The Bihar CM further recounted the work done by his government to boost social welfare in the state and the efforts to strengthen the law and order in the state.
The Centre on Saturday night announced that the probe into alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam NEET will be handed over to the CBI for a comprehensive investigation.
Unprecedented chaos erupted inside the Bihar assembly on Tuesday when police was called inside to assist the marshals in evicting unruly opposition members who tried to physically prevent the Speaker from taking his Chair.
The alliance leaders are getting together for the third round of the brainstorming session in Mumbai, after Patna and Bengaluru, to chalk out their common campaign strategy to take on the NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Without revealing details of the proposed programmes, the leader of the Janata Dal-United, a constituent of INDIA, said that a decision in this regard was taken at the just concluded conclave of the opposition alliance in Mumbai.
Ironically, rival Tamil Nadu governments expend the most on social welfare schemes, especially targeting women and youth and children, but that money comes only by selling more liquor. There is always the specious plea, which has been peddled very many times in the past, that without licensed liquor, drinkers would go after hooch and there could be more hooch tragedies and hooch deaths. No one is convinced, but no one can dispute it either, comments N Sathiya Moorthy.
The JD-U Rajya Sabha MP said Nitish Kumar has built his image such that makes him the best fit for being the convenor of the opposition grouping.
'Akhilesh Yadav made voters think why is the BJP asking for 400 paar.' 'They understood his words and believed the BJP wanted 400 paar only to demolish the Constitution and end reservations.'
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Alleging that the BJP would end democracy if it was not voted out, Kharge said it was because of this democracy that a tea-seller's son could become the prime minister of India and he, the son of a labourer, could become the president of the opposition Congress.
Several BJP-backed state governments have unveiled schemes targeting the poor, women, farmers and students, following the party's setback in the Lok Sabha polls.
An amendment bill is likely to be tabled in the next session of the assembly in February.
Tejashwi took the four MLAs to the assembly in a car he himself drove, in a gesture that was rich in optics as well as symbolism.
All political parties were asked at the dinner meeting on Monday night to suggest names for the alliance and the same would be discussed and consensus would be arrived at during the deliberations.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
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.
It is possible to be blind to this and pretend to carry on as if nothing has happened but that will not change the reality, asserts Aakar Patel.
Noting that he fully respects the Supreme Court order on electoral bonds, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the scheme was introduced to end black money in politics and added that it should have been improved rather than scrapped.
For the first time in seven years the prime minister finds himself at his most vulnerable, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'Nitish may take such a decision because he was the first person who was with the INDIA front.' 'He went back only because he did not get proper encouragement from the Congress.' 'Nitish will take a decision provided there is a strong alternative.' 'If he feels ours is a weak coalition, he will not come.' 'Then, this government will continue for five years.'
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Gohil, who is also one of the party's national spokespersons and a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, made the disclosure on his official twitter handle. 'Due to personal reasons, I have requested our party high command to allocate me lighter work for next few months and to relieve me ASAP as #Bihar in charge,' Gohil tweeted, tagging his party, its units in Bihar, Gujarat and Delhi besides a number of colleagues.
The court order is in the public domain for all to see, the JMM executive president said, adding that he would discharge his duties with commitment.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday blamed the Congress' preoccupation with assembly polls in five states for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)'s inability to build on the momentum it had gained in recent months.
The alliance would announce a coordination committee, which could be of 11 members from principal opposition parties.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday apologised in both Houses of the legislature, as well as outside, for remarks made a day before on the importance of women's education to control population growth.
As voting begins in Bihar in the first phase of assembly elections on Wednesday, the fate of political leaders depends on how the electorate perceives they can solve ground-level issues from reverse migration to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Post Nitish's exit, 17 parties plan to meet on Friday to formulate their future course of action. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has invited Sharad Yadav to join them, reports Archis Mohan.
The speculation was triggered after Shravan Kumar, a Bihar minister, who is also the Janata Dal-United's in-charge for UP, said there were 'demands' that the party boss enter the fray from the adjoining state.
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
Most JD-U ministers favour a return to the BJP-led NDA ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Kumar had recently dumped the 'Mahagathbandhan', of which the Rashtriya Janata Dal was a key constituent, and returned to the NDA fold to form the government with support of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The governor accepted Kumar's resignation, and asked him to continue as caretaker CM till a new government is formed, they said.
He argued that if inflation is low, stable and moving towards the 4 per cent target, why has the RBI not revised downward the bank rate fixed in June 2023?
'Bringing in Dr Mohan Yadav as the Yadav-OBC face from Ujjain as chief minister, and a scheduled tribe leader Jagdish Devda from Mandsaur district, and a Brahmin face Rajendra Shukla from Rewa, the BJP is making an attempt to put in place a new caste equation in the state keeping an eye on the general elections next year.'
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.
Senior Janata Dal-United leader Dhananjay Singh pitched for Opposition unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and said party workers in Uttar Pradesh want Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to contest the elections from the state's Phulpur constituency.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
Kumar, who is now heading an alliance government in Bihar which includes the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and the Left, has reached out to leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, all of whom are opposed to the BJP but not very comfortable with the grand old party either.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said it will 'depend on the situation' who becomes the face of the Opposition to take on the BJP, but added she has no problem if someone other than her leads.
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