The proposed reservation will be over and above the existing 50 per cent reservation enjoyed by the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes, taking the total reservation to 60 per cent.
Nitish Kumar, who along with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, steered the Grand Secular Alliance to a landslide mandate of over two-thirds majority in Bihar assembly poll, will be sworn in as Chief Minister on Novermber 20 for a third term along with his new cabinet.
Did he have any first-hand knowledge of what JP stood for, asks Nitish
Buoyed by the exit polls projections, the party has sent its senior leaders including general secretary Randeep Surjewala and Avinash Pande, chairman of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee screening committee, to Patna for proper coordination with the allies and possibly also to keep its flock together after the results are declared.
Under siege, Nitish plans to tweak Bihar's anti-booze law
Reiterating his 'suit-boot ki sarkar' jibe, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a feku (a brag).
As per the complaint, Gandhi had "issued a statement on Twitter asking for votes... today. The time for making appeal for the first phase of polls was over 28 hours earlier".
A section within the RSS feels Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani should be projected as the BJP's CM candidate in UP, says Rajeev Sharma.
BJP now governs 35% of country's landmass as against 71% in 2017. 43% of country's population is now governed by the BJP or allies in the states as against over 69 per cent two years ago. In all 3 state polls since its Lok Sabha win, BJP's vote share has fallen by big margins.
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.
'They have been imposing Hindi on Tamil Nadu,' says DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai.
'The Congress shall have to take some brave-tough decisions to give a new social face to the party and its leadership composition,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
His immediate challenge is the February 8 Delhi assembly polls followed by year-end elections in Bihar. However, his big test would be the next year's assembly polls in West Bengal, a state where the BJP has emerged as a strong challenger to Mamata Banerjee-headed TMC.
The SP-Congress campaign will see Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi criss-cross the seats held by either party.
Hailing Banerjee as the "real Bengal tigress", the party, which had earlier said that it would join the electoral battle in the state, vowed to "stand in solidarity" with the TMC camp.
Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien said the situation in Bihar is one of the reasons behind the Parliament session being cut short by the government.
The rejig may take place before the assembly election results for Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Opposition leaders believe this entire plan has been put in place to ensure that Mamata Banerjee is kept out of office in West Bengal.
Our Rediff labs team analysed 2014 data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on the participation of women in decision making at administrative levels in India in three different sectors.
The Congress and Left Front on Thursday finalised sharing of 193 seats of the total 294 in West Bengal assembly with the Left parties getting the lion's share of 101 seats.
BJP's loss of power in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattigarh means that it will have to face a resurgent Congress in the three states where it had emerged victorious in 62 of 65 Lok Sabha seats.
Senior leaders of the party -- Prashant Kishor and Pavan Varma -- have slammed the legislation calling it 'unconstitutional' and urged Nitish Kumar to rethink his support in Parliament.
Malik believes he can solve the problems of farmers and is sending signals to the government to give him a chance.
Thackeray said the BJP's perception of being a "world winner" had been shattered with the results of the just-held state assembly polls.
The Congress on Monday promised that a government led by it will conduct a nationwide caste census and implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies at the earliest, including adequate representation for women belonging to the OBC community.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
Cracks are widening within Bihar BJP with more party legislators coming in the open and alleging lack of inner democracy with one MLA openly vouching for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying he would serve as a better prime minister.
The now active member of the Janata Dal-United has been approached by Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Janata Dal-Secular in Karnataka to help them in the upcoming elections, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that the defeat of Janata Dal-United in Maharajganj bypoll has no bearing on the National Democratic Alliance.
Yadav, the elder son of former chief ministers Prasad and Rabri Devi, on Thursday marched to the General Post Office in Patna with his supporters who carried bundles of postcards addressed to the President seeking release of the jailed party supremo.
For the first time, non-upper castes are in a majority in the board, as the party continues with its outreach to traditionally weaker and backward sections of society.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, on Saturday joined Trinamool Congress days ahead of the high-octane West Bengal assembly polls.
Other NDA allies, including the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, will get due representation in the seat sharing formula, Shah said.
Two Indian-Americans returned to India from the US to contest the elections from the AAP. They may have lost the elections but Deelip Mhaske and Dr Prabhat Ranjan Das have no regrets and speak of their experiences. George Joseph reports.
The next general election is more than three years away. Yet, the Centre appears to be reluctant to take any bold move that might annoy influential sections of the electorate.
The BJP sought to distance itself from its leader's sexist comments.
The Samajwadi Party on Thursday pulled out of the 'grand alliance' in poll-bound Bihar, saying it felt "humiliated" as it was not consulted while deciding seats and would contest the assembly elections in the state on its own.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has ruled out a rethink on the seat-sharing formula for the 'Grand Secular Alliance' for the state Assembly polls, a day after Nationalist Congress Party's ultimatum for reconsideration by August 20 and its insistence on 12 seats.
Despite serious corruption charges, this year has seen the resurgence of tainted leaders from across parties and states. Be it Yeddyurappa in Karnataka or Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar -- caste affiliation and an individual candidate's credentials matter far more than his alleged involvement in scams, says Anita Katyal
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