Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday hinted that a meeting of opposition leaders may take place in Patna after the crucial Karnataka assembly polls were over as many would be busy electioneering there.
Top leaders of Opposition parties will brainstorm at a meeting in Patna on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with sources saying that they would look to avoid the prickly leadership question and emphasise on common ground.
The alliance adopted a resolution to this effect and said its theme for the elections will be "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India, (India will unite, India will win)".
It was soon after that call that Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav spoke to each other.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have been claiming that "more than 100 people" have died. Most media reports have put the death toll to be more than 50.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
The contrast between the two meetings couldn't have been more stark, yet, both were organically linked, the latter a show of support for the former.
Nitish Kumar, once seen as a potential rival to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, broke ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance coalition on Tuesday to stake claim as head of the rival 'Mahagathbandhan' (Grand Alliance) to be the chief minister of Bihar for the eighth time.
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.
Leave alone taking forward the seat-sharing talks with the existing and probable allies, the Mahagathbandhan remains an amorphous entity weeks before the first phase of polling on October 28, a situation that will make the rival NDA camp, which in any case looks sitting pretty, all the more happier.
Owaisi's five seats in Bihar's Muslim-majority Seemanchal region ought to ring alarm bells, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The RJD said that it is boycotting the swearing-in ceremony of Kumar as the mandate is against the National Democratic Alliance.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
"We want to make it clear that we have no relations (with LJP), and we do not like this politics of spreading confusion," BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
Defending the liquor ban in Bihar, he said that the state's prohibition policy has benefitted several people and a large number of people have given up drinking alcohol due to his measures.
'The Congress agreed to it, but the RJD has some problem with Kanhaiya.'
In a joint address to mediapersons by CPI, CPI-M and CPI-ML-Liberation in Patna, CPI state secretary Badri Narayan Lal said, "The CPI-ML (Liberation) will contest 20 seats, CPI will field candidates in eight seats and CPM will fight on five seats."
The MLAs of the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition in Jharkhand on Tuesday arrived in Raipur by a chartered flight in a bid to thwart the Bharatiya Janata Party's possible attempt to poach them, and moved into a nearby luxurious resort.
The report prepared by ADR also stated that 81 per cent are crorepatis.
Swamy died at the Holy Family Hospital, where he was admitted on May 29, in Mumbai on Monday, a day after he suffered a cardiac arrest and was put on ventilator support.
Leader of Opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly Tejashwi Yadav on Monday said the caste-based census will help in preparing welfare schemes for people from different sections of society.
A sessions court in Ahmedabad on Saturday rejected the bail applications of activist Teesta Setalvad and former director general of police R B Sreekumar, arrested for allegedly fabricating documents to 'frame innocent people' in 2002 riots cases.
It is for the first time that Shahabuddin -- arrested in Delhi in November 2005 -- has been convicted in a criminal case.
'I have nothing more to lose. My three sons were killed. I am not going to sit silent.'
'They (the government) want to tame everything.' 'The entire systems they are trying to change.'
The RJD will give one seat to the CPI-ML from its quota and former JD-U president Sharad Yadav will contest on RJD symbol.
The Bihar government has decided to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Patna high court verdict acquitting 26 men convicted for the 1997 Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre of 58 Dalits by the upper-caste Ranvir Sena in Jehanabad district, Bihar Advocate General Lalit Kishore said on Thursday.
With the resignation of Nitish Kumar as Bihar's chief minister, here's a look at the numbers that matter and the possibility of a new political realignment in the state.
'It will be suicidal for Left voters to vote for the BJP because of their anger against the TMC.'
With four seats each won by junior allies Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular and Vikassheel Insaan Party, the NDA bagged 125 seats in its kitty, three more than the number required for a simple majority.
This is the first time, since the JDU-BJP alliance came to power in 2005, that the saffron party has staked claim for the speakers post.
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.
Even as the pro-unified Andhra Pradesh leaders stepped up activity in New Delhi, Telangana seeking groups on Monday threatened to launch a "militant struggle" if their demand for a separate state was not conceded by January 28, "as promised" by the Centre.
Most exit polls telecast by news channels soon after voting ended for the fifth and final phase of the Jharkhand elections on Friday indicated a hung assembly. Results for the elections to the 81-member state assembly will be announced on December 23.
'The only thing that makes Nitish Kumar acceptable to Biharis, to the Mahagatbandhan allies, is the BJP.'
Mohammad Shahabuddin, in prison for over a decade, still inspires fear, a reminder of the 'jungle raj' when political murders were commonplace in Bihar.
In a joint statement, leaders of eight opposition parties extended their support to the farmers who are protesting the three farm laws.
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