The Odisha assembly has a strength of 147 MLAs while there are 21 Lok Sabha MP seats in the state.
Prasad was approached with queries by journalists at the airport, where he had reached, alongside son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, to board a flight to Delhi for the coalition meeting on Tuesday.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
Several BJP-backed state governments have unveiled schemes targeting the poor, women, farmers and students, following the party's setback in the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
A day after TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu held deliberations with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief J P Nadda, Kumar told PTI that preliminary discussions have taken place for the 'purpose of alliance' for the Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, which are held simultaneously in Andhra Pradesh.
The court remanded him to judicial custody for seven days till May 14.
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.
If Naidu returns to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, he will be the second major regional leader to have done so after Janata Dal-United president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the opposition and joined its fold last month.
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state for the recent leak of a government competitive examination question paper and subsequent cancellation of the test, Chaudhary said because of such incidents youngsters are not getting appointments, and they have to migrate and work in other places.
Modi earned his spurs as a doughty leader of the Opposition in the assembly, a post he held till 2004 when he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bhagalpur.
'The Odisha government has changed the image of the state by making it a sporting hub of the country with high performance centres, state-of-the-art training facilities and hosting big tournaments. The sports loving people of Sundergarh and Odisha will not forget this while voting.'
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
'2019 was fought on delivery. But in 2024, you can see the before and after effects.'
Nitish has been engaging with national and regional party leaders in recent months as part of his mission to strengthen 'Opposition unity'.
Now, every state election -- first up, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year, then Delhi in January and Bihar in September next year -- will be seen by his followers for evidence of his recovery, and by rivals of sharpening decline, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The 33-year-old Prajwal was the National Democratic Alliance candidate in the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, which went to polls on April 26.
The 33-year-old grandson of JD-S supremo H D Deve Gowda is expected to land in Bengaluru in the small hours of May 31.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to get reservation for women in legislatures promises to shape the political discourse ahead of key state polls and Lok Sabha elections, and a parliamentary approval to the long-contested proposal will be used by the Bharatiya Janata Party to burnish his credentials as a decisive leader.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said his party's alliance with the Congress is 'off to a good start' with 11 'strong' Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
As many as 10 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government failed to win their seats in the 2022 assembly elections, despite the BJP registering an impressive victory.
Kumaraswamy alleged that 25,000 pen drives were distributed in the entire state, and cited a report in a regional daily to support his claim.
The BJD not only supported the BJP in Parliament on different issues over the last few years but also helped Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw get elected to Rajya Sabha in 2019 and 2024.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
The saffron outfit accused the two of distancing the party from Hindutva ideology.
The BJP's outreach to Paswan, son of late stalwart Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan, underscores its push to bring him back into the NDA's fold after he walked out of the alliance in Bihar in the 2020 state assembly polls to campaign against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was then the BJP's biggest ally.
The case was registered following a complaint by the woman's son, who alleged that his mother was sexually abused by Revanna's son Prajwal.
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
The leaders attacked the BJP, accusing it of trying to create "Hindu-Muslim disturbances" to benefit politically and making false claims and promises.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party on Wednesday termed the list of candidates released by its alliance partner Samajwadi Party for the Uttar Pradesh legislative council elections as "disappointing".
Ending its suspense, the Shiromani Akali Dal has decided to vote against the UPA government on the nuclear deal. The decision was announced by party supremo Parkash Singh Badal.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Khan, who is currently lodged in Sitapur jail, has been replaced by Mohibullah Nadvi, a cleric of a mosque located on Delhi's Parliament Street.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
The BJP won 74 seats in the 147-member Odisha assembly and was leading in four more seats, the Election Commission of India.
'BJP's ultimate ambition is to control Bihar independently.'
In the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, there were 135 women candidates while in the second phase, there were 100 women candidates, bringing the combined total for the first two phases to 235 women candidates.
