When the assembly election comes around later this year with Nayab Singh Saini, from the OBCs, at the helm, the sense of victimhood non-Jats feel will propel the BJP into power again, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The country now has six national parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, NPP and AAP.
Hours after Mayawati announced her plans of going solo in future elections in a series of tweets, a senior SP leader accused her of "weakening" the fight for social justice.
Prasad was approached with queries by journalists at the airport, where he had reached, alongside son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, to board a flight to Delhi for the coalition meeting on Tuesday.
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
'The BJP would like to build a 'rainbow' coalition of different castes and communities buttressed by the appeal of nationalism and Hindutva.'
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
While the Congress has cited alleged poaching attempt as a reason for keeping their MLAs in the hotel, the BJP said they moved theirs to train them on the Rajya Sabha poll process.
The much-delayed decadal census exercise and the work to update the National Population Register (NPR) are likely to begin early 2025 and the data will be declared by 2026, thus changing future census cycles completely, official sources said.
Jayant Chaudhary has plenty of time to make his own mistakes. But this election is a crucial test of his leadership.
Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas leader Chirag Paswan has decided to return to the National Democratic Alliance, Bharatiya Janata Party chief J P Nadda announced on Monday, hours after Paswan met Union Home Minister Amit Shah, a day before the crucial meeting of the ruling coalition.
Modi earned his spurs as a doughty leader of the Opposition in the assembly, a post he held till 2004 when he got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bhagalpur.
The senior Paswan sought an appointment and waited for more than three months but Rahul Gandhi did not relent, said Chirag Paswan, who at that time too was keen to leave the UPA and join the National Democratic Alliance.
Kushwaha was referring to 'Luv Kush' rally in Patna, a veritable gathering of Kurmis and Koeris upset with supposed hegemony of numerically powerful Yadavs which Prasad, then helming Bihar, was seen as embodying.
The row over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur's remarks in Lok Sabha escalated on Wednesday with the Congress submitting a notice to move a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for posting on 'X' a video that allegedly also contained expunged portions of Thakur's speech.
Gandhi said he was "waiting with open arms".
A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
Speaking on the occasion of the unveiling function of various projects first in Aurangabad and then in Begusarai district by Modi, Kumar also said that he is confident that the NDA will win more than 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
'The JD-U is my party and of thousands of leaders and workers.' 'It is certainly not Nitish Kumar's party.'
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
There is a strong possibility of opposition parties coming together to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday, stressing that he has had good talks with them and many will join hands gradually.
One person was killed and three others injured in post-poll violence in Bihar's Saran district on Tuesday morning, police said.
Besides, the department has sought an explanation from officials concerned for the collapse of bridges in East Champaran on June 23 and in Madhubani on June 26.
'BJP's ultimate ambition is to control Bihar independently.'
The first of the two-phase urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh will take place on Thursday, a major poll battle in the politically crucial state ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
'It does not understand economics. The entire focus of this government is skewed.'
The party, banking on the legacy of former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh, had no MP and its lone MLA had switched to the BJP.
Several prominent opposition leaders including Nationalist Congress Party's Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah will share the dais at a rally being organised by Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana's Fatehabad on Sunday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is set to host a meeting of its constituents on Tuesday in what is being seen as a show of strength by the ruling alliance amid a get-together of opposition parties in Bengaluru to forge unity, as the two sides step up their campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Leaders of 38 parties have confirmed their participation in a meeting of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be held in the national capital on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda said.
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
It also provides that no preliminary enquiry will be required for registering a criminal case and an arrest under this law would not be subject to any approval.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
The magnificent Jat community has taken his tears to its heart, observes Sudhir Bisht. In Tikait, they see their late leader's son, the son of their doughty farm leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The high octane campaign marked by vitriolic attacks and counter-attacks by political leaders and use of derogatory language and objectionable remarks that forced the Election Commission to step in ended at 6 pm.
As many as 623 candidates, including 73 women are in the fray in the first phase and around 2.28 core voters, including 1.24 crore men and 1.04 crore women are eligible to caste their francise, election officials said.
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and ally RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary are unlikely to participate in the Yatra due to "preoccupation" with their party programmes, their party leaders said.
Talking to reporters in Patna, the former Union minister asserted that he would happily function as 'an ordinary party worker, worth five rupees', if the JD-U leadership was assumed by 'anybody from among the Luv Kush Samaj (Kurmis and Koeris) or the EBCs whose aspirations have been the party's driving force'.
The seat got vacant after the death of Bharatiya Janata Party's Rajya Sabha MP Madan Lal Saini in June. Rajasthan has 10 Rajya Sabha seats.
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