'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
'We want to strengthen hands of Modiji and sure that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest polls as an ally of NDA.'
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
He also said the Bihar chief electoral officer has already responded to everything. The EC held four press conferences on counting day on November 10 to respond to various aspects of the process, Arora pointed out.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
When pressed further, as to whether the doors were still open for the former ally, Prasad, who has known Kumar since their days as student leaders in the 1970s, replied "these are always open (khula hi rahta hai)".
BJP leaders hit back at the DMK and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi if he agreed with the insulting remarks of its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner against the north Indians.
In some states, many women voters had enrolled themselves by their relationship with the male members of their family instead of providing their own names.
Some India states are likely to record a significantly higher number of heatwave days, according to the national weather body.
Markets end in red; bluechips struggle to keep pace.
With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
Other than providing Narendra Modi a sweetner ahead of the BJP's national executive meet in Goa, there are no major trends to glean from the recent by-election results, says Seema Mustafa.
Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Khanna said the court has rejected all the petitions, including those seeking resorting back to ballot papers in elections.
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 was a mixed outing for super rich candidates as five of them emerged victorious and an equal number suffered defeat in the Lok Sabha polls.
'During the election period, Modi did not refer to the government as 'Government of India'...it used to be called Modi Sarkar, Modi's guarantee. Today that Modi guarantee is no longer there'
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.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Formal talks over a seat-sharing formula among the National Democratic Alliance constituents are yet to begin and JD-U leaders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the BJP should take the lead to ensure that it was done quickly to avoid any serious differences near the polls.
Responding to allegations that victory certificates were not been handed over to candidates from the opposition grand alliance by returning officers on 119 seats, the Commission said the latest figures on its website state that while 146 results have been declared and trends of 97 other seats were available.
It is now a different time in Bihar. It is a different place -- one in which Raghuvansh Prasad Singh's options are very limited, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Paswan also said that BJP leaders were free to throw barbs at the LJP, as part of their "coalition dharma", but he would always hold Prime Minister Narendra Modi in high regard.
Ram Vilas Paswan was no fool. He knew very well about the ownership tussle going on beneath this veneer of congeniality. At all costs, he wanted to keep the lid on the family drama. He did not want it to come in the way of his son's coronation.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
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.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
'The aged with retina and finger print issues are not getting access to pension and ration.' 'If all becomes digital -- what'll happen to the poor?'
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
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.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where it was introduced for the first time in any parliamentary election, around 60 lakh voters had opted for the NOTA option -- equalling about 1.1 per cent of the total votes polled during those elections across 543 seats.
'Laluji is like my father and I am like his son.'
'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.' 'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
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.
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has outperformed ally JD-U which has triggered speculations in some quarters if Kumar will still be the chief minister or somebody from the saffron party will lead the coalition government in the state.
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