'Nitish Kumar may take a decision to dump the BJP alliance by November.'
Sanjay Jha's importance lies in his connections to senior BJP and RSS leaders to maintain a smooth relationship within the NDA government in Bihar and at the Centre and to contest the 2025 Bihar assembly elections together under Nitish Kumar's leadership.
Uncertainty shadows the composition of the two main political alliances in Bihar with several parties still exploring their choices as the Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for the assembly polls.
Nearly 3,000 polling booths have been identified as sensitive, and special security arrangements, including drone surveillance, have been ensured at some of these locations.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
The term of the 243-member Bihar legislative assembly comes to an end on November 29.
About 2.34 crore voters, spread across 78 assembly segments of the 243-strong assembly, will decide the fates of 1,204 candidates, including the Speaker and 12 members of the state cabinet.
If the four major political parties -- the ruling Janata Dal-United, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party -- besides the major left parties are taken into account, then the women candidates in the fray numbered just around 90
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
Uddhav Thackeray, his son and Maharashtra tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray figured in the list of campaigners.
Jaitley was the party's election in-charge for Bihar in the recent assembly polls also.
'The southern states will have no voice.' 'Political parties in future need to focus only on one region, the northern region, to win the general election.'
The RJD has fielded six women candidates, some of them are wives of bahubalis.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, known for his hardline Hindutva views and 'bulldozer justice' approach, has spoken out about his policies toward Muslims, the Waqf board, and his vision for India. He asserts that Muslims will receive a fair share of development in Uttar Pradesh, but not special concessions. He also criticizes the Waqf board for its alleged appropriation of government properties and calls for its reform. Adityanath defends his 'bulldozer justice' policy, claiming it is necessary for infrastructure development and removal of encroachments. He also discusses his vision for India, emphasizing the importance of Hindi as a national language and the need for unity across different linguistic groups.
The party has said resources should now be focussed on curbing the COVID-19 crisis and tackling floods in the state and not holding the polls.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday summoned party general secretary in-charge of Bihar Mukul Wasnik and asked him to explain his position on the allegation that he had sough financial favours to allot seats in the recent Bihar assembly elections, where the party faced a thorough drubbing.
The report prepared by ADR also stated that 81 per cent are crorepatis.
Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh elections, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra have arrived in Bhopal as part of the ruling party's programme wherein every legislator will be allotted one assembly seat each that they are supposed to visit to take stock of the ground situation, party leaders said.
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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Tuesday welcomed the Union Budget and said it focussed on youth, farmers, women, and has 'substantial allocations' for Maharashtra, but the opposition slammed the annual financial statement, claiming it neglected the western state and only seeks to please the saffron outfit's partners in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
The Congress party suffered a crushing defeat in the Delhi elections, failing to secure a single seat in the 70-member assembly for the third consecutive time. Key candidates, including Sheila Dikshit's son, Sandeep Dikshit, lost their deposits. The only consolation for the party was a slight improvement in its vote share, which they attribute to a vigorous campaign and a renewed focus on contesting elections independently. However, the defeat raises questions about the party's ability to compete in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, particularly in light of its performance in other recent state elections.
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.
The CEC said 7.2 crore single-use gloves for voters to press electronic voting machine buttons, more than seven lakh units of hand sanitiser, about 46 lakh masks, about six lakh personal protection equipment (PPE) kits, 7.6 lakh units of face shields have been arranged.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren on Sunday met Jharkhand Governor Santosh Kumar Gangwar and staked claim to form the government, soon after leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state unanimously elected him as the legislature party leader.
Polling was held in 78 assembly segments of Bihar in the third and final phase of the state elections on Saturday in which 2.35 crore voters were eligible to decide the fate of 1,204 candidates.
The meeting was attended by Congress in-charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Randhawa, CM Gehlot, RPCC president Govind Singh Dotasra and other leaders.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
Addressing an election meeting, Dr Singh repeatedly eulogised Lalu.
Raut said a Congress-AAP alliance would have crushed the BJP in Delhi assembly polls, as counting trends show the Arvind Kejriwal-led party losing many seats amid the saffron surge.
Former union minister and Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan, who lost the recent Lok Sabha elections, said in Varanasi on Wednesday that his party would contest the 2010 Bihar assembly elections in alliance with Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and also welcomed Congress party to their fold.
Voters of Bihar have made it clear that their aspiration and priority are development alone, Modi said in a series of tweets, adding that the people's blessings for the NDA's good governance show what are the state's dreams and expectations.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
At the meeting which lasted for more than half an hour, the leaders of the two parties are understood to have discussed the key issue of seat-sharing among alliance partners in the NDA, which also includes Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Congress Legislative Party leader Ashok Ram figure in a list of 77 candidates announced by the Congress for the six-phase Bihar assembly elections beginning on October 21. While Kaiser, who was appointed the PCC chief a few months ago, will be contesting from Simri Bakhtiarpur segment, Ram will fight the elections from Kusheshwar Asthan seat.
Tejashwi, who has been chosen by the anti-National Democratic Alliance grouping as its chief ministerial candidate, is seeking re-election from Raghopur seat he won on his maiden outing in electoral politics in 2015.
Hailing the Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi assembly polls victory as 'historic', Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched a stinging attack on the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress, saying the country needs a serious political transformation and not politics of 'dhoort-ta (deceit) and moorkhta (foolishness)'.
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