The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The development can change the power dynamics within the ruling alliance, even if it manages to retain power in the state and Kumar continues to be chief minister.
Having emerged as a senior partner of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar for the first time in nearly two decades, the Bharatiya Janata Party finally seems to have come out of the shadow of its allies in the state but new alliance arithmetic has dragged down their overall vote share since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Ailing Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad has returned to his home turf Bihar, amid escalating political temperatures over issues of caste census, the Rajya Sabha biennial polls and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registering yet another corruption case against the septuagenarian.
Addressing the party's national executive, Nadda also reached out to Sikhs, who are in majority in poll-bound Punjab, by listing a number of measures the Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the review of the Goods and Services Tax.
Today, a friendship forged by common ideals behind prison walls has become a transactional understanding, notes Aditi Phadnis.
"Chakraborty has been given a 'Y+' cover and armed CISF commandos will accompany him during poll campaign in West Bengal," a senior officer said.
The Janata Dal-United on Tuesday became the third major ally after the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal to snap ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party after 2019.
Vinesh, a world championship medallist and Olympian, also claimed that several coaches at the national camp in Lucknow have also exploited women wrestlers, adding that there are a few women at the camp who approach wresters at the behest of the WFI President.
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
Referring to its earlier verdicts, a bench of Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice M R Shah said freedom of voting is part of freedom of expression.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
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His career as a bureaucrat has been somewhat colourless, which suggests his current elevation is simply a matter of being at the right place at the right time.
The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar came under fresh attack on Monday from state Bharatiya Janata Party president Sanjay Jaiswal whose party seems annoyed with junior ally Janata Dal-United's shrill demands for special assistance from the Centre.
"Between 1990 and 2005, only 95,000 people were given jobs. In our administration, over 6 lakh jobs were given and besides this many others were enrolled in other services," Nitish Kumar said.
The senior Congress leader expressed the utmost confidence that the prediction of the exit polls is wrong.
When the Centre tries to encroach upon the subjects that are under the prerogative of the state, or where the centre tries to evade from any responsibility guaranteed to a state through a constitutional provision/obligation, it poses a threat to federalism.
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
Notably, leaders of 13 Opposition parties on Saturday expressed deep concern over the recent incidents of hate speech and communal violence in the country and urged people to maintain peace and harmony.
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for the Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is 'in the ICU' and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led party will go solo in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Delhi, leaders who were part of JD-U's National Executive meet said.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is trying to make inroads into BJP-ruled Gujarat where the assembly polls are due later this year.
"Birthday wishes to Delhi CM Shri @ArvindKejriwal. May he be blessed with a long and healthy life," Modi said in a tweet.
While politicians and pundits speculate a strong possibility of their coming together, the two young leaders, however, told prying journalists their meeting was a result of "family relations" that went back to ties shared by their fathers.
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.
Mother and son refuse to go away despite indications blowing in the wind that their leadership is ringing the death knell of the party, observes Ramesh Menon.
Shah said that the people of the country will decide about the principal opposition party to BJP in the 2024 polls and they have not given this label to any party.
The electorate in the mineral-rich state rejected the call for poll boycott given by Maoists and turned in larger numbers than in the previous 2005 assembly polls, which recorded a 55 per cent voter turnout. An estimated 58 to 60 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballot in the fifth phase for the remaining 16 seats in the 81-member assembly.
Counting of votes is underway in assembly byelection to 58 seats in 11 states including Madhya Pradesh where the results will decide the fate of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
The votes for the state assembly polls will be counted on November 10. Prasad is in judicial custody in Jharkhand capital Ranchi after his conviction in fodder scam cases. He was recently granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in the case related to Chaibasa treasury but could not come out of jail as his bail plea in another case of fraudulent withdrawals from Dumka treasury is being heard.
'We will do a holistic review of the entire act and the policy at the state level and I need to be convinced that not a single Jharkhandi is uprooted from his or her home due to this law'
'The BJP is scared it may lose the Delhi municipal elections where they have been in power for the last 15 years.'
'The Hindu electorate is more or less in the BJP defined space now.'
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
It is likely that the party's allies in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, two of the five states going to the polls in April-May, might insist on allocating fewer seats than they did in 2016, reports Archis Mohan.
The CBI's visit to Abhishek's residence comes after Rujira told the central agency that she will be available for examination between 11 am and 3 pm on February 23, replying to a notice that the sleuths had hand-delivered her on Sunday.
A BTech and PhD in police, human rights and social justice, Singh joined the federal anti-money laundering investigations agency in 2009 on deputation from Uttar Pradesh where he was serving as a state police service officer.
Party vice-president Prashant Kishor and general secy Pavan Varma voice disappointment over the JD-U backing the Bill in LS. Urge Nitish to 'reconsider' stand.
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