Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Janshakti Party on Thursday night stitched a pre-poll alliance with the Ram Vilas Paswan-led party returning to the NDA fold, 12 years after it quit over Gujarat riots, and it will fight seven out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar under a seat-sharing deal.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Union minister Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party will contest six seats in Jharkhand, where the party was excluded by three other United Progressive Alliance partners in the seat-sharing arrangement. LJP candidates will contest for Palamu, Chatra, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Koderma and Jamshedpur seats out of 14 Jharkhand LS seats, party spokesman Sanjay Singh told PTI in Patna on Tuesday. =
Releasing the list of LJP candidates, Paswan said his party would contest from around 200 seats leaving 37 and 3 for its electoral allies -- CPI and Forward Bloc.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
Bharatiya Janata Party and other National Democratic Alliance members were on their feet demanding an explanation from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the spat, which they said was "very serious".
Lok Janskati Party president Ramvilas Paswan on Friday said he fails to understand why Congress is "dithering" to join the Rashtriya Janata Dal-LJP alliance which is intact in spite of sentencing of Lalu Prasad.
The investigation revealed the motive of the accused, identified as Ashish Kumar Dusadh, was to frame a man who had warned Dusadh to stay away from his sister-in-law, the Ahmedabad crime branch said in a release.
Lok Janshakti Party supremo Ramvilas Paswan on Saturday urged the Centre to raise the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 814 and make provisions for a separate quota for women from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, other weaker sections of society and minorities."I have serious apprehensions over the passage of the Bill in its present form. We have suggested increasing the number of seats from existing 543 to 814," said Paswan.
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.
Lok Janshakti Party chief Ramvilas Paswan on Sunday said his party would support United Progressive Alliance candidate for Presidency.
The home ministry on Thursday announced the Padma awards which included five Padma Bhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 110 Padma Shri.
Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan is working overtime to ensure the victory of his son Chirag Paswan, who is contesting from the Jamui parliamentary constituency in Bihar.
"The findings of National Commission for Minorities and National Women's Commission on communal violence in Karnataka have established the diabolical role of Bajrang Dal. Dal leaders have openly claimed responsibility for attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka," Paswan said accusing it of espousing a divisive agenda.
Please promise, especially those millions who trust you with their hard-earned money, never to let your voting preferences determine your actions on the markets. The most appalling and scary phenomenon was fund houses and brokerages going out on election yatras and writing copious reports promising more than 300 for the BJP. That was your wish as voters. Your investors are paying for it now, points out Shekhar Gupta.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
The decision on whether to remove the LJD from the UPA will be taken by chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Accusing Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray of hurting the religious sentiments of people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday demanded his immediate arrest for causing divisions in the society.
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.
Following on the footsteps of Barack Obama, a Dalit should be made the prime minister of India and Union Minister Ramvilas Paswan is the ideal candidate, the National Dalit Front said on Wednesday. "Change is taking place at a global level. The time has now come for India to have a Dalit prime minister," Udit Raj, the secretary general of the recently-launched NDF said in New Delhi.
Assembly elections are due in the state in September.
The numbers were revealed some concerns arose, says Chirag Paswan
'The assailants knocked at the gates of Yadav's house around 5.30 am and opened fire as soon as he opened the gates,' the Bihar Police tweeted.
In an attempt to bring uniformity in prices of medicines, Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Wednesday asked the states to exempt them from local taxes or at least advance the implementation of value-added tax regime for drugs.
'It is not a question of stature. I had expected Railways,' said the Chemicals and Fertilizer Minister.
Modi also alleged the opposition grouping will end the reservation given to SC, ST, OBC and give all of it to Muslims.
A Bihar court on Wednesday issued fresh summons to Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi and Lok Janshakti Party President Ramvilas Paswan directing them to appear before it in person on September 15 in a case in which they are accused of damaging public property.
Although the Bihar CM is mum over his next move, speculations of a rift between Mahagathbandhan and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar joining the NDA, have been soaring high.
Chirag Paswan cryptically added that he was not ruling out the possibility of siding with the RJD.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
The Congress party on Wednesday gave a deadline to Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan up to September 23 to decide whether it wanted to come with Rashtriya Janata Dal-led United Progressive Alliance in the coming Bihar Assembly polls.
Top political leaders of Bihar, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan, on Monday strongly condemned the attack on Samajwadi Party Member of Legislative Assembly Abu Asim Azmi.Nitish Kumar condemned the incident and declared that it had again exposed the MNS' true colours "We will take the matter up with the Union government as well as the Maharashtra government."
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