A day after his landslide victory in the Bihar assembly polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was on Thursday elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance legislature party in the 15th Bihar assembly.
With 12 MPs, the JD-U is the second biggest Bharatiya Janata Party ally after the TDP's 16, and leaders of the saffron party are in touch with allies over ministerial berths and other issues.
The 243-member assembly is witnessing a fierce competition for the chief minister's post, and as per current trends, the NDA is comfortably ahead of the Opposition camp.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
'The political situation in the country will depend on the electoral outcome in Maharashtra.'
How Modi retrieves the situation and how he enlists new allies in the next two years will show if the BJP is fighting fit, report Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
Adequate security and Covid safety measures have been put in place for the electoral exercise.
A senior BJP leader from Bihar said that a strategy has been worked out to ensure Tejashwi's defeat from the Raghopur seat in Vaishali district, from where he is also the sitting MLA.
If the Chirag Paswan-led LJP posts a good result, the young leader could become a formidable caste challenger in the years to come and a permanent fixture as a BJP ally, reports Aditi Phadnis.
On May 2, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will step into Bihar and challenge the Nitish-Lalu order in the state.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
Markets will be open from 5.45 pm to 6.45 pm on Wednesday.
Kumar, who heads the Janata Dal-United, moved the motion soon after the House passed a proposal for the removal of Rashtriya Janata Dal's Awadh Bihari Chaudhary as Speaker of the assembly.
'There were deep discussions within the Sangh Parivar before this decision was made.' 'They were convinced, and only then did the Modi government proceed with the caste census.'
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Election Commission is considering advancing the polls by a month to avoid the May heat, reports R Rajagopalan.
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.
He reaffirmed that parties opposed to the BJP can win with a "huge majority" in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls if they agree to join hands.
An estimated Rs 39 crore in cash and over 1.67 lakh litres of illicit liquor has been seized by Election Commission-appointed teams in the Bihar assembly elections till now.
Winning an election may be a breeze for the BJP but the aftermath of victory isn't always painless.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
Recalling his association with Jaitley, the CM said that "I had very close association with Arun Jailey ji since 1998 when I got the opportunity to work in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government... I am deeply hurt with passing away of Arun Jaitley ji."
On August 18, the apex court convicted Singh in the case, overturning the orders of the trial court and the Patna high court that had acquitted him.
Om Prakash Rawat, a former Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer who till recently was Secretary at the Centre, was on Thursday appointed as the new Election Commissioner.
The Janata Dal-United state unit in Manipur has withdrawn support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Biren Singh government and the party has informed its decision to governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla.
'The Election Commission has to deal with money power, intimidation tactics and caste politics.'
The party is likely to take a decision in a couple of days, with the nomination for the first phase of three phase-polls set to begin from October 1, they said.
But the atmosphere is now conducive for the Mahayuti to continue in power in Maharashtra thanks to the government's people-centric schemes, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is giving promises that it cannot execute, he said.
The BJP's manifesto speaks about the Prime Minister's vision of making 'Atmanirbhar Bihar'.
A day after the National Democratic Alliance finalised the seat-sharing arrangement for the Bihar assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the 'big-brother' and the largest party in the state to contest the number of seats.
Union minister Chirag Paswan, who joined politics after a failed Bollywood debut, has no plans to make a comeback in films and also jokes that he is such a 'bad actor' that even his Lok Sabha colleague and first co-star, Kangana Ranaut, will not agree to share the screen space with him again.
"We got a lot of confidence from our success in Bihar, and we will continue that momentum," Owaisi told reporters after their meeting in Lucknow.
The closed-door discussions between Kishor and Pawar at the latter's residence lasted for about one-and-a-half hours, sources said.
The Congress chief added that the governments of Delhi and Bihar are 'captive governments' -- demonetisation, lockout, trade-off, economic bandit, farm-barn captive, bread-employment detention.
Kumar recommended Sahani's expulsion from the cabinet to the governor in the evening, after a written submission to the effect by the BJP, hours after the minister for fishery and animal husbandry was given the ultimatum to withdraw forthwith a recent notification.
The assembly secretariat released the business agenda of the House for Monday, when the budget session will commence, with a customary address by the Governor to members of the bicameral legislature.
Jan Adhikar Party leader Pappu Yadav joined the Congress on Wednesday and announced the merger of his outfit.
The LJP received 5.68 per cent of votes while contesting on nearly 140 seats in the elections to the 243-seat Bihar assembly.
The rumours have primarily been about the impending resignation of JD-U national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh 'Lalan', for alleged proximity towards ally Rashtriya Janaat Dal at the expense of loyalty to his own party.
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