Mining out fresh ammunition for a prospective slugfest, Congress on Thursday released a three-year-old video clip in which senior party leader Uma Bharti has purportedly described Narendra Modi as an agent of destruction and his development claims of Gujarat as a "sham".
Almost all prominent leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as members of the National Democratic Alliance and North-East Democratic Alliance accompanied Modi.
The 94 constituencies which are going to poll on November 3 are in 17 districts: West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Nalanda and Patna.
A part of the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, Raghopur assembly segment in Vaishali district will vote in the second phase on November 3. The 31-year-old, the younger son of Lalu Prasad, had taken the electoral plunge from Raghopur in 2015, when he had barely reached the qualifying age of 25 for fighting polls.
Series of controversies related to Dalit issues have come at a time when the BJP has launched a massive campaign to win back Uttar Pradesh.
The dinner was followed by a meeting in which nearly two dozen allies facilitated Prime Minister Modi.
The Maharashtra government had opposed an FIR by the Bihar police and a CBI probe in the sensational case.
Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad certain to be axed along with Union minister R K Singh and former minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
Mystery still surrounded the claim by Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani that Narendra Modi had sent two emissaries to him carrying a message with a Lok Janshakti Party leader whose named surfaced maintaining today he met him but not as an emissary.
Amid hectic discussions on formation of the new government, indications emerged on Saturday that Narendra Modi would have a "small and compact" Cabinet that will take oath along with him on May 26 in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Delhi's ruling party is all set to tackle the Parliamentary polls in the desert state, says Shahnawaz Akhtar
Pointing out that the party had contested seven seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the state LJP chief said there was no reason why it would settle for less than that for the 2019 elections, or for six Lok Sabha seats and one in Rajya Sabha.
Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer Abhijit Sinha said the violence in Akuluto constituency in Zunheboto district left one dead and two injured.
The ruling party seems in far better shape than the Congress, which is yet to finalise seat-sharing agreements in several states.
As in the past, many of the exit polls gave a clear majority to the BJP-led NDA going way off the mark in ground realities while those that predicted victory for the 'grand alliance' did not anticipate the sweep.
Narendra Modi is all set to be elected leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic Alliance parliamentary coalition on Tuesday as jockeying for positions in the new Cabinet gained momentum on Monday.
M I Khan in Patna Nearly twelve years after he left the National Democratic Alliance and resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will share the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at his 'hunkar' rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town on Monday. Paswan, who joined the NDA last week to contest the Lok Sabha polls and took a U-turn on Modi, will appear in public with the BJP's top brass including Modi at the rally. Paswan's son Chirag will also be present at the function. Upendra Kushwaha is another new face that will be at the event. Kushwaha is the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) that joined hands with the BJP last week. Both Paswan and Kushwaha are known as their own caste. Paswan is said to enjoy overwhelming support of his caste -- locally known as Dusadh, the only Dalit caste in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar categorised 21 other Dalit castes as 'Mahadalit' -- poorest of the poor. Kushwaha has been trying hard for last few years to emerge as a leader of his caste -- Koeri, an agrarian backward caste spread across the state. A senior BJP leader said that presence of Paswan and Kushwaha will send a strong political massage among respective castes in Bihar. "It will strengthen the BJP's social support base in Bihar," he said. In Bihar, the BJP is widely seen as an upper caste party. The much-hyped rally is seen as a bid to mobilise support and strengthen the support base in the state. The state in the Hindi heartland that sends 40 Lok Sabha members to Parliament is politically very important. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party had won 12 seats, while the Janata Dal-United won 20 seats, when they had contested as a combined force. It is expected that Modi will target Kumar, who has openly opposed him by repeatedly saying that the prime ministerial candidate should be of nsecular credentials.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday night released the first list of 43 candidates for the high-stakes Bihar polls, giving about 60 per cent representation to those from SC and backward castes in an apparent attempt to target the base of rival Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine.
Governments in most of the world saw their approval ratings dip as they struggled to contain the raging virus, which hit economy hard everywhere, but Indian politics followed a different script, with the outgoing year marking further shrinking of a rudderless Congress while the ruling BJP soared riding on Modi's enduring appeal.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday made his prime ministerial ambitions known, saying he is more qualified and experienced than those "roaming around" for the top job.
Under fire for the Badaun gangrape and murder of 2 sisters, Uttar Pradesh government on Monday shifted Principal Secretary (Home) Anil Kumar Gupta.
'The voters of Jharkhand did not accept Raghubar Das.'
'I am in the NDA as of now,' Kushwaha said.
"I will resign by tomorrow (on Tuesday) to facilitate the process of government formation," Singh said.
The party is likely to look back at 2019 with more than a touch of satisfaction as the year saw nullification of Article 370, criminalisation of triple talaq, enactment of CAA and a Supreme Court order paving the way for Ram temple construction in Ayodhya, issues which have agitated Hindutva cadres for decades.
It was a changed scenario in the new Lok Sabha with the churning brought out by the elections throwing in contrasts.
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.
Two poll surveys on Thursday projected a majority for the JD-U-RJD-Congress alliance in the Bihar assembly polls.
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.
Here are some of the political leaders' who await their fate.
Now, that's how desperately Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to win Bihar. M I Khan reports from Patna
The RLSP's attack on the JD-U came in the backdrop of media reports after a recent meeting of Kumar with Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah in Delhi.
Amid signs of a rapprochement, all Shiv Sena MPs will attend the high tea being hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Sunday for the National Democratic Alliance even as Republican Party of India leader Ramdas Athawale said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was "very keen" on forming a government with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra.
With the matter snowballing into a political controversy, both the Janaat Dal-United and the BJP tried to play down the issue.
However, Nishant has made it clear several times that he has no interest in politics like the children of other prominent politicians of the state.
The former Union minister joined the UPA after holding talks with the Congress leadership.
The Congress on Tuesday termed as rhetoric and hollow on specifics the prime minister's address to the nation, saying there was no mention of a financial package or concrete steps to revive the economy.
While P Muralidhar Rao, BJP general secretary, says, 'Digital electioneering is here to stay until the elections in 2021,' the BJP's rallies in Bihar will not be confined to cyberspace. Its strategists have devised other ways of getting around the hygiene protocol that Covid-19 has entailed.
The polling for the sixth phase on May 12 covers 6 states and one Union Territory.
Leaders of 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission and demanded verification of VVPAT slips of randomly-selected polling stations before the counting of the votes.
