone by Opposition leaders' political ambitions and, of course, the BJP's agency-aided campaign of intimidation?
'We will be happy if Nitishji becomes convenor of INDIA.'
On Friday, former ministers Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini, five BJP MLAs and one from the Apna Dal-Sonelal had crossed over to the Samajwadi Party.
A poll conducted by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies shows Mamata Banerjee will win in Bengal and Nitish Kumar is likely to hold on in Bihar despite the split with BJP, if elections were to be held today
Counting of votes for the 81-member Jharkhand assembly will be taken up on Wednesday to decide the fate of 1,489 candidates who contested the five phase elections from November 25 to December 18.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
Mandya's independent MP Sumalatha Ambareesh on Wednesday announced that she would join the Bharatiya Janata Party, thereby extending her support to the National Democratic Alliance candidate and Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
While many of them have already switched loyalties, others are waiting for right options before moving out of their zones of discomfort.
The parliamentary committee scrutinising the Waqf bill is set to propose that existing 'Waqf by user' properties will remain so if not in dispute or are government facilities but they must be registered before the new law takes effect, providing little relief to Waqf bodies in their unverified title claims.
National Democratic Alliance Convenor Sharad Yadav, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP member Dara Singh Chauhan and RJD leader Lalu Prasad claimed that the inclusion of caste in census at the biometric stage amounted to befooling the people.
Voting has begun for the by-election to 11 of the 18 assembly constituencies in Bihar on Tuesday morning. The polling will decide the fate of 99 contestants, including nine women.
