A top BJP leader from Bihar told ANI that Fadnavis is going to play a crucial role in the Bihar assembly election and he is associated with the Bihar BJP on purpose
Voters of Balgudar village in Bihar's Lakhisarai district on Wednesday boycotted the assembly elections in protest against the construction of a museum on a playground in their village.
Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Bihar Chandra Bhushan Kumar said two-third or 2.7 crore votes of the total over 4 crore polled in electronic voting machines in the three-phase polls have been counted till 5.30 pm.
The second round of the voting was held in the 17 districts amid tight security and strict coronavirus guidelines in place. The voting percentage at 10.30 pm was 54.64, according to the Election Commissions Voter Turnout Apps provisionally data.
The Sena-UBT pointed out that the Congress only spoke about itself in the Ahmedabad meet, and INDIA or Bharat was nowhere in the discussion.
A BJP ally since the mid-90s, Kumar split with the party in 2014, only to realign three years later. In 2022, he again parted ways, vowing to dislodge the BJP from power at the Centre and bring together parties from across the country to form the INDIA bloc.
Leader of opposition in Bihar assembly, Prem Kumar of the BJP, had raised the issue of illegal slaughterhouses in the assembly last week, demanding their closure and cancellation of licences.
While the BJP went back to the drawing board to recraft its political and governance outreach and regained momentum by notching up surprisingly big wins in a string of assembly polls, the burst of fresh optimism in the main opposition Congress and other INDIA bloc parties fizzled out.
EC officials said over 1 crore votes were counted till around 1.30 pm out of nearly 4.16 crore votes polled in the three-phase elections.
'The Shav Sena did kill its own colleague (Congress) in Bihar'
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
A careful calculation of the BJP's support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party's national president chaired a meeting of the "core group" here.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday issued a three-line whip to all of its Lok Sabha MPs asking them to be present in the House for the passing of the Union Budget 2025-26.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
The move came even as deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, while speaking in the state assembly earlier in the day, sought to go by the version of the Tamil Nadu DGP who has rubbished reports of attacks on Hindi-speaking people in that state.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
A total of 71 assembly segments of the state's 243 constituencies are voting in the first phase in which nearly 2.15 crore voters will decide the electoral fate of over 1,000 candidates.
'Nitish does not want to talk about development, unemployment, education, health infrastructure and poverty'
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar left the dais before the national anthem at the inauguration of an international sports event in Patna, sparking controversy. Opposition RJD president Lalu Prasad and his son Tejashwi Yadav accused the chief minister of disrespecting the national anthem. The Sepak Takraw World Cup 2025 is being held at the Pataliputra Sports Complex, with 300 players and support staff from 21 countries taking part. Kumar, 74, walked towards the participants and greeted them with a "namaste" and a wave of the hand before the national anthem was played. A video clip of the incident was shared on social media by Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav, who both alleged that the chief minister "disrespected the national anthem".
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.
Arora gave the example of recently-held JEE and NEET examinations, saying thousands of candidates from various district across India came out to write the test.
The party is likely to take a decision in a couple of days, with the nomination for the first phase of three phase-polls set to begin from October 1, they said.
Dominic Xavier wonders whether Bihari women will remember what Nitish Kumar has done for them or whether electorate amnesia will set in.
The Bihar assembly election results appeared to belie predictions made by most exit polls which had given a clear edge to the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandhan.
The message from Sunday's event will undoubtedly reverberate globally. It's a landmark occasion that will be remembered for generations and will inspire many other states to introduce the story of Rajendra Chola into school curricula, says Tarun Vijay.
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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar engaged in a heated exchange with Leader of the Opposition Rabri Devi in the Legislative Council, dismissing her as "inconsequential" without her husband, RJD president Lalu Prasad. The spat stemmed from RJD MLCs wearing badges promoting quota hikes passed during Tejashwi Yadav's tenure as Deputy CM, which Nitish Kumar perceived as an attempt to claim credit for the populist move. Kumar also remarked that Rabri Devi was only propped up by her husband when he was in trouble, referring to her becoming Chief Minister in 1997 while Lalu Prasad faced corruption charges. The war of words between the two rivals has intensified, with the RJD accusing Kumar of losing his mental balance and being unfit to rule.
'The RJD is a family centric party and its top leadership's main concern is only to promote the family.'
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
The Election Commission on Thursday asked its Delhi chief electoral officer to probe the Aam Aadmi Party's complaints against Bharatiya Janata Party leader Parvesh Verma and allegations of additions and deletions in the electoral roll of the New Delhi assembly seat.
Sale and consumption of alcohol was completely banned in Bihar by the Nitish Kumar government in April, 2016.
The order issued by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla is a slight modification of the reopening guidelines issued on September 30 where the political gatherings were allowed from October 15. The political gatherings can be held only outside the containment zones.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
Sources said the Congress, which has 19 legislators in the Bihar assembly, will go by what the Rashtriya Janata Dal decides and its presence will help strengthen the coalition.
The development can change the power dynamics within the ruling alliance, even if it manages to retain power in the state and Kumar continues to be chief minister.
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.
The 243-member assembly is witnessing a fierce competition for the chief minister's post, and as per current trends, the NDA is comfortably ahead of the Opposition camp.
Taking part in a debate on the motion of confidence moved by the new 'mahagathbandhan' government, Yadav accused the BJP of having tried to 'break' Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party in a bid to 'wipe out socialist ideology'.
With four seats each won by junior allies Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular and Vikassheel Insaan Party, the NDA bagged 125 seats in its kitty, three more than the number required for a simple majority.
