Lalu Prasad's eldest daughter Misa Bharti, a Rajya Sabha MP, and elder son Tej Pratap Yadav have been omitted from RJD's star campaigners' list released on Thursday for the upcoming by-elections to a couple of assembly seats in Bihar, a development seen as an attempt to push them to the margins in an intra-family feud to control the single largest party in the state assembly.
The counting of votes for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls along with six assembly and one Lok Sabha by-elections will commence at 8 am on Thursday with prohibitory orders in place around counting halls to ensure peace and tranquillity.
The jovial RJD chief, known for his earthy humours, apparently could not digest that his party drew a blank in its stronghold Bihar and also in the neighbouring Jharkhand.
With the Bihar government releasing the findings of its caste survey, pressure seems to be mounting on the Karnataka government, especially within the ruling Congress, to make the state's Socio-economic and Educational Census, popularly known as the 'caste census', public.
Seeking to defend its leadership from the attack by its veterans, the BJP said the "healthy precedent" of collective responsibility for poll defeats was set by Vajpayee and Advani.
A BJP leader in Bihar on Thursday died while taking part in a 'Vidhan Sabha march' against the state's Nitish Kumar government, evoking allegations from senior party leaders that he was "killed in a brutal lathi charge".
Thursday was the day results from the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections and by-elections in Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh were out, so what were some of our leaders up to?
The Congress would also take inspiration from history as it was from Karnataka that an embattled Indira Gandhi had revived her dwindling political future by winning a Lok Sabha bypoll from Chikmagalur.
'Now they're talking about changing the Constitution; they feel they have no reason now to hide their intentions.'
The parties failed to make an impact with their voteshares getting restricted to 2 per cent or below.
'We can't underestimate future threats.'
Bharatiya Janata Party is leading in six seats while secular alliance comprising Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal-United and Congress is ahead in 4 seats of the total 10 assembly seats where bypoll was held on August 21.
Our caste warriors will not even ask these questions, let alone explore better solutions to address the problems of inequality and skewed life outcomes, argues R Jagannathan.
'I somehow felt that Muzaffar Ali was in Aligarh to feel the pulse of the Muslim youth, especially in the darker and harsher times that India is passing through,' notes Mohammad Sajjad.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'They have been imposing Hindi on Tamil Nadu,' says DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai.
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.
A revealing excerpt from Mani Shankar Aiyar's fascinating new book, The Rajiv I Knew.
'It is an important and significant election -- but there is nothing make-or-break about it. A victory is always great, but if the BJP wins, it can't make Mr Modi any stronger in his party and government than he already is,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The RJD said that it is boycotting the swearing-in ceremony of Kumar as the mandate is against the National Democratic Alliance.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
'The BJP and RSS accept that the party is winning election after election because of Modi.' 'If the BJP is winning due to Modi, it will also lose due to Modi.'
There have been media reports that the LJP was unhappy over the return of the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular into the National Democratic Alliance fold and contempleting fielding candidates against JD-U nominees.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
In a protests against the decision of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to invite BJP to form the government despite falling short of the required numbers, the Congress has been demanding they be called to form the government in Goa and Manipur as it had emerged as the largest party in the 2017 assembly election.
"Anybody fighting for an ideology and appealing to the voice of conscience cannot be a scapegoat. I am a fighter and I will fight and I am sure that many will join me in this fight," she said in response to a question whether she was being made a scapegoat in the presidential election.
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In further rumblings within the Bharatiya Janata Party over its big loss in Bihar, party MP Hukumdev Narayan Yadav on Monday said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat's quota comments 'agitated' backward castes who rallied around the grand alliance and asserted that many who voted for the Modi government are not RSS supporters.
The LJP will also be given a Rajya Sabha berth and Paswan is likely to be its candidate.
This comes after the agency conducted searches at his residence earlier in the day in connection with the case.
The Congress on Monday promised that a government led by it will conduct a nationwide caste census and implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies at the earliest, including adequate representation for women belonging to the OBC community.
Upping the ante against Amit Shah after his "fireworks in Pakistan" remark, Janata Dal-United and the Congress on Friday approached the Election Commission demanding that the Bharatiya Janata Party chief be barred from entering Bihar for "inciting communal tension" till the election process ends.
'Since the RJD came to power, criminals have stopped fearing the law.'
Counting of votes in the high-stakes close-to-call Bihar assembly elections, billed as a hot battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will take place on Sunday.
Per capita income in the state has consistently been below the national average for at least 24 years. However, it has narrowed the gap with the all-India level in recent years.
The former Bihar chief minister, who is serving a jail term after conviction in the multi-crore fodder scam cases, said Rahul's resignation will "amount to falling into the Bharatiya Janata Party's trap."
This election has some striking resemblances to the landmark one of 1977, with sub-caste combinations and antipathies still the bedrock of measures
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Thursday claimed that contrary to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's "false propaganda" that the population of Muslim community was increasing in the country, the number of the minority community members vis-a-vis Hindus was fast declining, and added that he could prove it.
"Unlike in UP, the governments of Punjab and Rajasthan are not denying that the girl was raped, threatening her family and blocking the course of justice. If they do, I will go there to fight for justice," he tweeted.
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