'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
The Bihar assembly elections in October will be the biggest electoral test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi so far, scholars from a top American think-tank have said, noting that the ramifications of its results will be felt far away from the state's borders.
He served as the Union health minister in Modi's first term from November 9, 2014 to May 30, 2019.
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.
This was a difficult election to win, but the Modi card, the caste divide and the division in the Opposition vote bank helped overcome many challenges.
Suman, who held the SC and ST welfare portfolio, is the national president of HAM founded by his father Jitan Ram Manjhi, a former chief minister.
As the BJP does soul searching for its humiliating defeat in Bihar polls, senior party leader Arun Jaitley on Monday admitted "irresponsible statements" made during elections "changed the narrative".
The Left parties said they have come together to provide an option to the public to provide "people's rule" in the true sense.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself sounded more open to such a possibility in a recent interview.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Tuesday took out processions across the state, urging people to be on guard against the Bharatiya Janata Party's alleged politics of communalism.
'BJP's ultimate ambition is to control Bihar independently.'
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
This was the first major election in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, the women of Bihar were not intimidated by the pandemic and came out in large numbers to vote.
Manjhi said he had held rallies across the state where the "consensus" was to get "rid" of the Lalu-Nitish combine.
Asaduddin Owaisi, who was once the leader of a little-known outfit confined to the old city of Hyderabad, has emerged as a powerful voice of Muslims in the country in recent years.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
Experts believe the market will fall between 1 and 3%.
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.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Friday claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had 'begged for forgiveness for past betrayals' before his parents, party supremo Lalu Prasad and ex-CM Rabri Devi, before they allied with the Janata Dal-United president in 2022.
HAM's Bihar president Brishen Patel told reporters on Wednesday that his party can snap the alliance from the BJP after discussions on this matter.
Amid a buzz that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may emerge as the opposition's prime ministerial candidate, his party Janata Dal-United said on Friday if other parties want so, then this is an option.
"The majority is very thin and anything can happen. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party -- JD-U finished third and if anyone is celebrating the win, it's a joke. The BJP has done well, for which it had to do a lot of political strategising," he said.
Protecting the leadership from any attack, the Bharatiya Janata Party has ruled out holding anyone responsible for the rout in the Bihar assembly elections and rejected criticism even from within that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's quota remarks was one of the major reasons for the defeat.
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
'I felt anguished when I read the reports about my speech at the convocation of Mahatma Gandhi Central University. I wanted to underscore that the then Congress government had wanted to set up a central university only in Gaya but agreed to establish another one in Motihari (East Champaran) at my instance. Work began when the BJP was in power at the Centre. But it remains the fact that the university came up as a result of my initiative'
Maintaining that the INDIA alliance is for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and not for assembly polls in any state, the Congress on Friday asserted that the opposition bloc of 27 parties exists and will fight together.
'Modi is not assuring the nation that if he gets back to power in 2024 and remains in power till 2029, he will not change the Constitution.'
'We are allies and equals. We have to run Bihar collectively'
They entered the Bihar poll battle to protect and carry forward their fathers' political legacy, but many of them could not win their own seat though some tasted victory.
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 on Sunday won four seats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal retained the Mokama assembly seat in the bypolls to seven assembly constituencies in six states.
Rumblings of discontent in the Bharatiya Janata Party followed the party's disastrous performance in Bihar assembly elections on Sunday.
"The era of 'lalten' is gone. In the last six years consumption of electricity has increased 3 fold in Bihar," PM Modi said. "Voters of Bihar have taken a resolve that they won't let those who have a history of making the state 'Bimaru' come near them," he added.
Manoj Tiwari is the only sitting MP whom the BJP has retained.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
The move by Sharad Yadav (74), who had been keeping low after battling health issues for months, is seen as an effort to rehabilitate his colleagues and other associates as his LJD could never become a serious force after its launch following his separation with Janata Dal-United leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
LJP candidate from Matihani constituency, Raj Kumar Singh defeated Janata Dal-United's Narendra Kumar Singh aka Bogo Singh by a slender margin of 333 votes.
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