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.
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.
The RJD said that it is boycotting the swearing-in ceremony of Kumar as the mandate is against the National Democratic Alliance.
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.
'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.
"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.
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.
'Now they're talking about changing the Constitution; they feel they have no reason now to hide their intentions.'
The LJP will also be given a Rajya Sabha berth and Paswan is likely to be its candidate.
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.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
'Since the RJD came to power, criminals have stopped fearing the law.'
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.
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.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
This election has some striking resemblances to the landmark one of 1977, with sub-caste combinations and antipathies still the bedrock of measures
'Nitish Kumar's government will be at stake. The JD-U is working with a very thin majority, which is a borrowed majority. With just two seats Nitish Kumar has no moral right to stay on,' says Professor Prabhat Ghosh.
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."
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.
The dinner was followed by a meeting in which nearly two dozen allies facilitated Prime Minister Modi.
Nitish Kumar has failed to curb communal forces and hoodlums across communities. And that is ominous for Bihar's present and future, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
'We like to believe that it's the politicians who impose such bans. But it's the womenfolk of Bihar who made Nitish Kumar enact the ban,' says Ashis Nandy.
"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.
Modi, Shah and Nadda have created a strategy to boost the BJP and the government's image.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad has declared that Nitish Kumar will continue as the Bihar chief minister despite his party emerging as the table topper, while he will launch a nation-wide stir against the "communal" Narendra Modi government.
'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.
Biharis seem to have broken the caste divide to vote for good governance in a deeply caste-ridden society and that is Nitish Kumar's biggest triumph.
With assembly elections in Bihar likely to be held later this year, the Election Commission is dispatching four special teams of 'auditors' to the state on Monday for weeding out duplicate entries from electoral rolls.
Promising that the Centre will go "all out" to support Bihar in a "big way", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Tuesday said the government is likely to announce projects and schemes in a few weeks time to assist the resource-rich state.
Most, save Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu, were silent on Bihar polls; it was business as usual for the PM.
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.
The reputation of Bihar's schools has taken a knock. Satyavrat Mishra explains how a student-teacher nexus has gamed the system to produce toppers by the dozen.
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.
A revealing excerpt from Mani Shankar Aiyar's fascinating new book, The Rajiv I Knew.
It would be interesting to see how fast the finance ministry allocates money to the state.
Sticking to his offer of 11 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress and one to Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad on Sunday appealed to Sonia Gandhi to agree to the seat-sharing formula asserting that he would deliver results in Bihar and Jharkhand in the general elections.
This comes after the agency conducted searches at his residence earlier in the day in connection with the case.
The Nationalist Congress Party on Saturday pledged unconditional support to the Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress alliance for the August 21 bypoll to 10 assembly seats in Bihar to keep the Bharatiya Janaat Party away from power.
Most television channels, including NDTV, were giving NDA a thumbs up, when it was the Grand Alliance that was winning the battle on the ground.
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