In a stunning blow to the BJP on Wednesday, the party lost bypolls to all the three Lok Sabha seats it contested, including its bastion Gorakhpur, and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, besides Araria in Bihar.
Modi earned his spurs as a doughty leader of the Opposition in the assembly, a post he held till 2004 when he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bhagalpur.
Seeking a third straight term, Modi is not just looking to stamp his electoral dominance on India but also chasing history with another consecutive victory equalling first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's record.
The political uproar continues in Bihar, as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted to make R C P Singh the Eknath Shinde of Bihar and isolate the Janata Dal-United party.
Ramesh said the current limit of 50 percent is not explicitly mandated by the Constitution, but has been decided through various Supreme Court decisions.
Acharya will contest from Saran while Bharti will try her luck in the Patliputra LS constituency.
Stalin said he spoke to Nitish Kumar over phone and assured him that no harm would befall workers and conveyed to him that 'all workers are our workers who help Tamil Nadu's growth and nothing will happen to impact them, I have assured him'.
'At the right time, people of Bihar will give a befitting response to him and the one who makes him dance to his tunes, the prime minister'
His scheduled visit to Sashastra Seema Bal's Patna Frontier on Sunday morning was cancelled due to 'unavoidable reasons', a statement said.
The survey will encompass various indicators of backwardness such as occupation, educational qualification along with the type of educational institutions attended by members of the households to gauge the social and educational conditions of the backwardness in Odisha, the official said.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said people of the country want change of power, but evaded a direct reply on whether his party would join an opposition alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
'Reports of the JD-U joining hands with the BJP again is baseless.'
The credibility of the examination system has also come under question, they said.
Kartik Kumar, a Rashtriya Janata Dal MLC, who became the state's law minister in the new Nitish Kumar government, resigned hours after being moved to a lesser significant Sugarcane Department on Wednesday night.
The order for Mohan's release follows the cabinet nod for amending the prison rules under which, previously, those involved in serious cases like the killing of a government servant could not be released even after the elapse of 14 years.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Veteran Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Awadh Bihari Chaudhary was on Friday unanimously elected as speaker of the Bihar legislative assembly.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
A Janata Dal-United leader was allegedly murdered in Bihar's Nalanda district in the early hours of Monday, the police said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United said it was the right time to withdraw the general consent to the CBI.
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.
There were strong indications that the minister may announce the cancellation of the exam and action against NTA DG Subodh Kumar Singh, who was summoned by the ministry earlier in the day.
Two passengers were killed and 34 injured when eight coaches of the Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Express derailed near Gonda in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, an official said.
'They (INDIA bloc leaders) were not doing anything. Nothing happened after the first meeting of INDIA bloc that took place in Patna last year. Now, I have come back to the same place, where I was earlier (with NDA)'
The Delhi-based Centre for Environment and Food Security has filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking a thorough probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scam in Bihar.
The government has not divulged the amount of the fine to be imposed on first-time offenders.
Yadav said all parties have joined hands against the BJP in the Bihar assembly, and added "now this is going to be replicated across the whole country".
'The Congress should have played a more active role to take care of the needs of regional parties. It failed.' 'Taking this into account, Nitishji took the final decision with the full support of the JD-U.'
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.
After a marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha that lasted for a month and a half, the results were declared on Tuesday.
The party rank and file seemed bewildered at the sudden turn of events which has taken the spotlight away from the "Har Ghar Tiranga" programme which the BJP was planning to hold with much fanfare.
"If you see in the context of alliances and statistics, then this is the strongest alliance government," Modi said while addressing newly-elected MPs and leaders of the NDA from across the country following his election as leader of the ruling bloc ahead of his government's swearing-in on Sunday.
The opposition is likely to put up a joint candidate for the July 18 presidential election despite not having numbers on its side, and consultations in this regard have already begun.
Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
Sources within the INDIA bloc said appointing Nitish Kumar as convenor would lend credibility to the INDIA bloc's demand for conducting a nationwide caste census.
Pawar is expected to play a crucial role in deciding the future course or action of the opposition alliance.
According to the police headquarters in Patna, "more than a dozen police personnel and power department employees" sustained injuries in the incident that took place barely "100 meters away from Barsoi police station".
Thackeray said leaders of the Congress and other parties are holding talks with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Telegu Desam Party (TDP) head Chandrababu Naidu to explore the possibility of their entry into the bloc.
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