The assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
The Janata Dal-United supremo, however, also appeared annoyed with parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who had recently jumped the gun with the insinuation that the RJD could be trying to 'further the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda' by refraining from taking action against the minister.
In a village of Rajputs, the vote is for Modi even though the BJP is not contesting from here.
The first meeting of leaders of the National Democratic Alliance after the election results was held at caretaker Prime Minister Narendra D Modi's residence in New Delhi on Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari reveal that Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's name is now doing the rounds as President Kovind's likely successor.
Consensus emerged on the appointment of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the chairperson of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), while Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar's name was proposed for the convener's post, pending approval of parties absent at the alliance meeting on Saturday, according to sources.
'Modi's image has no takers among the masses.'
Nitish has been engaging with national and regional party leaders in recent months as part of his mission to strengthen 'Opposition unity'.
The increased numbers of the Opposition bloc would mean that their MPs are likely to head several more panels than the four that they did by the end of the term of the 17th Lok Sabha.
Kishor claimed that Nitish may go for a tie-up with the BJP again if situation demands so.
'The longevity of the government is a doubt for me because when the going gets tough, there could a be a point in time where there might be pressure, from within the party or from the allies.'
Loss of power in Bihar has upset the Bharatiya Janata Party's calculations for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls but a section of its leaders also see a chance for the party to break the dominance of regional parties in the state, like it has in Uttar Pradesh.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
Yadav, 31, apparently referring to the age of the 69-year-old chief minister and said that he has got tired due to which he gives up when faced with a difficult situation -- be it the coronavirus pandemic or Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) outbreak in Muzaffarpur.
Kushwaha made the exasperated remark in reply to queries from journalists about Singh's relentless, and often personal, attacks on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Chandra Shekhar's uncharitable remarks about Ramcharitmanas which triggered a controversy.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
Even until Monday, some senior BJP leaders, including those from Bihar, were of the view that the JD-U leader was engaging in brinkmanship to pressure his bigger partner to be more accommodative.
The JD-U also accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and destabilising non-BJP governments in several states, including Delhi and Jharkhand besides Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier.
The Union home minister recalled that the BJP had won far greater number of seats in the last assembly polls than the JD(U) but Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept up his promise to back Kumar for another term in office.
Meanwhile, hectic activity was seen at 10, Circular Road, the bungalow allotted to party president Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi who shares the house with her husband and younger son Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy CM.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
RCP Singh alleged that Kumar "had made up his mind to betray the mandate of 2020 when people had voted the NDA back to power."
JD-U leaders contend that R C P Singh may have misled the BJP leadership into believing that Nitish Kumar was ready for a smaller share in power at the Centre.
Without naming Chirag Paswan, the legislators are reported to have recalled the actions of the former Lok Janshakti Party chief during the 2020 state assembly polls while warning the CM that if they were not alert, it would not be good for the party.
"It was a social event and we did not talk politics there," he said on his interaction with Modi.
Rajnath came down heavily on the National Conference-Congress alliance over its poll promise of restoring Article 370 and said it is impossible as long as the BJP is there.
Gandhi said he was "waiting with open arms".
The Congress leadership is upset over Nath's remarks against many leaders of the INDIA bloc, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Janata Dal-United supremo Nitish Kumar, over seat sharing.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
When pressed further, as to whether the doors were still open for the former ally, Prasad, who has known Kumar since their days as student leaders in the 1970s, replied "these are always open (khula hi rahta hai)".
New faces may, however, be inducted in the council of ministers from the allies Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, he told reporters during his visit to Madhubani on Wednesday as part of his 'Samadhan Yatra'.
Once rolled out, theaterisation will be the biggest military reform in the country. It will see the creation of unified theatre commands within the 1.7 million-strong Indian armed forces.
The no-frills ceremony comes a day after Kumar snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA and joined hands with the RJD to form a 'mahagathbandhan' government.
If Nitish is as shrewd a practitioner of realpolitik as he is billed to be, we'd like to see if he can do the unthinkable -- break up the BJP legislature party in Bihar.
He is not just under attack from his opponent Shiv Chandra Ram of the RJD, but also by his uncle Paras.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is likely to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha in April this year, once the remaining six vacancies under the nominated category are filled and those newly elected take oath.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Despite failing to secure a simple majority in Parliament, we will continue to see him on TV, newspapers, magazines, bill boards, vaccination certificates, railway stations, bus shelters, airports, sea ports, on the highway and on rural roads, sighs A Ganesh Nadar.
