Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi on Sunday called on party patriarch L K Advani after holding consultation with a number of party leaders including his key aide Amit Shah in New Delhi ahead of the formation of the next government headed by him.
The formula of Lok Sabha polls this year wherein JD-U and BJP had both fought 17 seats each, leaving six for Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, which joined the National Democratic Alliance in 2014, a year after Kumar's exit, could not serve as the basis for the assembly polls, said the poll strategist.
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.
LJP to tie up with Congress in WB, go it alone in TN, Kerala, Pondicherry
Assembly elections to five crucial states will take place in a few months and the results will be decisive for the BJP, which is eyeing a third successive term at the Centre, in the forthcoming the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
Five of the six Lok Janshakti Party MPs in Lok Sabha have joined hands against their leader Chirag Paswan and elected Pashupati Kumar Paras, the youngest brother of Paswan's late father and party founder Ram Vilas Paswan, in his place, causing a big churn in Bihar politics.
Chirag Paswan says his party's support to BJP is issue-based.
Kumar banged his table at Patna's Indian Coffee House as he announced this to an audience that was discussing alleged corruption in Bihar in 1977, writes Sankarshan Thakur in his biography of Kumar -- The Brothers Bihari.
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.
In his letter to Kumar, the veteran leader has made a series of suggestions including an amendment in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act, bringing Lord Buddha's begging bowl from Kabul and hoisting tricolor at Vaishali, the land of world's first Republic.
Leaders of 33 NDA constituents also adopted a resolution endorsing Modi's leadership and his government's policies, while resolving to strengthen the alliance by expanding its base.
Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad certain to be axed along with Union minister R K Singh and former minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
This is part of an initiative to include all sections of the society in polling process and the EC has identified a booth in southern Kolkata.
Many eyebrows were raised in Bihar on Monday as news broke of a meeting between Communist Party of India's rising star Kanhaiya Kumar and Ashok Choudhary, a minister and key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
'...there are people in the NDA, who don't wish to see Narendra Modi as the prime minister. They are the ones circulating misleading news,' he claimed.
JD-U leaders came down heavily on the Begusarai MP for his snide remarks.
The performance of Janata Dal-United has down compared its performance in the 2015 elections and the ruling party could not win even half of the number of seats it contested in this election.
Accompanied by Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala and other leaders of the Grand Alliance, Yadav made a scathing attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, asking who gave permission to the Munger police to act like 'General Dyer'.
During a fresh round of talks with North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier in the day, the NPP leaders stuck to their demand for change in the leadership of the BJP-led coalition government, they said.
Kumar insisted that allies should have been given proportional representation in the cabinet.
'Hurt' at the Bharatiya Janata Party's silence while he battles challenges from within his party, Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan said on Tuesday his relations with the saffron party cannot remain 'one-sided' and he will consider all possibilities about his future political steps if attempts to corner him continue.
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
A purported video of Lok Janshakti Party president Chirag Paswan rehearsing for a video message a day after the death of his father, one of the foremost Dalit leaders Bihar produced after Jagjivan Ram, has gone viral.
In a bid to mobilise support after serial blasts struck its rally in Patna on Sunday, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday began a 'shahid asthi-kalash yatra' of the six blast victims from six different villages that would be taken to different parts of the state before being immersed in Ganga river in Patna.
After the Janata Dal-United parted ways with ally the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will seek a trust vote on Wednesday at a special session of Bihar assembly to prove his majority, which he is expected to muster without any hitch with support of independents and Congress deciding to abstain.
Now, that's how desperately Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to win Bihar. M I Khan reports from Patna
'Neither did I approach the BJP nor did they ask me to join them. It was a natural choice for both of us to make.' 'It was never for me to ask or for them to give.'
On Friday, Paswan had said "any uneducated person becomes chief minister nowadays," in a veiled jibe at Rabri Devi.
Blowing the bugle for the 2014 Parliamentary elections, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday hit out at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for dilly dallying on granting special category status to the state.
Leaders of the BJP-led NDA told Bihar Governor that law and order is deteriorating in Bihar and demanded imposition of President's rule in the state.
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.
Amid signs of chill in Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan's ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday reached out to him for aligning with the Opposition, saying he can carry forward his father Ram Vilas Paswan's legacy only by joining the 'existential fight' against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue M S Golwalkar's thoughts.
Ahead of Cabinet formation, Narendra Modi, prime minister designate on Monday held discussions with his close aide Amit Shah and senior party leader Arun Jaitley even as newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party members of Parliament met senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionaries at the Sangh office.
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.
The prime minister may go for new faces with an eye on grooming younger leaders while also factoring in caste and regional balances
Varma sought 'ideological clarity' from Nitish over extending alliance with the BJP beyond Bihar despite having expressed apprehensions 'in private' about the BJP-RSS leading the nation into a 'dangerous space'.
'BJP has achieved its aim by making him a regional leader dependent on them.'
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today slammed the Congress saying it has put the issue of special category status for Bihar on the "back burner" under the influence of its "natural ally".
As Bihar awaits the results in the much-awaited polls, Rediff.com takes a look at some of those leaders who won and lost.
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.
