Polling was held in 78 assembly segments of Bihar in the third and final phase of the state elections on Saturday in which 2.35 crore voters were eligible to decide the fate of 1,204 candidates.
Former union minister and Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan, who lost the recent Lok Sabha elections, said in Varanasi on Wednesday that his party would contest the 2010 Bihar assembly elections in alliance with Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and also welcomed Congress party to their fold.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday snubbed the Rashtriya Janata Dal, headed by his arch-rival Lalu Prasad Yadav, stating that he had forged alliances 'by mistake' with the opposition party which 'did nothing' while in power.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced that it will set up mobile phone deposit counters at polling stations to ensure that voters do not have to carry their phones inside the polling booth. This decision was taken after it was observed that several voters were concealing their phones in their clothes due to the absence of a facility to deposit it. The ECI has also rationalized the permissible norms for canvassing in line with the electoral laws to 100 meters from the entrance of the polling station.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Congress Legislative Party leader Ashok Ram figure in a list of 77 candidates announced by the Congress for the six-phase Bihar assembly elections beginning on October 21. While Kaiser, who was appointed the PCC chief a few months ago, will be contesting from Simri Bakhtiarpur segment, Ram will fight the elections from Kusheshwar Asthan seat.
The party's national executive meeting chaired by its president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar flagged price rise and unemployment as "burning issues"
The anti-NDA alliances are still nebulous.
Leading Pakistani newspapers on Monday ran front-page stories on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP's rout in the key Bihar polls, in which Pakistan figured as a major issue during campaigning that saw party president making the controversial "firecrackers would go off" remark.
Voters of Bihar have made it clear that their aspiration and priority are development alone, Modi said in a series of tweets, adding that the people's blessings for the NDA's good governance show what are the state's dreams and expectations.
Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh elections, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra have arrived in Bhopal as part of the ruling party's programme wherein every legislator will be allotted one assembly seat each that they are supposed to visit to take stock of the ground situation, party leaders said.
At the meeting which lasted for more than half an hour, the leaders of the two parties are understood to have discussed the key issue of seat-sharing among alliance partners in the NDA, which also includes Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP.
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.
'But this Budget alone will not fix what ails the Indian economy.'
Tejashwi, who has been chosen by the anti-National Democratic Alliance grouping as its chief ministerial candidate, is seeking re-election from Raghopur seat he won on his maiden outing in electoral politics in 2015.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
Among the major political parties, chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United is contesting in 35 of the 71 seats, followed by its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (29), while the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal has fielded its candidates in 42 and its coalition partner Congress is in the fray in 20 assembly segments.
In a significant move, the Centre on Wednesday announced that caste enumeration will be part of the next population census, with the inclusion of caste details for the first time since independence hailed by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies as a historic step to help design truly equitable and focused policies.
The scale of victory could be gauged from the fact that from 143 seats in the 2005 elections, Kumar's campaign on the basis of his government's performance helped the ruling alliance notch a spectacular tally of 206 seats in the 243-member House.
Amid this unrest came the verdict of the Allahabad high court on June 12, 1975 that found Gandhi guilty over discrepancies in the electoral campaign, which led to the Emergency on the night of June 25.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday claimed that victory of the Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance in the Bihar assembly elections reflects the national mood against Congress party.
The BJP may win more seats in the February 5 assembly election, but not enough to trump AAP, notes Ramesh Menon.
The RJD has fielded six women candidates, some of them are wives of bahubalis.
'Nitish Kumar may take a decision to dump the BJP alliance by November.'
The Election Commission has examined the menace of "paid news" that was rampant during the last Lok Sabha elections and decided to include the cost of such news in the expenditure of candidates to check if they exceed the ceiling on expenditure by resorting to "paid news" instead of issuing advertisements
While amending the rules on the suggestions of the Election Commission, the ministry also allowed "COVID-19 suspected or affected persons" to use the postal ballot facility.
The meeting in New Delhi etc is just the BJP being nice to the man who helped it realise its dream by stabbing Uddhav in the back, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
A day after the by-election results in Bihar, though leaders of the Rahtriya Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed victory after the RJD and BJP retained the Mokama and Gopalganj assembly seats respectively, the fact that both seats were won with a reduced margin indicates that there is nothing to celebrate for either party.
The meeting was attended by Congress in-charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Randhawa, CM Gehlot, RPCC president Govind Singh Dotasra and other leaders.
The gross expenses made by the party, including by the central headquarters and the state unit between the announcement and completion of the elections, stood at nearly Rs 71.73 crore, while the gross receipts during this period were to the tune of Rs 35.83 crore.
The Congress's second AICC session in Gujarat post-Independence is being held on the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's party presidency and the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
The former deputy chief minister was replying to queries about the JD-U president's outburst inside the assembly on Tuesday where he had told Yadav, "It was I who helped your father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, become the leader of opposition when he did not have the support of even his own caste men."
The crowds were stunned into silence for a few seconds, after which they erupted in applause for the 69-year-old leader who has ruled the state for nearly 15 years.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Tuesday welcomed the Union Budget and said it focussed on youth, farmers, women, and has 'substantial allocations' for Maharashtra, but the opposition slammed the annual financial statement, claiming it neglected the western state and only seeks to please the saffron outfit's partners in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
Sinha would oversee the presidential poll process as an international observer.
Uddhav Thackeray criticized BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for his controversial remarks amid the Marathi-Hindi language row, accusing him of trying to divide people and disturb harmony.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
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