Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state for the recent leak of a government competitive examination question paper and subsequent cancellation of the test, Chaudhary said because of such incidents youngsters are not getting appointments, and they have to migrate and work in other places.
Amid speculation that he may do yet another volte face and return to the National Democratic Alliance, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday visited Buxar district, bordering Uttar Pradesh, to attend a function where senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey was also present.
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.
'I have been battling cancer for the last six months. Now, I feel that the time has come to inform people about it'
P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal were among the 41 winners declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
Sanjay Jha's importance lies in his connections to senior BJP and RSS leaders to maintain a smooth relationship within the NDA government in Bihar and at the Centre and to contest the 2025 Bihar assembly elections together under Nitish Kumar's leadership.
'The voice coming out of every home is Modi, Modi, Modi...' 'He is in people's hearts. Who can stop us from 400 paar?'
After the Mahagathbandan rejected his overtures, the need for political survival forced Pashupati Kumar Paras to stick with the NDA. The BJP may reward him with a governor's post after the election.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
The Bharatiya Janata Party sealed its alliance with the Telugu Desam Party on Saturday for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, with former chief minister of the southern state N Chandrababu Naidu asserting that the combine will sweep the polls.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
Delhi faces a severe financial crunch and the deficit is largely due to numerous welfare schemes without adequate revenue flowing in. The success of welfare schemes and electoral promises will need careful financial planning and out of the box thinking to whip up additional revenue, notes Ramesh Menon.
While Wadiyar, scion of the erstwhile Mysuru royal family, is making his political debut from the Mysore Lok Sabha segment, Lakshmana is state Congress spokesperson and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's confidant.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
BJP candidate and former chief minister Bhajan Lal's grandson Bhavya Bishnoi on Sunday defeated his nearest rival and Congress nominee Jai Prakash in the Adampur assembly seat by-election, retaining the family bastion.
If Rashid cannot be the king, he could be the kingmaker after October 8 when the results to the J&K assembly are declared.
Moderate to high turnout was recorded in 13 assembly constituencies across seven states where bypolls were held on Wednesday amid sporadic incidents of violence in Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
Oppn members went into the area of treasury benches carrying a black banner, which demanded Shah's resignation, as Speaker Om Birla continued with proceedings of the House.
That would be three more seats than what the BJP won in 2014.
Raising the matter during Zero Hour, Chatterjee, a BJP member, said Lord Shri Ram signifies noble thought and honesty and the state of West Bengal should be run by people who believe in these.
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 BJP at 43 is a work in progress, with total ideological continuity and much substantive change in political method and style, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Glimpses from all the action from the campaign trail.
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
The BJP won 74 seats in the 147-member Odisha assembly and was leading in four more seats, the Election Commission of India.
These meetings with Pawar has fuelled speculations about the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a third front against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Granting SCS to the state has been a long-pending demand of the JD-U supremo and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, whose Bihar cabinet had even passed a resolution last year requesting the Centre to grant SCS to the state.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
Leaders of 38 parties have confirmed their participation in a meeting of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be held in the national capital on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda said.
Upset about being snubbed by INDIA, Nitish Kumar is weighing his political options. BJP would like him back knowing that it would jolt the Opposition alliance, perhaps irreversibly.
He died at AIIMS in New Delhi at 9.45 pm, hospital sources said.
'Nitish Kumar's newly-formed alliance with BJP would unravel before the 2025 assembly polls in Bihar'
In a ghastly incident that has sent shock waves across Bihar, former state minister Mukesh Sahni's 70-year-old father was found stabbed to death at his native home in Darbhanga district, a top police officer said.
To repeated questions, the SP chief asserted that the Congress was 'very much in the alliance'.
The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from its lone southern citadel with a comfortable majority in a morale booster win that will be key for reviving its electoral fortunes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The "black ink and the deadly attack" cannot suppress the voices of farmers and labourers, Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait said after ink was thrown on him in Bengaluru.
Kora said it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who ensured that proper respect was accorded to tribals, and also took a stand for women over various issues.
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.
The Bombay high court on Thursday said creative freedom and the freedom of expression cannot be curtailed and the censor board cannot refuse to certify a film just because there is an apprehension of a law and order problem.
