The BJP's outreach to Paswan, son of late stalwart Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan, underscores its push to bring him back into the NDA's fold after he walked out of the alliance in Bihar in the 2020 state assembly polls to campaign against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was then the BJP's biggest ally.
Maintaining that the INDIA alliance is for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and not for assembly polls in any state, the Congress on Friday asserted that the opposition bloc of 27 parties exists and will fight together.
"We have decided to approach the Supreme Court to get justice despite having numbers on our side. The floor-test was bulldozed by the Speaker," Manohar Parrikar, GDA leader, told PTI on Monday night.
In a rarely seen event in Parliament, House marshals were summoned to restore calm.
The 'aura of invincibility' around Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been 'shattered' by the Indian voters who gave the Opposition a new lease on life, this is how the international media described the outcome of India's general elections.
The Samajwadi Party also criticised the inclusion of tainted ministers in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet.
The Congress party on Wednesday promised high economic growth for all, a boost to the corporate sector and end to unemployment, poverty, hunger and illiteracy, if it is voted back to power.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
In a significant political development, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday that an alliance with the Congress was finalised for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, which is going for its maiden assembly polls after being reorganised into a Union Territory.
This would give BJP the chance to explore Constitutional options for government formation if there is no clear-cut mandate, explains Sheela Bhatt.
Legislators of the ruling coalition partners in Jharkhand expressed solidarity with the Hemant Soren government on Wednesday and said the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader will continue as the chief minister.
At the outset, all eyes will be on the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Monday when it is expected to review the stay granted by the Supreme Court on the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in the 'Modi surname' case and decide on the revocation of his Parliament membership.
All 39 constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday reposed faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and resolved to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly under his leadership.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The ruling BJP-led coalition ended Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's over four-decade dominance in Rampur with its ally Apna Dal-Sonelal winning the Suar assembly by-election by a margin of 8,724 votes.
With the strain and anxiety of the longest Lok Sabha polls now behind the leaders, governance, with consensus, is the next step.
"Ajit dada has resigned and he is with us. Uddhav Thackeray will be the chief minister of Maharashtra for five years," Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said.
Thomas A Sangma of the ruling National People's Party-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) coalition was on Thursday elected as the speaker of the 11th Meghalaya assembly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday pulled off a stunning performance in Maharashtra winning a record number of seats to propel the party-led ruling Mahayuti alliance to a landslide victory while the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) stormed back to power in Jharkhand on the back of a spectacular showing by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi asserted that the Congress will protect the Constitution and the reservation system at all costs and foil "conspiracies" of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
"The governor has returned to Ranchi...so far he has not issued any order," an official source in Raj Bhavan said.
A statement issued by his party said'NDA will achieve spectacular success in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls in Bihar if these are fought projecting Kushwaha as the leader of the coalition.'
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
They cited the lack of trust in the leadership of O Ibobi Singh and said that due to him, the Congress failed to form the government even when it was the single largest party in the state.
The monsoon session of Parliament which saw many disruptions since it began on July 20 over the Manipur violence issue, is set to become more turbulent with the government likely to introduce a bill in the Lok Sabha to replace the Delhi services ordinance.
Headed by former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, the JD-S has long been a strong third player in the southern state where the Congress and the BJP have been the two main parties.
'We will be happy if Nitishji becomes convenor of INDIA.'
Besides law and order, the long standing demand for junking Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, economic woes of the land-locked state which has hardly any industries, are expected to figure high on the agenda of the unfolding electoral battle between the two main parties with smaller local parties such as National People's Party and the Naga People's Front chipping in with their own demands.
Punjab Minister Anmol Gagan Mann on Wednesday said her Aam Aadmi Party will fight on all 13 parliamentary seats in the state.
Bijendra Prasad Yadav, the senior-most minister in the state cabinet, also lamented that the lack of cohesion was causing allies to engage in allegations and counter allegations, a job best left to the Opposition.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Unlike the other Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments, Assam has not proposed doing away with most labour laws for a certain number of years. Instead it has proposed introducing fixed-term employment to help both workers and industries, and seeks to take more firms out of the ambit of laws governing factories and contract workers.
He will be around for another crack at the elections, and a clear majority, predicts Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'I am in the NDA as of now,' Kushwaha said.
Nine of the turncoats were fielded by the BJP and 10 by the Samajwadi Party.
The ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is surging ahead of the Grand Alliance spearheaded by the Congress in Assam.
Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Saturday said he will contest the next Lok Sabha polls from Hajipur, rebuffing his nephew Chirag Paswan who has staked claim on late father Ram Vilas Paswan's constituency.
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.
No chief minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party and Kumaraswamy's Janata Dal-Secular could manage to complete the full term in Karnataka.
Those who quit included deputy chief minister Y JoyKumar Singh.
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