The party, which has a pre-poll alliance with Janata Dal (United), will finalise the names for rest of the constituencies within a week after talks with its partner.
Campaign ends for first phase of Bihar poll
Pages for the Bharatiya Janata Party's Bihar arm (BJP Bihar), Janata Dal-United, and Chirag Paswan (of the Lok Janshakti Party) saw between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 30 lakh in ad spends.
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam is likely to be the Election Commission of India's brand ambassador in a bid to increase voter turnout in the coming assembly polls in Bihar. Official sources in the state election commission told rediff.com that they has recommended Kalam as brand ambassador.
Defying a call by Maoists to boycott the polls, an estimated 51 per cent electorate cast their votes in 42 Assembly seats in Bihar, which saw stray incidents of landmine blast and bomb explosion.
Defying the call for a poll boycott by Maoists, around 52 per cent of the 98.44 lakh electorate cast their votes in 45 assembly constituencies in Bihar in the second phase of elections which was marred by stray incidents of violence.
Asked how many seats the Congress would fight on, Singh said they would be flexible in seat sharing.
Want a detailed break-up of the winners and losers of Bihar?
The National Democratic Alliance on Monday finalised its seat sharing for Bihar polls with the Bharatiya Janata Party contesting 160 out of the 243 assembly constituencies while allies Lok Janshkati Party and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha being allotted 40 and 20 seats respectively.
Sons-in-laws of prominent politicians are rising against their in-laws, observes M I Khan
The picture, without naming Modi, shows a figure in saffron kurta and white churidar with its head and palms missing.
Farah and Sara, joined at the head, flashed their inked fingers after exercising their right to vote during the third phase of the assembly polls.
The Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party combine on Wednesday headed for a massive sweep in the assembly elections in Bihar to come back to power for a second continuous term and may notch a three-fourth majority, steamrolling over the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Janshakti Party alliance.
The scale of victory could be gauged from the fact that from 143 seats in the 2005 elections, Kumar's campaign on the basis of his government's performance helped the ruling alliance notch a spectacular tally of 206 seats in the 243-member House.
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.
Nishant Kumar's demand that the NDA name Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial nominee is seen as a gambit to consolidate the CM's position in the ruling alliance.
A BJP ally since the mid-90s, Kumar split with the party in 2014, only to realign three years later. In 2022, he again parted ways, vowing to dislodge the BJP from power at the Centre and bring together parties from across the country to form the INDIA bloc.
Former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi lost the elections from Raghopur and Sonepur assembly seats from which she contested.
Rabri Devi is contesting from Raghopur.
The BSF shot him dead when he pointed the toy pistol at them in Raghopur. Former Chief Minister Rabri Devi is in the fray.
The elections will be held on October 21 (in 47 seats), Oct 24 (45 seats), Oct 28 (48 seats), November 1 (42 seats), Nov 9 (25 seats), Nov 20 (26 seats). Counting of votes will be done on November 24.
A powerful lobby of BJP leaders -- mostly from the upper castes -- want to give no more than 70-80 assembly seats to its three allies.
Just eight months after its good showing in the Lok Sabha polls, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) seems to be running out of steam with internal bickering and conflicting ambitions resulting in diminishing electoral returns that have once again put the Bharatiya Janata Party in the driver's seat in national politics.
With the Congress recording its worst performance in last ten years in this assembly election in Bihar, state party chief Mehboob Ali Kaiser has decided to quit his post owning "moral responsibility" for the defeat.
'We used to discuss how image-conscious Nitish Kumar was and his sophisticated conduct in public life. All this has become a thing of the past.'
The opposition party's remarks come after Bihar ministers claimed that the latest report of NITI Aayog's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index 2023-24 vindicated the state's long-standing demand for greater central financial assistance.
As name-calling like 'cannibal' and 'devil' permeates the high stake Bihar assembly poll campaign, the Election Commission on Thursday expressed "deep anguish" at the "plummeting level" of speeches.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Tuesday welcomed the Union Budget and said it focussed on youth, farmers, women, and has 'substantial allocations' for Maharashtra, but the opposition slammed the annual financial statement, claiming it neglected the western state and only seeks to please the saffron outfit's partners in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
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.
An electorate of 1,45,93,980 voters would exercise their franchise in the third phase.
'It was really difficult for Laluji to expel his son from the party and sever family ties with him.'
Grand alliance leaders accuse their rivals of having engineered electoral tactics to confuse its voters.
In a significant move, the Centre on Wednesday announced that caste enumeration will be part of the next population census, with the inclusion of caste details for the first time since independence hailed by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies as a historic step to help design truly equitable and focused policies.
The party's national executive meeting chaired by its president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar flagged price rise and unemployment as "burning issues"
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday confirmed that Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar would be the Janata Parivar's chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls.
Banks asked to maintain record of cash being ferried in these vehicles all the time
Raut said they do not require the exit polls as they work on the field and know the "undercurrent".
'JD-U wants to emerge as the single largest party in Bihar after the next assembly polls by contesting more seats than the BJP.'
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