The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
'BJP has achieved its aim by making him a regional leader dependent on them.'
There are three things you never do in a small North East state: Undermine local leaders, divide and rule, push homogenisation, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
Congress on Friday downplayed Narendra Modi's anointment as BJP's prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, while the Samajwadi Party said his "dream will never come true".
In a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, Chirag Paswan on Sunday cast aside his ambivalence and announced that he will campaign for the saffron party in bypolls to two assembly segments in the state.
Leave alone taking forward the seat-sharing talks with the existing and probable allies, the Mahagathbandhan remains an amorphous entity weeks before the first phase of polling on October 28, a situation that will make the rival NDA camp, which in any case looks sitting pretty, all the more happier.
Uncertainty shadows the composition of the two main political alliances in Bihar with several parties still exploring their choices as the Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for the assembly polls.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The final phase of polling on Saturday will cover 78 constituencies spread across 19 north Bihar districts.
Memon said that the opposition should introspect why Modi keeps getting such a "positive mandate" and dismissed suggestions of manipulation of EVMs, an oft-repeated complaint of the Congress and other political parties.
The government has not divulged the amount of the fine to be imposed on first-time offenders.
Opposition members in the Lok Sabha on Monday blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government's policies for the price rise and accused it of ignoring the plight of common people, saying kitchens will soon "see a lockdown" if the Centre does not take corrective measures.
'He always used to say, 'I have taken up this post to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and I will do it during the time I am here'.'
The Narendra Modi government on Monday supported the United Progressive Alliance regime's decision to include the Jat community in the central Other Backward Classes list for providing reservation and refuted the allegation in the Supreme Court that it was done to gain political mileage in the general elections.
'Chirag Paswan's game plan would be to push out Nitish Kumar from this alliance, but that is only possible if the BJP wins about 90 seats and the LJP wins between 25-30 seats.'
Lalan Kumar Paswan, who lodged the FIR with the vigilance department, held that the RJD chief's alleged act was tantamount to 'corruption' since, as a member of the legislative assembly, he was a 'public servant' whom Yadav had tried to entice away from 'performing the constitutional obligation of taking part in voting in the House'.
'Both of us are not politicians. We were forced to enter politics to counter corruption that is looting the country.'
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI general secretary D Raja said the top leadership will not attend the meeting called by the TMC chief.
The EVMs, officials explained, are not designed to register this system of voting.
The opposition's presidential poll candidate Yashwant Sinha on Friday revealed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refused to take his calls when he tried to seek the latter's support for his candidature.
Automobile dealers' body FADA has urged the government to formulate a task force to monitor the compensation structure being worked out by Ford India for its dealer partners across the country. In a letter to Heavy Industries Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey, FADA president Vinkesh Gulati also requested the government to instruct Ford India to keep the industry body in the loop regarding the compensation structure for the dealerships. "We humbly request your Ministry's intervention... Create a task force which takes day-to-day updates from Ford India to monitor the compensation plan for automobile dealers and dealership employees," Gulati said in the letter.
Right from the first week, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said, the BJP-led government showed "zero tolerance" towards brutalities against women. "I am confident that a time of gender equality would come. We ensured women gets the basic necessities of toilets, electricity and gas cylinders to make their lives easy."
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The National Democratic Alliance government's parliamentary managers have a busy weekend ahead, says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
Accompanied by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Chaudhary reached Uttar Pradesh assembly premises in the morning to file his nomination.
The North East is a sizeable success story for the Modi government politically and for the BJP electorally. It will be an unpleasant surprise if they choose to blow it, bowing to their basic, polarising instinct at any point, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Condemning opposition MPs for attacking Harivansh, Joshi said the Congress and other opposition parties are frustrated with the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and have lost their balance.
'The only thing that makes Nitish Kumar acceptable to Biharis, to the Mahagatbandhan allies, is the BJP.'
Ten central trade unions except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are observing one-day general strike on Thursday to protest against various government policies.
Soren also claimed that his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma indulged in "purchase" of Jharkhand MLAs.
The 31-year-old is seeking re-election from Raghopur in Vaishali district which he had wrested back for his party from the Bharatiya Janata Party's Satish Kumar in 2015. The BJP leader had defeated Yadav's mother Rabri Devi, a former chief minister, in 2010.
A weak presence in the Rajya Sabha has forced the NDA to try and rope in 'weak links' in the Opposition ranks to pass key legislation in the Upper House.
A former protege of the JD-U de facto leader, Kushwaha, had revolted against Kumar in 2013, giving up his Rajya Sabha berth and floated his own outfit.
'The Bihar verdict has shown that the people of Bihar don't desire to go back to the mandir-masjid rhetoric.' 'Jobs, wages and development are the aspiration of the people of Bihar and we hope the next government will keep that in mind.'
Stock market investments are always said to involve risks and people who made big fortunes often made headlines as scamsters, leading to Dalal Street always being looked at with suspicion, but Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was broadly an exception. Jhunjhunwala, a partner at RARE Enterprises, who rose to amass a $5.8 billion fortune and earn the tag of the country's biggest individual investor, leaves behind a relatively cleaner slate, as was seen in the most common description for him -- 'India's own Warren Buffett'. Unlike names like Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh, whose rise in fortunes in post-liberalised India was tainted with scam links, the newest 'Big Bull' in the more-regulated market had lesser baggage on this front.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha told rediff.com that the numbers were in favour of Shekhawat.
