According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Saini's elevation as Haryana chief minister fits in with a pattern that has gathered pace in the BJP after the Congress and its allies like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar began making an aggressive bid to woo the largest group of communities and politically most significant, especially in Hindi-speaking states, by pushing for a caste census.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ananth Kumar on Friday said that his party will contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections along with its alliance partner the Janata Dal-United in Bihar.
The former chief minister also sought to distance JD-S's alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the case, amid attacks by the ruling Congress seeking their response on the issue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
As the first step, senior BJP Vice President and Convenor for the Lok Sabha polls, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, convened an hour long meeting with Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, who is officially with the United National Progressive Alliance. RLD members have been sulking against a non-starter alliance stuck with Bahujan Samaj Party of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.
The Congress is a dismal third in 17 of the 19 constituencies where the party's general secretary (east) campaigned in Uttar Pradesh.
'One needs to understand what kind of means the BJP use to bring other party leaders in their party.' 'They are unscrupulous politicians and money plays an important role.'
Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself sounded more open to such a possibility in a recent interview.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday favoured a thorough inquiry into allegations of phone tapping with the help of Pegasus spyware which has led to a logjam in Parliament.
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
Reservation Bill introduced in Lok Sabha
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary on Sunday called on Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav, at a time when the state was witnessing a big political churn.
The country now has six national parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, NPP and AAP.
Several candidates, including Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the BJP's Amritsar candidate, are promising resumption of India-Pakistan trade via the Attari-Wagah land route.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
Hijacking of an aircraft will now entail capital punishment in the event of death of "any person" as Parliament on Monday passed a bill to provide widen the ambit of the law in dealing with this crime.
At the core of Nitish Kumar's decision was a cold political calculation. He assessed that the RJD's support base was unlikely to vote for JD-U candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. He was unsure of winning even half a dozen if he stayed with the RJD and the Congress.
The assembly bypolls in Bihar and Maharashtra, scheduled for November 3, are set to be the first electoral test of the popularity of the respective state governments after a change in the political alignment.
'We all are united and intact. We have been working for the people and will continue to serve people. We have done a lot of developmental work in Bihar. From constructing good roads, bridges, electricity, and drinking water facilities to several other infrastructural projects, we have done a lot of work in the state. The electorate will make the final decision'
'What social justice is Tejashwi talking about?' 'Muslims in Bihar are asking we are 18%, and you are giving us 2 seats.'
A senior JD-U leader said Lallan Singh has expressed his desire to give up the top party post.
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
Five days before the Big Opposition rally in Patna, one of the Mahagathbandhan's allies will walk out of the ruling alliance.
An adverse outcome against the BJP in UP can well be taken into its stride by the ruling combine at the Centre, argues Virendra Kapoor.
Amid the raging feud in Samajwadi Party, its senior leader Shivpal Yadav reached Delhi on Wednesday evening to invite 'like-minded' socialists for the party's 25th anniversary celebrations on November 5, a move seen as an attempt to stitch an alliance for the state assembly polls.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party got a shot in the arm on Monday with two sitting Independent members of the Lok Sabha from Bihar -- Putul Kumari and Om Prakash Yadav -- joining the party ahead of the general elections.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
If the BJP gets only 200 seats and wants to remain in power, Modi will have to make way -- either for a proxy of his choice, or for an internal rival, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The winter session of Lok Sabha began on a stormy note on Thursday with members of Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal creating uproar over the demand for hike in sugarcane prices leading to adjournment of the House. As soon as the obituary references were over, SP Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RLD President Ajit Singh led their party members into the well of the House on the issue.
The April 11 polling will decide the fate of several political bigwigs.
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.
Party's chief spokesperson K C Tyagi said Kumar has agreed to take over the mantle from Lalan Singh.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and ally RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary are unlikely to participate in the Yatra due to "preoccupation" with their party programmes, their party leaders said.
