Ever since Nitish embarked on the slippery path of trying to unite the Opposition against the BJP, he has repeatedly rebutted suggestions that the exercise was aimed at bringing himself centre stage. The problem is: It is not enough if he says so. Others have to say so as well, especially Congress, observes Aditi Phadnis.
Even as the Congress is preparing itself for the 2014 general elections, at least five of its state units are waiting for the high command to appoint organisational heads. These units have passed resolutions authorising Congress president Sonia Gandhi to appoint state chiefs.
The two main factions in Karnataka's Congress party -- one led by Siddaramaiah and the other by D K Shivakumar -- are both contenders for the chief ministership. Both groups have fought hard to get their choice of MLAs the party ticket, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Speaking to the media, Paswan said, "I am beginning Ashirvad Yatra from Hajipur because it was my father's karmbhoomi. We will hold this yatra in every district. Our only aim is to take everyone's blessings.
Allegations of electronic voting machines malfunctioningreturned to haunt the Election Commission as four Lok Sabha seats and nine assembly constituencies went for bypolls on Monday across 10 states with moderate-to-heavy voting amid prestige at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.
In the Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a high power committee would be set up to consider the challenges arising from 'fast population grown and demographic changes.' 'But who wants data? It pays to feed people's fears, insecurities and apprehensions. If such fears don't exist, they must be created,' her husband Parakala Prabhakar says in this fascinating excerpt from his book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis.
A "record" 57.59 per cent of over 1.46 crore voters cast their ballots in 55 assembly seats in Bihar on Sunday in the fourth and penultimate round of polling.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Wednesday described as "high indiscipline" and "arbitrary" the support extended by its Nagaland unit to the newly formed government in that state where the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance returned to power.
Congress leaders say that after the huge drubbing received by the party in Bihar, this is just the beginning of what is in store.
All the winners in the assembly bypolls were from the respective ruling parties.
Annapurna Devi, Subhas Sarkar and Rajkumar Ranjan Singh will be the new ministers of state for education.
The Chief Election Commissioner said a legal framework was required to implement the idea of holding simultaneous polls.
Additional Director General of Police Manoj Nath was assigned to probe the release of a Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate and brother of Union Minister of State Jaiprakash Narayan Yadav during the Bihar elections.
Congress has indicated it won't settle for less than 50 seats in any non-BJP alliance, unlikely if a JD(United)-RJD deal does take place.
Nadda's three-year term will end in January next year, and the BJP parliamentary board, its apex body, is expected to endorse an extension for him before that, sources said.
The RJD leader said the coming to power of the Mahagathbandhan government with the JD-U, the RJD, the Congress and other parties uniting "augurs well for opposition unity".
The Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Friday made a pitch for unity among opposition parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, stating that the Bharatiya Janata Party can be defeated if all key leaders of these political outfits keep aside their ego and stick to their current stance of not keen on becoming the next prime minister.
COVID-19 has propelled him into a place in the sun that he could only have hoped for.
For ex-Central Bureau of Investigation additional director general Upen Biswas, who had cracked the Rs 800 crore Bihar fodder scam, fighting the coming Assembly elections in West Bengal is an "experiment with honesty."
The long-pending 'One Rank One Pension' (OROP) scheme for ex-servicemen is likely to be rolled out ahead of the assembly polls in Bihar later this year, top government sources indicated on Tuesday.
From Chief Minister EK Palaniswami to Seeman to TTV Dhinakaran to elder brother M K Azhagiri, everyone's favourite target these days seems to the DMK chief Stalin, which is good news in an election year, but that doesn't mean he is going to sweep the polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
He told PTI in an interview that parties that are still thinking of 'being the leader' of a possible united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls have not understood the gravity of the situation at all.
The Janata Dal-United will elect a new leader on Sunday, party chief Sharad Yadav said, a day after Nitish Kumar stepped down as the Bihar chief minister.
'The brutal violence of the UP government's first response to the anti-CAA protests suggests that the BJP will test drive the NPR/NRC in UP, where it has both a massive majority in the assembly and a chief minister whose instinct for Hindutva extremism and whose appetite for punitive policing allows a prime minister as darkly majoritarian as Modi to appear statesman-like,' notes Mukul Kesavan.
The significance of the Assembly poll results will be more psychological than real for the impending parliamentary elections, says Bharat Bhushan.
A 14-member council of ministers was sworn in Patna by Governor Phagu Chauhan on Monday and the BJP bagged seven berths.
The next meeting of opposition parties will be held in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, the Congress announced on Monday, and asserted their resolve to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party has been strengthened by the 'Mumbai operations' of the 'BJP washing machine'.
The remarks by the BJP leaders came as 17 opposition parties resolved to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly to defeat the saffron party and work with flexibility by setting aside their differences. They dubbed the planned alliance as "unholy and opportunistic".
Banks asked to maintain record of cash being ferried in these vehicles all the time
Except drubbing in Delhi and Bihar, the BJP president has had a good record since he took over the reins of the party in June 2014, says Archis Mohan.
Women, if addressed properly, have the potential to become a decisive factor in elections.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said people of the country want change of power, but evaded a direct reply on whether his party would join an opposition alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad on Thursday invited former Bihar chief minister Jiten Ram Manjhi, a known detractor of Nitish Kumar, to join the process of uniting parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party for the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar.
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
Amid a series of deliberations over a strategy for upcoming general and assembly elections by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, a group of senior leaders of the Congress has given its recommendations to party president Sonia Gandhi and left it to her to take a call on them and initiate organisational changes.
Uma Bharti's travails began on November 10 last year when she was sacked as party general secretary and suspended from its primary membership after she openly defied party president Advani in full glare of national television cameras.
Some of our leaders were busybusy over the weekend.
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.
The chief minister, who was re-elected as the JD-U president in 2019 for three years, relinquished the post in favour of Singh, its leader in Rajya Sabha.
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