There are states that could swing either way and change the results of the 2024 general election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats, as the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 50 seats.
Chirag Paswan cryptically added that he was not ruling out the possibility of siding with the RJD.
Scenes from the National Democratic Alliance meeting at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi, July 18, 2023.
Fissures surfaced among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners ahead of the Jharkhand assembly elections as the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Saturday expressed disappointment over the announcement of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Congress contesting 70 of 81 seats in the state.
Modi claimed teh LJP wanted more seats than what the Bharatiya Janata Party was willing to give.
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.
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.
The opposition on Sunday asked the Centre to allow discussions in the Parliament on the United States prosecutors' bribery charges against the Adani Group even as Union minister Kiren Rijiju made it clear that the matters to be taken up in the two Houses will be decided by their authorised committees with the consent of the respective Chair.
All the major political parties in Bihar, be it the ruling Janata Dal-United Bharatiya Janata Party combine or the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Janshakti Party combine, face gradual revolt within their respective rank and file over denial of party nominations to prospective candidates of their choice.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
The country now has six national parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, NPP and AAP.
Paswan, one of the most prominent Dalit leaders of the country who had been a part of several governments headed by rival parties, died on Thursday at the age of 74.
UP's representation in the government could diminish, given the BJP's decreased seat count in that state.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
Several opposition parties have claimed that the mandate of 2024 Lok Sabha elections was against the ruling haratiya Janata Party, even though it was able to form the government with support of other parties.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
Once rolled out, theaterisation will be the biggest military reform in the country. It will see the creation of unified theatre commands within the 1.7 million-strong Indian armed forces.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
Glimpses of lady MPs as the nation's lady finance minister presents the Budget for the next financial year on Wednesday, February 1, 2023.
The members of the cabinet committees included Union ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party and its National Democratic Alliance partners like Janata Dal-United, Telugu Desam Party, Janata Dal-Secular, Shiv Sena and Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas.
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.
Paswan demanded the imposition of President's Rule in the state followed by fresh elections.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday took a major step to implement its key plank of "one nation, one election" as the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the concept of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, sources said.
In a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, Chirag Paswan on Sunday cast aside his ambivalence and announced that he will campaign for the saffron party in bypolls to two assembly segments in the state.
The seat had fallen vacant following the death of Lok Janshakti Party founder and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
The NDA with 92 MLAs has the support of 17 independents and the role of the LJP MLAs to reach the magic figure of 122 in the 243-member assembly is crucial.
With Nitish Kumar on its side, a BJP-led government may feel increased pressure to conduct a nationwide caste-based census.
Four times more liquor has been seized in the 2024 election than during the 2019 polls.
SP and SBSP leaders had shared the dais in Mau on Wednesday and announced that they would together trounce the BJP in the 2022 elections.
Kumar, whose NDA-allied Janata Dal-United has won 12 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, has emerged as a key player in government formation
Startling allegations of backstabbing were made against the Bharatiya Janata Party by MLAs and MPs of the Janata Dal-United on Tuesday at a meeting in Patna after which Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar pulled the plug on the alliance.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Wednesday described as "high indiscipline" and "arbitrary" the support extended by its Nagaland unit to the newly formed government in that state where the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance returned to power.
The Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP)-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance won 37 seats in Nagaland Assembly election, retaining the power in the state with Neiphiu Rio set to assume office as chief minister for a fifth consecutive term.
Rio also appointed 24 MLAs as 'advisors' to various departments in his opposition less government.
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.
Narendra Modi will take oath as the prime minister for a third consecutive term on Sunday evening as President Droupadi Murmu has invited him to form the government.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
'The assailants knocked at the gates of Yadav's house around 5.30 am and opened fire as soon as he opened the gates,' the Bihar Police tweeted.
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