More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
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.
Contrary to that the BJP would give tickets to more Muslim candidates to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly polls, the saffron party has fielded only two Muslim candidates.
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.
A railway station and a police vehicle were torched and several law enforcers injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of protests against Agnipath scheme on Saturday when a bandh was also called to press for the demand for rollback of the new scheme for recruitment in armed forces.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Thursday launched his party's high-tech 'Parivartan Rath' campaign for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls and appealed to people to vote for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for development of the state and to end the 'jungle raj'
The opposition BJP charged Kumar with "bringing shame" to the state's women by speaking of the procreation process in detail.
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
A substantial number of castes and groups are already placed in the reserved category, getting about 52 per cent of reservations altogether. It would be completely inequitable to place the Maratha community in the Other Backward Class (OBC) category, it said.
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan in Patna.
Jitan Ram Manjhi, who stepped down as the chief minister of Bihar on Friday, alleged that his legislators and ministers were given death threats ahead of the trust vote.
Amid a brewing political storm in Bihar, the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal on Monday said it was ready to "embrace" Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal-United if he broke ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
State RJD president Jagadanand Singh on Saturday announced its candidates for two seats, having done the same for 21 others a week ago, and declared that it was leaving one for the Left parties.
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According to an internal assessment of the food ministry, shared with chief ministers recently, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh will see a massive reduction in their annual grain allocation.
Seventy-seven MLAs were present in the assembly during the voting.
In an embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, one of its MLAs has been accused of hurting Hindu sentiments by allegedly berating Goddess Lakshmi and Saraswati and Lord Hanuman.
The governor accepted the resignation and asked Kumar to continue as the caretaker chief minister till the new National Democratic Alliance government is sworn in.
Speculations are rife about a tie-up between the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal- United after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar resigned following the severe drubbing his party suffered at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition is likely to put up a joint candidate for the July 18 presidential election despite not having numbers on its side, and consultations in this regard have already begun.
A Congress MLA in Bihar has landed in trouble after a sting operation caught the legislator on camera purportedly offering liquor to his guests, despite total prohibition imposed in the state by the Nitish Kumar government.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
Amid political standoff in Bihar, Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday met President Pranab Mukherjee to convey the support of 130 MLAs and urged him to advise the state governor to take an immediate decision claiming that any delay will pollute the atmosphere in the state and encourage "horse-trading".
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.
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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday announced his intent to raise quotas for Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the state, saying a legislation to the effect is likely to be brought in the ongoing assembly session.
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
The party's state unit president Jagadanand Singh announced the names of Mohd Qari Sohaib, Munni Rajak and Ashok Kumar Pandey.
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.
Abdul Jalil Mastan caught on camera asking a crowd at a note ban protest to hit with shoes the photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sparking condemnation and kicking up a ruckus in the state legislature.
The incident took place at Kurumahat in Hansdiha police station area, around 300 km from the state capital Ranchi, on Friday night when a tourist couple from Spain was spending the night at a makeshift tent.
Ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's floor test, Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary on Thursday granted the status of principal opposition party to the Janata Dal-United in place of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which slammed the move as "arbitrary".
He recalled that the state was home to Vaishali, said to be the oldest republic in the world.
JG-U leader Nitish Kumar on Friday promised good governance once he takes over as CM.
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.
'The Mallahs may remain divided between the two competing coalitions in Bihar,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Two suspects were detained for interrogation in Patna on Wednesday in connection with a bomb blast that took place in a residential building in the Bihar capital on Monday night, police said.
The development comes a day ahead of the announcement of the panchayat and municipal poll results.
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