Nitish Kumar's stunning victory in Bihar is a political earthquake that will reverberate in Indian politics till the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The event was also attended by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav has termed Wednesday's landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance in the Bihar assembly polls as mysterious and also said that his party will review their defeat.
Jaitley was the party's election in-charge for Bihar in the recent assembly polls also.
'They (INDIA bloc leaders) were not doing anything. Nothing happened after the first meeting of INDIA bloc that took place in Patna last year. Now, I have come back to the same place, where I was earlier (with NDA)'
Union minister Chirag Paswan has caused a flutter by stating he would choose to give up his ministerial berth instead of a compromise on his principles, in keeping with the precedent set by his late father Ram Vilas Paswan.
He becomes the second National Democratic Alliance-appointed governor to make exit in less than a week. The first was senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Madan Lal Khurana who quit as Rajasthan governor to return to active politics.
Veteran Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Awadh Bihari Chaudhary was on Friday unanimously elected as speaker of the Bihar legislative assembly.
Tejashwi Yadav said that could not have a word with Telangana CM but rest all leaders are coming.
7,06,252 people or 1.7 per cent of the voters opted for the option whereby they preferred not to vote for any candidate while exercising their democratic right.
Prashant Kishor declares the 2025 Bihar assembly election will be a contest between his Jan Suraaj Party and the BJP-led NDA.
Seeking to play down Narendra Modi's remark that caste leaders had pushed Bihar into economic backwardness, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday said the Gujarat chief minister had referred to previous governments including the Rashtriya Janata Dal regime and not to the current National Democratic Alliance dispensation.
India's opposition parties have sharply criticized the Union Budget, calling it inadequate to address the country's economic woes and accusing the BJP-led government of using it to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi ahead of upcoming elections. Leaders from the Congress, TMC, DMK, SP, and CPI(M) voiced their disapproval, highlighting concerns over inflation, unemployment, and the lack of substantial measures to support the agricultural sector and the poor. They also criticized the tax cuts for the middle class as insufficient and coming too late after years of high taxes and rising prices.
The state cabinet approved the Parliamentary Affairs Department's proposal to convene the first session of the 17th assembly and 196th session of the legislative council from November 23 to November 27, minister Amarendra Pratap Singh of the BJP said.
Accusing the Janata Dal-United of betrayal, Bihar BJP on Sunday said it had walked out of National Democratic Alliance despite repeated assurances that it would be consulted whenever the prime ministerial candidate is chosen.
Janata Dal-United on Thursday made it clear that it has no plans to support the united Progressive Alliance if the Centre grants special status to Bihar, saying there is no question of any 'bargain' in the matter.
Sanjay Jha's importance lies in his connections to senior BJP and RSS leaders to maintain a smooth relationship within the NDA government in Bihar and at the Centre and to contest the 2025 Bihar assembly elections together under Nitish Kumar's leadership.
When pressed further, as to whether the doors were still open for the former ally, Prasad, who has known Kumar since their days as student leaders in the 1970s, replied "these are always open (khula hi rahta hai)".
'The issue has been cleared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief J P Nadda much before the elections'
The RJD has fielded six women candidates, some of them are wives of bahubalis.
With 12 MPs, the JD-U is the second biggest Bharatiya Janata Party ally after the TDP's 16, and leaders of the saffron party are in touch with allies over ministerial berths and other issues.
Leader of the opposition L K Advani, NDA convener George Fernandes and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Arun Jaitley and V K Malhotra will be among the alliance leaders calling on the President.
Ramesh said the current limit of 50 percent is not explicitly mandated by the Constitution, but has been decided through various Supreme Court decisions.
With the resignation of Nitish Kumar as Bihar's chief minister, here's a look at the numbers that matter and the possibility of a new political realignment in the state.
Kumar, whose NDA-allied Janata Dal-United has won 12 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, has emerged as a key player in government formation
Earlier this week, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said a law on population control would not serve any purpose but insisted instead on education for girls and women.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
As many as 13,500 personnel of Bihar Military Police and central forces have been deployed across the state to assist the local police.
Nitish Kumar, who along with Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi and state National Democratic Alliance convenor and Health Minister Nandkishore Yadav, visited Rahul's residence in Kadamkuan, consoled the bereaved family.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday warned that Bihar's areas close to the borders (seemant) will become 'infested with infiltrators' if Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not voted back to power.
There is no rift in NDA over the contentious issue of seat-sharing for the coming Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said today.
With an eye on the assembly elections due this year end, All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi set out on a tour of Bihar on Monday and said the Congress will go it alone like the party did for Lok Sabha polls in the National Democratic Alliance-ruled state.
When this correspondent caught up with him at Muslim dominated Jaikhuth village, he was on the campaign trail soliciting votes in the name of development and communal harmony.\n\n
Paswan has also spoken to RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, Rajak told PTI, adding that he should join forces with another young leader Tejashwi Yadav to take on the NDA.
"If you see in the context of alliances and statistics, then this is the strongest alliance government," Modi said while addressing newly-elected MPs and leaders of the NDA from across the country following his election as leader of the ruling bloc ahead of his government's swearing-in on Sunday.
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