The Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar is in trouble ahead of the upcoming state assembly polls as two of its ally the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party on Sunday played pressure game to bargain for more seats.
Mukesh Sahni's move to contest 55 seats in the UP assembly polls antagonised top BJP leaders.
Among the panels announced on Thursday is the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) to be headed by the prime minister with Shah as the other member.
After spending nine years in a prison in Pakistan, Indian prisoner Khushbu Paswan has reached his native village in Bihar's Rohtas district, a senior police officer said on Sunday.
The 68-year-old Bindroo, who ran Bindroo Medicate, was shot at by the assailants point blank at his pharmacy, a police official said, adding he was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.
The Congress, which had fought nine, lost all but managed to retain Kishanganj.
In an embarrassment to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a senior Janata Dal-United Legislator Chhedi Paswan met Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi following which the party suspended him for six years.
In a season of political deal-making, it would seem the BJP is not only keener to win new friends but is ahead of rival Congress in the game. Its only competition, if at all, has come from regional satraps and the Left parties, which on Tuesday resolved to fight the elections together against both the Congress and BJP.
Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday said that the President's rule in Jharkhand was a temporary solution and elections were the only way out if no party or combination was able to form a government soon.
Nitish Kumar will be the chief minister only till the time the BJP wishes, points out Ramesh Menon.
Rashtriya Lok Samata Party MLA Lallan Paswan has stirred a controversy by purportedly asking objectionable questions to girls of a residential Dalit school in Bihar's Vaishali district where he had gone in connection with death of a Class X girl allegedly after being raped.
No one in Bihar will deny Nitish Kumar's contribution to governance, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'In Bihar, the Dalits are not a consolidated socio-political constituency,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Meraj Khalid Noor, who is popularly known as Bihar's Osama bin Laden for his uncanny resemblance with slain most-wanted Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, has said that he will contest the Lok Sabha polls against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
The 94 constituencies which are going to poll on November 3 are in 17 districts: West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Nalanda and Patna.
Addressing his first election rally in poll-bound Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid tributes to the soldiers from the state who had made the supreme sacrifice in the Galwan Valley clash and the Pulwama attack.
The JD(U)-BJP alliance also lambasted the actress for lodging a 'baseless' first information report against the sisters of the deceased actor and questioned the 'support' extended to her by the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra, for 'reasons the Shiv Sena knows better'.
The RJD leader, who is the Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial face, said that if voted to power, providing jobs to unemployed youth would be his topmost priority.
Dalits constitute nearly 16 per cent of the vote and 38 seats are reserved for them in the assembly, reports Satyavrat Mishra
The 71-year-old remained Sonia Gandhi's most trusted lieutenant for most of her tenure as the longest serving Congress president, standing by her side through sun and shade.
The series of meetings are being seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to reach out to allies who have either been criticising or expressing their dissent with the party and also to strengthen the National Democratic Alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
Two Rajya Sabha MPs from Gujarat -- BJP president Amit Shah, now Home Minister, and Smriti Irani, who has got the women and child development ministry -- have won the Lok Sabha polls, thus creating two vacancies in the Upper House of Parliament from the state.
A group of first time voters who run 10 km everyday to prepare for fauji recruitment rallies, tell Rediff.com's Archana Masih they need two things: quality education and jobs.
More than two crore voters in Bihar will decide the fate of 1,066 candidates on Wednesday across 71 assembly segments in the first phase of elections.
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.
"Where did we make any statement against the party? We wanted to draw the attention of the party high-command to the fact that we were not able to deliver on things promised in the manifesto for which the public elected us," Vishvendra Singh said in a video message.
"Our organisation in Uttar Pradesh will lend support to the alliance," he said.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
The National Democratic Alliance in Bihar which so far had BJP, JD-U and the LJP as its constituents will now have another dalit-centric party HAM as a member.
Counting's underway and the fate of the candidates is awaited. As we wait for the results with bated breath, here's how your heavyweights are faring for now.
Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti lost from Saran and Pataliputra seats respectively in Bihar to BJP candidates. MI Khan reports.
Paswan said his Ministry has acquired 55,000 tonnes of pulses.
In the caste ridden politics of Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's two sons and daughter and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan's son, are star campaigners for their party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday assured at the all-party meeting that the government is ready to discuss all issues.
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
The prime minister may go for new faces with an eye on grooming younger leaders while also factoring in caste and regional balances
National Democratic Alliance allies on Monday put up a united front amid vocal demands being made by some parties on their share of seats in Bihar polls but the crucial issue of seat-sharing was not discussed at their maiden joint meeting chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
This is the first full-scale review of VIP protectees by the Union home ministry after the Modi 2.0 government took charge.
The statements made by the opposition parties after the preemptive air strike on terror camps have made only people of Pakistan happy, he claimed.
'It is true that Nitish Kumar had shown reluctance to continue as chief minister after the assembly polls and said the BJP should stake claim for the top post'
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