JD-U on Friday dismissed the Samajwadi Party-driven formation of a 'Third Front' for the Bihar polls and said that there was "only one front" in the state.
A meeting of Opposition parties, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will be held in Patna on June 23, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
Rahul Gandhi is more inclined towards Akhilesh, who has said their combination could win more than 300 of the 403 assembly seats.
The marathon meeting, spread over two sessions and kept under wraps, came a day after top leaders of socialist-leaning parties attended SP's silver jubilee meet here -- a move seen as an attempt by Mulayam to forge an alliance ahead of the assembly polls hardly a few months away.
Family feuds, in what are essentially family-run outfits, have cast a shadow over the reunification efforts of Janata Party.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
After all, unlike the barriers between Nitish and Lalu, the forge between Mulayam and Mayawati has not been limited to just political differences, it has been a personal war, says Sharat Pradhan/Rediff.com
Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com explains the compulsions that forced Bihar strongman Lalu Yadav to play second fiddle to Nitish Kumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to thwart alleged attempts to rob Dalits and backward classes of reservations by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) which he accused of 'enslavement' and performing 'mujra' for Muslim vote bank.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
'By making Rachel Rajeshwari, Tejashwi has done an exemplary thing.'
Conceding that the RJS is the "big brother" in Bihar, the Congress said that Rahul was "the face of anti-NDA forces" in the country.
After days of tough posturing between leadership of the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar on the issue of alliance for the assembly elections, action has now shifted to the national capital, where top leaders from both the parties will meet to thrash out the differences.
'We have got together to save the democracy, Constitution and brotherhood. The country's constitutional institutions are being misused and the country's wealth is being sold out'
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
With the Congress down in the dumps and the BJP juggernaut on a roll, 'secular' parties are attempting to revive the Janata Parivar coalition to fill the vacuum.
Although it saw a veritable who's who of the Oppostion leadership, the Samajwadi Party stayed away from the Iftar dinner hosted by Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday.
The alliance would announce a coordination committee, which could be of 11 members from principal opposition parties.
Several prominent opposition leaders including Nationalist Congress Party's Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah will share the dais at a rally being organised by Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana's Fatehabad on Sunday.
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.
SP on Thursday announced its decision to contest the Bihar assembly polls with SJDD, NCP and NPP, saying the combine will present a third alternative to the voters.
Kumar was speaking to media persons at Patna airport on his arrival from New Delhi.
Top Opposition leaders, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at the Narendra Modi government for "doing nothing other than 'show-baazi'" by slashing allocations to all major social security schemes like MGNREGA.
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.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Congress, which wanted to contest as many as 121 seats, has reportedly now settled for 105 seats.
Will the so-called Third Front partners be able to retain their ambitious unity till the end of this month, when the Finance Bill comes for voting in the Lok Sabha? Doubts are hovering around the Yadav duo Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and Samajwadi chief Mulayam Singh Yadav -- as the two have taken different stands in the past one week on the issue.
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
A statement from the Fortis Memorial Research Institute said Yadav was brought to the emergency ward in an unconscious and unresponsive state.
More than two decades after the then Janata Dal disintegrated, six of its constituents merged on Wednesday to form a new party which will be headed by Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The coming together of SP and BSP leaders on one platform is being seen as the emergence of a new phase of politics in the state after a dismal show of all anti-BJP parties in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly polls.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
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.
'In an alliance, you are forced to overlook loyal workers.' 'It sends a negative message and workers turn against the party.' 'I have forbidden this alliance.'
The events that unfolded after Advani's arrest not only benefited the BJP, whose political clout grew exponentially, but also catapulted Lalu to the forefront of the anti-saffron camp.
'His way of communication is different than the first yatra.' 'Maybe his anger and frustration stems from the fact that no one is asking hard questions to the government and he is trying to do that.'
The 'Group of 23' leaders who participated included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, besides Sibal who hosted the post-birthday dinner for them.
With uncertainty prevailing over 'Janata Parivar' constituents contesting the Bihar assembly polls as one party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asked Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to convene a meeting of the merger committee to "clear the air".
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday suggested that if Lalu Prasad Yadav takes initiative, he does not mind joining hands with Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh.
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