Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
Acharya will contest from Saran while Bharti will try her luck in the Patliputra LS constituency.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing the National Democratic Alliance partners to form the government at the Centre, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United head Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu have emerged as potential kingmakers.
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).
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday asserted that 'something major' will take place, after Lok Sabha results are out, in Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seemed to be 'not going along well' with ally Bharatiya Janata Party.
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.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) was in the grip of a crisis on Saturday with the Janata Dal-United saying the alliance was collapsing amid indications that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will switch back to the National Democratic Alliance, prompting the Congress to allege that the Bharatiya Janata Party is doing its best to cause a 'mini implosion' in the coalition.
The cancellation of UGC-NET, amid the raging row over NEET, led to questions being raised over National Testing Agency's (NTA) capability to conduct exams of larger magnitude.
Police scoured places of worship in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain and Khandwa in their hunt for the third shooter wanted for Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Siddique's killing.
Polling for the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections will take place on Saturday, June 1, 2024, with 57 seats going to the polls across 8 states.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav also have cases registered against them.
Pawar is expected to play a crucial role in deciding the future course or action of the opposition alliance.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Saturday maintained that 'there is no confusion' among the 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) partners in Bihar.
'Mere communal-secular binary of political rhetoric will hardly help the Congress to attract enough votes to get power.'
'The aged with retina and finger print issues are not getting access to pension and ration.' 'If all becomes digital -- what'll happen to the poor?'
Amid a brewing political storm in Bihar, the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal on Monday said it was ready to "embrace" Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal-United if he broke ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A special CBI court in Godhra on Saturday granted the probe agency four-day custody of Jay Jalaram School's principal Purushottam Sharma, teacher Tushar Bhatt, and middlemen Vibhor Anand and Arif Vohra, all of whom are alleged to be involved in irregularities in the May 5 NEET-UG exam in Godhra.
'BJP's ultimate ambition is to control Bihar independently.'
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
The credibility of the examination system has also come under question, they said.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
He said the Congress has already begun preparation for the Lok Sabha polls with the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' led by party leader Rahul Gandhi and his own visit to various places across the country.
KC Venugopal mentioned that the Congress's goal is to diminish the BJP's representation in Uttar Pradesh by securing half of the seats in the state.
Ahead of senior BJP leader Narendra D Modi's election rally in Karakat on May 25 to support National Democratic Alliance candidate Upendar Kushwaha, the BJP finally acted against Pawan Singh, who refused to withdraw from the fray.
The Congress will get three ministerial berths in the new Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, a senior party leader said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
Raut said such friendly fights should happen on all 48 seats in Maharashtra as well as in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Bihar Congress announced on Sunday that they will oppose senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani's anti- corruption 'Jan Chetna Yatra' due to commence from Sitab Diara in Saran district on October 11 by showing black flags.
'The central BJP leaders were determined to push Hindutva hard, and it failed.'
The Congress party is in talks with various political parties to form a secular alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Bihar assembly polls, its spokesman Rajeev Gowda said on Monday.
A voter turnout of 10.82 per cent was recorded till 9 am on Saturday in 58 constituencies in six states and two Union territories where polling is underway in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
In a protests against the decision of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to invite BJP to form the government despite falling short of the required numbers, the Congress has been demanding they be called to form the government in Goa and Manipur as it had emerged as the largest party in the 2017 assembly election.
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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in New Delhi in the presence of Rahul Gandhi.
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